Only Men Play Chess In Public

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When I go to the town centre, I walk through a park. Near a kiosk and a small building with loos/bathrooms are two chessboards (I'm using this term although it's wrong because there are no wooden boards but square slabs of black and white concrete) inserted in the pavement. Big boxes beside them contain the chess pieces. At least one of the chessboards is nearly always occupied. Two men are playing, several men are sitting on the benches on either side watching and commenting on the match. The men are tough. 'Nearly always' means that only in case of torrential rain or sub zero temperatures nobody comes. Most of the players and onlookers come from Eastern Europe as can be heard from their accents. Chess is a national sport and wide-spread pastime there. Someone who's grown up in Russia finds a German winter a laughable affair and sees no reason to stay at home when Germans already sit behind their stoves. You may have seen photos of snowed-in parks in Moscow where men dressed in winter coats and fur hats play chess at small tables. Occasionally I see Germans play and watch but I never see men from Southern Europe or Turkey. Some years ago I met a woman I know with her granddaughter at the chessboards. There were no men around at that time of day. She didn't teach the girl how to play, she was too young for that. But she showed her where to put the chess pieces and the girl eagerly carried them around. I remarked that it was the first time I'd ever seen females near the chessboards. Being an ardent feminist she nearly exploded. She attacked me with "Who says that women aren't able to play chess?" "Not me," I answered. "I haven't said anything about ability. I've only said that women don't play here, never have in the 40+ years I've lived in this part of the town. I haven't evaluated or interpreted this. I've only stated a fact." She scowled a me but calmed down. The last times I was in Stuttgart, the big city near where I live, I saw that someone had put a table with a chessboard and two chairs on either side in the middle of the central square. Two men were playing, a group of men was watching. No woman in sight. I don't play chess myself. Nobody has ever shown it to me. This is a lame explanation, of course. There would have been many opportunities for me during my life to learn it. Maybe if my husband could play, I'd have learnt it, too. My husband did play once, though. When we were students a friend asked him if he could play and he felt like saying yes. The friend placed the chess pieces on the board and my husband did some random moves without having the foggiest idea what he was doing. Surprisingly, they made sense and puzzled the friend enormously. He sat pondering for a long time until he made his moves. It took quite a while until he realised what was going on. Great fun (at least on one side)! Any comments from chess players why only men play in public and why even the best female chess champions are far behind their male counterparts?