Three of my close high school friends were on the girl’s lacrosse team. As a result, I spent my lunches listening to gossip about players, coaches and complaints about refs. But, in the process, I learned that women’s lacrosse was not what I thought.
When I think of lacrosse, I compare it to hockey. I imagine players with helmets and mouthguards dashing down the field and knocking each other over. While this is the reality for men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse is different. Strict rules prohibit almost all physical contact between players. Defensive restrictions cause frequent fouls, significantly changing gameplay and requiring different strategies and skillsets than men’s lacrosse.
To demonstrate the extent of how strict the rules are for women’s lacrosse, I scrolled through the 112-page digital rulebook for NCAA women’s lacrosse. I have selected a few of the many absurd rules that are included in this book: “While in possession of the ball, trying to force one’s stick through an opposing stick(s) in such a way as to cause one’s own stick to contact one’s own body.”
This rule makes it impossible for players to use their sticks to push through opponents when they have the ball. Compared to the physical nature of men’s lacrosse, this drastically changes gameplay and strategy: “Moving into the path of an opponent without giving the opponent a chance to stop or change direction, and causing contact.”
This rule completely changes the gameplay of women’s lacrosse. Players can be charged with a foul if they don’t give their opponents a chance to maneuver around them. Why would a defender want their opponent to get around them and closer to the goal?
Additionally, constant violations of this rule cause the game to be stopped very frequently, disrupting the natural flow of play: “With any part of one’s body, guarding the goal outside or inside the goal circle so as to obstruct the free space to goal, between the ball and the goal circle, which denies the attack the opportunity to shoot safely.”
This rule, called “shooting space,” yet again polices the behavior of defending players, making it practically impossible for them to defend opposing offense without drawing a foul. Additionally, when this rule is violated, the shooting player receives a “free position,” placing them in front of the goal with defenders only allowed four meters away. This essentially gives the player a free shot against the goalkeeper, often leading to a goal.
Besides these absurd rules, women’s lacrosse differs from men’s in many other ways, further differentiating the sports. In men’s lacrosse, the players wear helmets. In women’s lacrosse, players only wear goggles. In men’s lacrosse, some sticks have longer and shorter lengths based on position: defenders have longer sticks for better defensive ability, while attack and midfield players have shorter sticks for better agility and accuracy.
The strict rules preventing women’s lacrosse players from physical contact are rooted in the outdated belief that women are less capable of handling physical sports than men. This idea stems from an age-old debate about the physical capabilities of women, seen throughout history in nearly every profession and sport. It is 2025: Women don’t want to be treated as fragile and weak, and they shouldn’t be.
