Why is there a Womans league and a Mens Pool League ...

Ya have to be tough! Being overly sensitive is not an option

JCIN said:
LOL. I dont know the women you hang around with but if I were to tell some of the female players I know "Don't worry about not playing as good as the men. Its not your fault, you were oppressed your whole life" I would probably get a wicked look and kick in the shins.

If I had to guess a reason why it simply comes down to numbers and noise. There are a whole lot less female players than male players to begin with therefore you are going to have fewer top level players. I believe the reason there are are fewer female players who pursue the game seriously is the fact that there is so much noise for them to fight through in order to reach a high level. By noise I mean idiots that wont leave them alone and the C player instructors. Even if a girl likes pool, after 4 or 5 encounters with Joe "Im a stud let me show you how to play" Idiot she often will just move on to the next interesting hobby without the idiots.

I give the ones who stick with it a lot of credit.

Just my theory.
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I am a woman player. Worked very hard on my game. I totally agree with the numbers reason. If I had to take a guess, the ratio is probably 20-1.
20 good guy players, there is 1 good woman player. As for the hurdles woman have to go over to improve there game, well, I can say yes, its a problem sometimes. But I take the high road alot and ignore it.
I have noticed alot of commonality with all good woman players. Good woman players are TOUGH. The path to becoming a good player makes us tough.
 
Milo said:
I am a woman player. Worked very hard on my game. I totally agree with the numbers reason. If I had to take a guess, the ratio is probably 20-1.
20 good guy players, there is 1 good woman player. As for the hurdles woman have to go over to improve there game, well, I can say yes, its a problem sometimes. But I take the high road alot and ignore it.
I have noticed alot of commonality with all good woman players. Good woman players are TOUGH. The path to becoming a good player makes us tough.
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I think, to a certain extent, it's more of a filtering process than a toughening process. Women who ARE tough are unafraid to deal with the bs a poolroom can have. Women who aren't will shy away. Much of that, as Lodini has pointed out, is becoming a thing of the past. At least, as far as New York is concerned (I can't speak for other places), where that seems to be the case. As we progress as a society, more will be revealed. I hope, the end result will show that the differences between men and women cannot be illustrated in pool.
 
poolplayer2093 said:
then there're guys like shane running 8+racks of ten ball or john shmidt running 400 balls when the womens high run is somewhere in the 150 range.
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Once again, it's also easy to point to the mere numbers. There are more men competing than there are women and a bigger field is going to yield better results.


I would be curious to hear what parents had to say on the matter, especially those that have both a son and daughter. How much does their gender dictate their extra-curricular activities and how much does society (school) influence gender-specific activities?
 
The King said:
I understand that and what you are saying but why is that ??? A woman can spend just as much time on a table as a man can ... There is no reason a woman cannot be that good in my opinion ... Am I wrong ?
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Let's just say men are more ruthless.
 
Jude Rosenstock said:
Once again, it's also easy to point to the mere numbers. There are more men competing than there are women and a bigger field is going to yield better results.


I would be curious to hear what parents had to say on the matter, especially those that have both a son and daughter. How much does their gender dictate their extra-curricular activities and how much does society (school) influence gender-specific activities?
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Jude, do you think some female can play any better than Balukas or Allison ?
I don't think so.
 
JoeyInCali said:
Jude, do you think some female can play any better than Balukas or Allison ?
I don't think so.
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I could not disagree with you more. I am 100% women can be better than Balukas and Allison just as I am 100% certain there will be men better than Michael Jordan, Efren Reyes & Alex Rodriguez.
 
JoeyInCali said:
Jude, do you think some female can play any better than Balukas or Allison ?
I don't think so.
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I'm not Jude, obviously... But your question asked "some" female. That designates any current female or any female in the future.

Given that premise, I ask you why would you doubt that any women in the future could beat them?

Heck there are already a number of current women who have shown that they can already outright beat Allison. Now, don't get me wrong, clearly Allison has demonstrated that she is dominant in the long term. Just saying, some of that is not because Allison can't be beaten, but instead when Allison does get beaten she does an amazing job of re-inventing / improving her game enough to once again be a notch better. And some of those other women just seem to disappear, for whatever reasons.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that a number of the top 10 women players of today, could outplay Allison's game from the 90's. So, if you want to get nitpicky technical (not suggesting that you personally have been nitpicky) in the 2010's, I'd suggest that Allison of the future will be able to beat your current image of Allison and Balukas.

That's with the somewhat limited pool of women players that there are in these times. I believe that in the next decade or two, there will be a much wider explosion of female talent rising up. Some of this is due to the female player talent pool as a result of pool leagues. I'd say that many are now able to at least come close to competing with the second tier pro women players. With a few more years, some should be able to compete, and possibly even surpass them.
 
FLICKit said:
I'm not Jude, obviously... But your question asked "some" female. That designates any current female or any female in the future.

Given that premise, I ask you why would you doubt that any women in the future could beat them?

Heck there are already a number of current women who have shown that they can already outright beat Allison. Now, don't get me wrong, clearly Allison has demonstrated that she is dominant in the long term. Just saying, some of that is not because Allison can't be beaten, but instead when Allison does get beaten she does an amazing job of re-inventing / improving her game enough to once again be a notch better. And some of those other women just seem to disappear, for whatever reasons.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that a number of the top 10 women players of today, could outplay Allison's game from the 90's. So, if you want to get nitpicky technical (not suggesting that you personally have been nitpicky) in the 2010's, I'd suggest that Allison of the future will be able to beat your current image of Allison and Balukas.

That's with the somewhat limited pool of women players that there are in these times. I believe that in the next decade or two, there will be a much wider explosion of female talent rising up. Some of this is due to the female player talent pool as a result of pool leagues. I'd say that many are now able to at least come close to competing with the second tier pro women players. With a few more years, some should be able to compete, and possibly even surpass them.
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You think JoeA's statement deserves such a thought out response? I don't.
 
Jude Rosenstock said:
You think JoeA's statement deserves such a thought out response? I don't.
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As we both know, sometimes it's not about the person that you're rebutting, but instead about the larger audience... ;)
 
I'd even go so far as to suggest that a number of the top 10 women players of today, could outplay Allison's game from the 90's.
That's a stretch.
http://www.wpba.com/cms/?pid=1000261
The Allison of the 90's was a monster. Didn't miss much and did not make a lot of the mental and fundamental mistakes I see commited by the other players outside of Karen Corr.
How many still swear prime Baluka beats any woman today? She beat Buddy, Keith and the Miz in the same tourney I believe.
Helena Thornfeld and Jennifer Chen hung out at Hard Times for a long time to hone their skills. And when Jennifer played Luat and Santos getting huge spots, all she did was watch.
What kind of spot did Allison get from Choo Choo? What spot did she turn down from Efren's backer?

you can talk about the number of participants or pool, go ahead pool the whole world the best female player you can find.
Then match her up with the best snotty kid in Manila. I'll take the snotty kid if you play 9-ball and 10-ball.
Is it mental, physical or genetic? Maybe.
Personal or chauvinistic, it'd be if you like to milk the crowd.
Men are better in math and hear better while women's nose are more sensetive. Maybe that explains it.
Joey~Can't explain, just sees it. Also thinks Nadia Comanecci is the best there will ever be~
Who's JoeyA?
 
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i did read somewhere that some study found that women even as girls prefer games that're fun. while boys prefer games where there's a winner and a loser.
 
I've got a simpler question...

Why are some people so short-sighted and closed-minded?


Thanks Jude for the warning...
 
i'd like to compair this to other sports.not so much as how well they do at other sports, but more of how many women compete as opposed to how many men compete. it could be there's just less want to compete

i don't consider this close minded or short sighted
 
I like this discussion. This reminds me actually of a video I saw eons ago when I was working for HewlettPackard. They had this manager that made a very interesting presentation about men and women in the workplace. I forget her name now, but the name of the presentation was "Hardball for women".

It basically was trying to explain why is it that there are fewer women in the upper echelons of corporations. In her theory it mostly came from the society...already from small children, girls play different than boys. With boys the games they played as kids were very much competitive games, whereas for girls the games tend to be more 'social games'. Boys were seeing who can run the fastest, climb the highest, jump the longest...you know...while the girls games were more concentrated around social interactions...playing House or playing...well anything where the social interactions are of most importance.
This basically then carries on through the childhood, puberty, early adulthood....and the end result is that when entering the job-market, boys were more prepared to start in a very competitive environment than girls since they had had all their life already been 'practising' surviving in an environment just like that.

Now you have to always take everything with a pinch of salt....it's a theory and as such a dangerous thing to apply on everyone...there are always exceptions, but on a whole, the theory makes kinda sense to me.

Now how does this apply to pool. Like already said, there really shouldn't be physically any reason why women couldn't play just as well as men. Mentally, that's a question if you buy into the theory of that HP manager I mentioned earlier. How much of it all is nature vs nurture, I don't know, but I can see how an argument could be made that women might not be mentally as well prepared for what it takes to be on top with pool than guys are....just a theory though.

Then you could say "But even if the theory that you say is true, what about the top 10 or 20 women players now....why are they still so much behind the guys if they have managed to break out of the mold that your theory creates?". I don't know.....but I could theorize that 'who says that the best talent for pool for women actually does come out now?'. Perhaps the female-versions of Efren are out there, but never get the spark to break out of the mold. This is not to take anything away from the current female top-players which could all give me the 5 I am sure, but who says they are the best talents....I could argue that they are the most committed. They've paid their dues through gambling, playing with and against the guys...just look at Karen, Alison and now Jasmin. All helluva players who have spend countless of hours in a very men-dominated sport...and my hat's off to them. But we won't see any tournaments with equal amount of men and women entries all competing at the same level until the society stops this "Come now girls, play nice" while boys are scheming up more ways to beat the other guy.

Well...I am sure that came out as incoherent babble....but I tried...after all I am juzt a stoopid foreikner and enklizh iz nod my firzt languake! :)

Kimmo
 
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