A chick wrote:
The first female to be awarded the title Grandmaster was in 1978. Since then over 200 have been awarded the title.
That's incorrect. You're confusing the title of "Grandmaster" (or "International Grandmaster") with the title of "Woman Grandmaster," which reflects a significantly lower level of mastery. Only about 32 or 33 women have been awarded the title of Grandmaster. Of those, only about 25 (beginning with Susan Polgar in 1991) have achieved the title in accordance with the standards generally applicable to male chess players; the others received the title by virtue of their accomplishments in competition restricted to women.
There's obviously a lot of confusion on this thread about chess and the grandmaster title. Contrary to an earlier poster's remark, it actually has gotten easier to obtain the title in recent years. Ratings inflation and other tweaks in the system have greatly increased the number of grandmasters, which has doubled over the last fifteen years or so. When I started playing in tournaments in the 1970s, only about one hundred individuals had been awarded the title since the standards were formalized by FIDE in 1950. At the time, I believe that only three players (Spassky, Fischer, and Karpov) had earned the title before the age of twenty. The title of Grandmaster is now probably more akin to the lesser title of International Master in decades past. But it's still an impressive standard, beyond the reach of 99.9% or so of all tournament players.