Men vs Women

Cornerman

Cornerman

Cue Author...Sometimes
Silver Member
It’s amazing that this used to be a topic every other month 10, 15, and 20 years ago. Now with the recent walkout of a player due to having to play a transgender woman, can we revisit the age-old debate? If there is “no physical reason that a man would have an inherent advantage in pool,” then a transgender woman in a women’s division shouldn't matter. If it does matter, then we revisit the age old debate.

I just read a post from a woman about the unfairness of the transgender women’s participation and hints that there may be subtle physical attributes that we don’t consider that gives a biological advantage. It’s not a coincidence that I made this same argument 25 years ago when there was no transgender participation controversy and got a squashing. But now we have people suggesting to use Fedex like it was never mentioned before.

Freddie <~~~ obscurely referencing
 
in theory there should be few other things than break power, but in reality there are other, less tangible factors such as aggressiveness, risk taking, competitiveness. kelly fisher made some good and well reasoned points about this matter when she was in the predator commentary booth (last year sometime).

on the flip side, the women present themselves better and have fewer controversies.. 😉
 
Just my take but competition pool is a form of combat. From what i've observed in 40yrs of watching pool women in general just aren't the combat types. Some are but most just don't appear to have the aggressiveness/combativeness needed to play against men. I've watched a lot of regional women's pool events and a lot of them seem to want to be friends with their opponent more than they want to stomp them into the ground. Again, my $.02 worth, nothing more.
 
alphadog said:
It is as simple as Play by the rules. If your not a woman in a woman's trnmnt that is breaking the rules.
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I guess the big question is, what constitutes a woman? I agree with you 100%, but it seems to be an unanswerable question
in the world today.
 
Women have fought for years for equality. But as we see they are not equal in all aspects including pool. The best women can't compete with the best men.

Now look at the game of Chess, there is no physcial aspect to the game whatsoever, besides moving pieces. I would call the game 100% mental. Now as far as women are concerned having a special "grand master" title a few hundred eol points below the men indicates weakness to me.
 
garczar said:
Just my take but competition pool is a form of combat. From what i've observed in 40yrs of watching pool women in general just aren't the combat types. Some are but most just don't appear to have the aggressiveness/combativeness needed to play against men. I've watched a lot of regional women's pool events and a lot of them seem to want to be friends with their opponent more than they want to stomp them into the ground. Again, my $.02 worth, nothing more.
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You know I always felt that’s why Allison destroyed the field. When she came on the scene the women were always laughing and talking to each other during a match. Here comes Allison … stone face killer. Only interested in snapping necks and cashing checks. She was not what rhe women pros were used to.
 
Maybe something physically is preventing women from being able to perform at a Filler level. But it seems to me nothing physically is preventing them from being able to perform at a Siming or Kelly level. Or maybe less women playing pool just makes the probability of a male Filler emerging more of a once every 30 years occurrence and a woman at that level a once every 300 years occurrence and it's physically possible.
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Keep in mind I will accept there may be physical brain elements to how interest, obsession, learning, and mastering occurs that can possibly make reaching the very highest heights of skill more accessible where population differences are actually explained by those physical differences. And maybe Kelly and Siming emerge despite physical disadvantages and not just because of population sizes and the richness and availability of talent-generating environments (training programs, facilities, local skilled competition, etc.). So the physical aspect is possible but I don't feel knowledgeable enough to expound any further on it given how high we've already witnessed what women are capable of. It's not going to be a focus of my attention.

But I think we'd be naive if we ignored the cultural influences of patriarchal societies. How many families might encourage their boys to competition disproportionate to encourage their girls? How many would be more inclined to disallow a daughter to hang out at pool halls vs. disallow their sons? How much grooming occurs to steer girls toward craft-oriented activities during those formative years vs. competition-oriented activities? How may boys have been given the green light to trash talk women out of competitive activities at the time women start showing interest? The number of times at a casual bar situation I've seen young men start sharking, talking trash, and being disruptive the second a young woman looks like she's about to win a single game of pool far outweighs the number of times I've seen the reverse.

And if I ask myself why does women's sports exist? In more physical sports it's obvious it's needed for them to even have a chance and for their safety. In pool, it's obviously acknowledging less women play and creating a space to stimulate their involvement. It's to give a place away from sexist behaviors where they can compete amongst themselves. Create an environment where they can explore their interest in the activity without active resistance of their participation. A place to grow their interest in the sport. And if physicality is not a factor, provide a springboard where they can ideally transition into open competition after having established their fundamentals and maybe a certain battle hardiness for the behaviors they'll likely still encounter in open competition.

The transgender situation is tough. It reminds me of the Bane quote from the movies: "Ah you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!" Take someone born biologically male. They may have lived in secret identifying as female. But were they culturally raised female? Did they face all the same obstacles and hurdles females faced? Did they enjoy any male privilege in regards to encouragement for competition and skill development? In which bell curve did they establish their skills and in which bell curve are they now competing?

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I'm not really against trans athletes competing. I have a lot of sympathy for their journey. I'd like them to be able to live safely, freely, and with full self-actualization. But I do want to be mindful of why women's sports exist and what's fair. And if the talent distribution of trans women athletes doesn't align with the same talent distribution of natural women athletes then I can appreciate there is a fairness problem from a statistical perspective. If that problem exists, solving it might not be as simple as measuring hormone levels, legal gender recognition, eligibility requirements, sports policies, or health/safety considerations. I don't have a solution but I do think it would be naive to assume there isn't a problem (or the potential for a problem).

NOTE: Graphs created for illustrative purposes of a hypothesis and is not a sampling of real data.
 
trob said:
It is by normal people with common sense. I won’t judge it any other way. You can call yourself whatever you want. I don’t have to buy a ticket to your circus nor will I.
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It's not about us and what we think. The group that's getting hurt the most are females. Athletes and fans. They're the ones who should be bitching and doing everything possible to stop it.
 
skogstokig said:
in theory there should be few other things than break power, but in reality there are other, less tangible factors such as aggressiveness, risk taking, competitiveness. kelly fisher made some good and well reasoned points about this matter when she was in the predator commentary booth (last year sometime).

on the flip side, the women present themselves better and have fewer controversies.. 😉
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There is no such thing as "break power" it's called that but that is an incorrect term for what you are measuring, it's break SPEED, IMHO speed is way more important on any shot, on a long draw shot the ability to spin the cue ball depends on how FAST you hit it not how hard, and of course the follow through, men have better quick twitch muscle fiber and some men have better quick twitch muscle fiber than others but it is an advantage that most men hold over most women.
 
23DenaliBDE said:
Do they need to? Has there been a time when additional testing was needed to prove that a man just joined the women and beat the hell out of them?
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Maybe they need to. Not much else is currently working. Maybe some "men" can go to a Greyhound racetrack and try to enter some races by saying, "I'm a dog (Greyhound) and I want to race. You have to respect and abide by my rights."
 
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