Women’s snooker has always been a contentious subject; the sad fact that there has never been a woman player ranked in the top thirty two seems to prove the general view that “snooker is not there game”. This is a nice way of saying “women can’t play snooker”. There have been many and various reasons given as to why women can not match the men in this field of sport. The first reason is the ratio of male players to female players in all tournaments; in fact it is the only sound reason known but still partly an excuse, there has to be an obvious or simple explanation. Woman competitors in tennis, golf, cricket, athletics; all concede they are inferior to men (in strength) by accepting a rules change for there benefit, but in snooker there is no strength advantage, nor is there any reason for a condescending rule to make lady snooker players feel inferior.^

No woman in the top 30 in snooker? As we know, gender is socially constructed. There is no reason why women would perform worse at snooker then men. Therefore, to right past injustice, the blatant discrimination by the patriarchy, women should get quotas in the top 30 snooker rankings.

Let us enforce 40% quotas, like in Europe’s boardrooms 0 1 2. This would require 12 women to be promoted into the top 30 snooker players. (please excuse our sarcasm)

But what most prevents women from reaching the boardroom, say bosses and headhunters, is lack of hands-on experience of a firm’s core business. Too many women go into functional roles such as accounting, marketing or human resources early in their careers rather than staying in the mainstream, driving profits. 3,

In sports like Tennis, chess, snooker there are objective criteria of a person’s performance. So it is ridiculous to demand to force women into the top 30 ranks, if they objectively don’t fulfill the requirements.

It does not matter why! Be it for innate deficiencies, be it for lack of interest, lack of breadth of the player basis. It does not matter, they don’t perform and thus deservedly are not in the top 30. In chess, there is only one woman in the top 100. In Tennis women painstakingly avoid competing against men, except against aging ex-champions.

In top management there are no such unassailably objective criteria, and thus it is not possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt if women are put into these jobs unjustly. Though Warren Farrell made a pretty strong point towards explaining why women deservedly rarely make it into the best paid top positions.

Ladies Number One and World Champion Reanne Evans, from Sedgley in the Black Country, will play top male amateurs at Hall Green Greyhound Stadium’s Snooker Club in Birmingham this Saturday. (19th January) And a junior competitor will also be among the men, as Pot Black Stars of the Future Champion Mitchell Mann, aged 16 and Castle Vale, Birmingham, is set to take part. It is the West Midlands Regional Qualifier for the English Association of Snooker and Billiards (EASB) English Amateur Snooker Championship. Other top players include World Amateur Runner Up Daniel Ward and top amateurs Stuart Watson, Peter Hodgins, James Brown, Alan Hooper, Karl Ashmore and Geoff Williams.

The female world champion played top Amateurs. We could not find the results. Had the woman won, we would easily find it in the news.

I always get flamed alive for saying this, but sadly it is the truth… Women lack the same fine tuned reflexes, hand-eye coordination and the instincts which men evolved for Hunter-gathering.

That is why, at the top level, women fail so much compared to men in games and sports. I would much prefer it if Men and Women could compete on equal terms but it simply isn’t possible. Sooner or later though, you may get a woman who can compete but it will be a vast minority. Reanne is way ahead of other women and yet cannot win 1 match against the men way down the ranks.

It is a similar story in Darts. [7]

Reanne Evans failed in a bid to become the first woman to play at the Betfred.com World Championship when she lost her opening qualifying match. The 25-year-old from Dudley has dominated the women’s game since 2005, winning the world title each year. She was granted a wild-card place on the World Snooker tour for the 2010/11 season but has struggled to make an impact. Playing at the World Snooker Academy venue in Sheffield, Evans lost 10-6 to 22-year-old English cueman Sam Baird.

The women’s world champion lost against Sam Baird: Highest Ranking: 82nd (2011)

Career Summary Undoubtedly the strongest competitor on the ladies circuit during the past decade as the statistics outlined below demonstrate, Reanne was awarded a wildcard place on the mens circuit for the 2010/11 season by the WPBSA. 2010/11 Unfortunately Reanne’s maiden season on the main tour was to prove a real struggle as she failed to win a single match during either the PTC events of the seven major tournaments staged. Ironically Reanne’s strongest performance was to come at the EPTC6 event in Prague when she pushed then world number 1 and reigning world champion Neil Robertson to a deciding frame before eventually losing out 4-3. Her season was to end however following the World Championship when she lost out 10-6 to Sam Baird during the preliminary rounds of the qualifying stage of the tournament. Reanne Evans

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