As far as I know, women have never been formally forbidden from taking part in big snooker competitions - like the "World Snooker Championship" - where the winner pockets over 2 million Pounds in prize money. But to the best of my knowledge no females (if any have ever entered this competition) have ever managed to make their way to , say, quarter-finals level. The reason is that the majority of women are not interested in the slightest in playing games like :Snooker, Billiards or Pool (8-Ball) and they never have been. More precisely, I mean that they have never genuinely enjoyed playing Snooker or Pool in a serious way (as opposed to just pissing about on a table for 30 mins at a bar for fun. Nor do the majority of women ever the desire to hone and sharpen their skills in these games through practicing alone for hours on a table to perfect a certain technique. I think this is probably because womens' brains are structured differently (and function differently) to mens. I am sure that women do not do, for example, have the same kind of experience in visuospatial perception that men have. To be a champion Snooker, Billiard, Pool player requires the ability to make very fine, accurate and precise, ("mathematical") judgements of distance, force and time. Snooker, Billiards and Pool are games based on pure Newtonian Physics/Mechanics and women simply have no interest in classical physics, or more generally in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the "STEM" fields).
Another reason that women could never be serious contenders at the level of, say, a National Championship or State Championship in games like Snooker, Billiards or Pool, is that women are too emotional (they are certainly far more emotional than men in general). In games like Snooker - when competitors are playing for high stakes - they are often faced with very difficult situations and placed under intense pressure - where the slightest misjudgement in strength or orientation of a cue stroke could spell disaster. To become a good/great player of Snooker, Billiards, Pool, you must be able to keep their emotions under control and maintain a perfectly "cool" 100% "rational" head. The majority of women simply do not have the ability to do this. It is because they are (biologically/genetically) "hard-wired" in a way that makes them much more innately emotional than men.I'm not saying that it is a bad thing for women to be more emotional than men. After all, the thing that men find most attractive about women is their sensitivity, (which is a direct function of their higher emotional tone), it's just that emotions are to Snooker/Billiard/Pool as kryptonite is to Superman.
In Snooker, Billiards or Pool if you want to compete in the "Big Time", it doesn't matter if you're a male or women What matters - if you want to win- is whether or not you're got the talent to get to the final rounds and then come out on top. I don't think I'll ever see a female version of great World champions of Snooker like: Alex "Hurricane " Higgins; Steve Davis; Jimmy White or Ronnie O'Sullivan. There have not been any to date, and there has never been any law, in the past century at least, in the US or UK, prohibiting women from competing in big competitions.
My final word on the matter is that if women like playing Pool, Snooker or Billiards that's great ! Knock yourself out playing, girls! And you can play against men, or you can play other women, and have tons of fun ! At the professional level, however, you will need to have women's-only competitions, because at the professional level, women simply cannot compete with men in these games.
Dachshund - the WONDER HOUND
DLM....Dachshund Lives Matter !!
PS: Years ago, when I lived in England there was one male-dominated sport that was played by women where the womens' (female-only) competitions were broadcast on national TV, and they used to attract a HUGE viewing audience every Saturday evening. I'm talking about the "Topless Darts" competitions, of course, and as I recall, there was a lot of amazing,sporting talent on display.
