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Only 6 Women Have Placed in Open Competition at FISM, Ever

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To follow up on our post from yesterday about FISM 2012 favorite Park Eun Kyoung, we’ve tracked down exactly how many women have ever placed in open competition. And you can count almost them on one hand.

Huge credit to our resident FISM expert Tim Ellis who fished through all the winners to dig the results out for us. Here is what he found according to FISM’s official list of winners.

Valerie (1970) from England came 2nd in General Magic (Tim was not quite sure if Valerie was, in fact, a female. Can anyone confirm?)

Juliana Chen (1997) got 1st in Manipulation

Yumi (2000) from Japan got 2nd in General

Roxanne (2000) from Germany got equal 3rd in General

Sittah (2006) from the Netherlands got 1st in Stage Illusions

Ma YanYan (2009) from China got 2nd in General

What this list does not include are the winners of the “Ladies” division which from from 1976 to 1985. Notable winners there included Fee Eleisa (Germany), Karin Noemi (Netherlands) and Brigitte Varga (Austria).

It’s heartening to see the last 12 years has brought us four of the six female winners.

Could Park Eun Kyoung bring us the first female Grand Prix threat?

Posted by Editor on Friday, May 18th, 2012 at 11:01 am.

  • Snow White

    There’d be 7 if magic was my passion, rather than my fun. I really shouldn’t say this, but…hmm…and I feel the ‘good angel’ on my right shoulder saying “Don’t say it…don’t you dare say that!”, but…I always speak the truth, and here it is…Women just don’t have the mental dexterity to excel excessively in magic as a group. Not saying there aren’t exceptions to the rule, but…a man’s mind is built to excel at this sort of thing. It just is, don’t shoot the messenger. I also don’t think they do themselves any good dressing sleazy if they are looking to be taken seriously. Call me a prude or whatever, but…it’s just the facts. If you want to be taken seriously as a woman in magic, then dress that way. It’s how it works in business and all other professions. Do you want your surgeon is a bikini or scrubs?lol

  • Joe P

    Doing a big of research, it appears like Valerie was a woman and only came in second because no first prize was awarded (FISM has some odd rules).

  • Tim

    Not odd rules, just high standards. An act needs to reach a certain score to get 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. This avoids an act being awarded the grand prize simply because he (or she) was the best of a bad lot.

    FISM requires a minimum score of 80 for a 1st, 70 for a 2nd, 60 for a 3rd place. If you score under 50 you are deemed below FISM standard and disqualified.