Super Touchy Subject Men vs.Women in Pool

BasementDweller said:
Just because "you don't see player skill levels stratified by muscular composition" as if we are all walking around as herculean comic book characters does NOT mean that muscular composition does not play a role in the game. It's just more difficult to discern than it would be in other more physical contests. Jay Helfert mentioned increasing your grip strength as one way to improve your game. Does that work? Who knows, but I bet it wouldn't hurt. I'd also bet that on average, men have greater grip strength than women. Even those men who are smaller in stature.

What physical qualities actually account for eye-hand coordination may not be totally known yet, but we should be slower to discount the strength variable when it comes to pool.
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It’s more like this. Pool is certainly a precision game. There is a connection between your brain, nerves and muscles to have “control”. With repetition that pathway gets stronger. I know all the common advice. I apply as much of it as I can to my game. But ask me to play left handed and I can’t do any of it even though I “know it”. Why? Is it because my left arm isn’t muscular enough? No. It’s because I haven’t reinforced that neural pathway enough. I also can’t write lefthanded. Suggesting pool prowess between sexes is based on masculine musculature is like suggesting penmanship is based on masculine musculature. Moving a pencil also requires a brain, nerve and muscle pathway. And repetition is what gives control, not strength. I can’t write left handed the same way I can’t play pool left handed. Musculature only comes in play at the last 5 or 10 Fargo points. The real nature-vs-nurture influences between men and women are more about what drives people to engage in repeated activities more than anyone else than it does with musculature.
 
SeniorTom said:
It takes muscles to control any physical movement the body makes. Men are more muscular and would probably have a bit more control than women on average even in billiards. Even when it doesn't appear strength makes a difference, I think it does to a certain extent. For this reason I think men would have the advantage slightly. People are so afraid to talk about gender these days for fear of being ridiculed, but I just think the strength factor gives men the edge.
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I can't think of many pool players who are muscular. Maybe strength isn't as important as we think it is. Then again, if you are playing one of those people who only misses two shots in a match, a little edge might be the difference. Missing three shots will end your tournament.
 
Rickhem said:
Interesting discussion.
I remember reading about how the US National Women's Soccer Team played a club-level Wrexham men's team, and lost 12-0. Apparently that was not a regulation game on a normal field, using standard times, and not all the US Women played, but it was 12-0. That is often used to highlight the inequities of trans gender competitors, but not the point here.

In Olympic competition, only Equestrian events have men and women competing equally against each other. Yes, there are mixed events in other disciplines, and mixed teams in things like sailing, but only equestrian events make no gender distinction.

In the Olympic precision shooting disciplines, this topic pops up frequently. Since many of the events are identical for both men and women, scores can be compared, and men may not fare so well in that comparison. 10 meter air pistol, and 10 meter air rifle are the same for both genders, although they do not compete across gender lines. Winning scores show that direct competition would not give an edge to either gender, but the most frequently referenced justification for not doing that, is that it may end up reducing the total medal count awarded for shooting disciplines. Gender divided competitions makes for double the medal count on a specific discipline. More medals awarded means more chances to get medals.
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so the one sport there is no difference is the one in which the horse is the athlete. cool.
That retired US women's team got mercied 12-0. If they played full game it would be 30-0. The real clincher in the debate tho is when the reigning champ women played a friendly against an under 14 boys team and lost 5-2 in Dallas. The Socceroos lost 7-0 to a boys team in Australia. These results should shock no one.
 
Flakeandrun said:
Demonstrably false :ROFLMAO:

'come a long way' ...I wonder why that has taken place in the way it has... :ROFLMAO: 'grassroots' is not a scholarship granted to a select few, to please a select few.

Another dumpster fire of a thread.
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Another dumpster fire of a response.

There's never been a better time to be a female athlete in the history of the world than now. Maybe you don't see it firsthand but I certainly do with my daughters. Their grandmother agrees with me wholeheartedly too. In just a couple generations we've gone from practically zero opportunities for females to what we have now. I'm not sure that will ever help pool though, since I just don't think women enjoy the game as much as men do.
 
BasementDweller said:
Another dumpster fire of a response.
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is it though? I’m not saying anything about your responses… they are valid in such a nonsense filled thread, and you are adding your perspective with some thought. Not much wrong with that.
BasementDweller said:
There's never been a better time to be a female athlete in the history of the world than now. Maybe you don't see it firsthand but I certainly do with my daughters. Their grandmother agrees with me wholeheartedly too. In just a couple generations we've gone from practically zero opportunities for females to what we have now.
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Is that good enough? Is that free from profiteering and manipulation? Is that bias free and truly leading to a better space, and opportunity for ALL women? I’m glad you’re happy for your daughters, and I’m glad there’s more opportunities for SOME. But those few who ‘benefit’ (I struggle to say they truly benefit)… that’s really a good enough effort is it? 'Grassroots' is not a scholarship granted to a select few, to please a select few. It’s a total overhaul of children’s introduction and interaction with sport. Better can be done, so why isn’t it?
BasementDweller said:
I'm not sure that will ever help pool though, since I just don't think women enjoy the game as much as men do.
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Because it’s been aggressively marketed at men for an incredibly long time… posted at length about this previously in probably the most horrible thread I’ve seen in my time on this forum. Can’t be bothered to rehash here.

The progression of this thread in general is utter dribble for the most part. Not meant to offend or upset you in anyway, I assume you felt personally attacked hence the comment you made. I’ll likely be tapping out of this for sanities sake :ROFLMAO:
 
MattPoland said:
It’s more like this. Pool is certainly a precision game. There is a connection between your brain, nerves and muscles to have “control”. With repetition that pathway gets stronger. I know all the common advice. I apply as much of it as I can to my game. But ask me to play left handed and I can’t do any of it even though I “know it”. Why? Is it because my left arm isn’t muscular enough? No. It’s because I haven’t reinforced that neural pathway enough. I also can’t write lefthanded. Suggesting pool prowess between sexes is based on masculine musculature is like suggesting penmanship is based on masculine musculature. Moving a pencil also requires a brain, nerve and muscle pathway. And repetition is what gives control, not strength. I can’t write left handed the same way I can’t play pool left handed.
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I like your example and I'll grant you that neural pathways need to be trained, but surely cueing is more involved at the musculature level than drawing. I mean Bob Ross would have given us all the 8.
MattPoland said:
Musculature only comes in play at the last 5 or 10 Fargo points. The real nature-vs-nurture influences between men and women are more about what drives people to engage in repeated activities more than anyone else than it does with musculature.
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Musculature only comes into play the "last 5 or 10 Fargo points"? That's completely arbitrary. If anything, it may be MORE important the very first 5 to 10 Fargo points because that's were the increased or decreased coordination influences someone into playing the game or going home. Likewise, there's likely a causal link between someone not wanting to do something and them not being able to do it well. So the very fact that a large segment of a population isn't interested in something could be very telling.

I think this issue has gotten murkier as pool fundamentals and training has evolved. So if a female takes her game seriously, having good technique and serious discipline, she will quickly surpass most bar banging males. It's no different than any other sport in this regard. For instance, women are way more skilled in basketball that they were just 20 years ago, but in basketball just like pool -- the divide still shows up at the top and at the bottom if ask me.
 
Flakeandrun said:
is it though? I’m not saying anything about your responses… they are valid in such a nonsense filled thread, and you are adding your perspective with some thought. Not much wrong with that.

Is that good enough? Is that free from profiteering and manipulation? Is that bias free and truly leading to a better space, and opportunity for ALL women? I’m glad you’re happy for your daughters, and I’m glad there’s more opportunities for SOME. But those few who ‘benefit’ (I struggle to say they truly benefit)… that’s really a good enough effort is it? 'Grassroots' is not a scholarship granted to a select few, to please a select few. It’s a total overhaul of children’s introduction and interaction with sport. Better can be done, so why isn’t it?

Because it’s been aggressively marketed at men for an incredibly long time… posted at length about this previously in probably the most horrible thread I’ve seen in my time on this forum. Can’t be bothered to rehash here.

The progression of this thread in general is utter dribble for the most part. Not meant to offend or upset you in anyway, I assume you felt personally attacked hence the comment you made. I’ll likely be tapping out of this for sanities sake :ROFLMAO:
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That's better. 😀

It's just not an all or nothing thing with women in sports in general. Some communities are better than others. Some girls have more opportunities than others. Even in pool, some women are treated like royalty when they go into the pool rooms. Some have bad experiences. Less of them have the horrible sexist experiences that previous generations of women had to endure. There a lot of women who have a lot of fun playing pool in the U.S.

I bet a large percentage of the women who have fun playing pool, do so because they are doing it on a team. Meanwhile, a large percentage of men can have fun playing pool solo. Figure out how more women can have fun playing a game in solitude and you'll crack the code. Problem is -- the code may have been written by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
 
A cross dressing pool player in the US can have a lot of fun.

If you can use an accent or hide your native speech patterns, enjoy being nobody.

If you have kids that play, then plan out which tours you will attend.
 
Maybe this.
 

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Hey off subject. But now that I mentioned elbows. Has anyone ever tried using an elbow brace during play? I wonder if it would help like a wrist brace in bowling.
 
Why is there a need to distinguish between male and female pool players?

It matters in terms of prizes and Olympic rules and punishments, outside of that its open ended.

Its an interesting global system.

Can there be a free billiard group organization independent of all that other stuff.

Similar to AZB but more active with other activities.

Pro Class Prize Players
Open Class Prize Players
Youth (Scholarship) Class Players

Some youth want to represent their tribe, their company, their school,

lets create a new pool for youth to represent themselves from for playing billiards.

Youth players use online accounts and do practice sessions at specific rooms with specific times.
Its a tour for kids to practice organization between events and management and security for transportation of players.

Then the adults say ok, lets try this. Kids organize a month of events. Adults give feedback. Biweekly.

Purpose: Short term group management with long term risk management
 
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Flakeandrun said:
Demonstrably false :ROFLMAO:

'come a long way' ...I wonder why that has taken place in the way it has... :ROFLMAO: 'grassroots' is not a scholarship granted to a select few, to please a select few.

Another dumpster fire of a thread.
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I know you’re U.K./China based, but @BasementDweller is correct for the U.S.

It gets even dicier since the revenue sports (men’s college football and men’s college basketball) consume so many male scholarships, by the time Universities equalize, a lot of less popular men’s sports get dropped.

Notably: Despite being the most popular sport in the world, the U.S. can’t operate a men’s college soccer program. Meanwhile both women’s soccer and field hockey are going full speed at U.S. colleges. Since no (or few) universities are going to dream of dropping American Football, 85 men’s scholarships are going to be tied up there.

We’re now 5 decades/2 generations into the Title 9 era, and childhood interest in sports is still not gender equal. The end result being that it’s “easier” for an athletically interested 15 year old female to get a scholarship than an 15 year old athletically interested 15 year old male: there’s far less of them, competing for about the same number of slots, with a larger variety of options.
 
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