Slop.

It’s not that they’re strictly segregated. There are no tournaments women cannot play in or titles women cannot earn. But there are tournaments only women can play in and only women can earn.

So a woman can be a grandmaster and a woman’s grandmaster, but a man can only be a grandmaster. It’s meant as a way of addressing the gender imbalance in chess. It’s a system that has allowed a lot of women who would not otherwise be able to to hold titles, win prize money and make a career out of competitive chess but some women, especially the really strong ones who are able to compete at the highest level and hold the general titles do feel they’re condescending, the requirements are lower so a woman’s master title is less prestigious than a plain master title, and that they reinforce structural sexism and encourage young woman prodigies and the people training and supporting them to aim lower and limit their ambitions. Judith Polgar, possibly the strongest woman ever to play the game, thinks they should be abolished. But obviously a lot of women players who are making a living and take pride in playing almost exclusively women’s tournaments disagree. It’s a hotly debated topic.

It’s not entirely fendered, there’s women’s and mixed events and women’s and mixed titles. The women’s only events and titles were a tactic to encourage participation.