One Day Sale: Pool Cues

Megan and I went out today to enjoying some scrumptious Mexican food.  We sat and chatted about what we could do to get labor moving (not much), while enjoying the sound of someone "chirping" a loud, pointless conversation right behind us.  To the person who invented "chirping:" please kill yourself.

On TV at this fine establishment was women's professional pool.  My first snarky remark was about how the Sunday noon time slot must be really hurting for sports if we're watching women's pool.  Part of the humor was supposed to draw on the viewing publics general distaste for women's sports.  "I was watching the WNBA," is both a setup and a punchline and almost a joke all by itself.  But, as I picked apart the joke in my head, searching for the next twist that could keep the laughs rolling, I thought of something that made me genuinely curious.  Why does pool have a separate women's and men's league?

In general I understand why both genders in sport have not been integrated.  Our rights as people might be equal, but the peak of physical ability is tuned to be higher for men.  I don't mean to say that any man can beat any woman with equal training, lord knows I've been outrun many times (he said cryptically).  But I do think that the best man can beat the best woman with equal training, and I don't think many will argue that.

Where I start getting confused is in instances like pool and darts (and to a lesser extent, bowling).  These are not games that measure physical maximums.  Instead these are games of finesse, agility and skill; contests that should not favor any gender specifically.  I googled a bit about the question (it's irresponsible to ask a question and not google it, tell your friends/family) and most of the people talked about the fact that women have only recently been taken seriously as pro pool players, so the population is green.  There were no female pool elders to teach ladies the pro tricks, nor a support system to convince the ladies that were masters of the cue to keep it up.  Basically it was an infrastructure problem.

Now that women have their own pool league and a couple idols they can aspire to be, maybe the next generation will see a battle of the sexes for the championship.  I know what you're thinking, "pool is so phallic, even then the men will have the advantage."  To that I say: men might brag about how they work the cue, but women brag about how the cue can be used to work the man.