Lacrosse is quickly becoming a popular sport for both men and women; however, there are differences between the rules for both genders. Even if some rules are different for the women’s games, many of the rules are the same for women and men. Such as no body checks to the head or neck, timeouts, and penalties.
One of the many differences between women’s and men’s lacrosse is that women and young girls aren’t allowed to body-check each other during the game. This is due to the safety concerns and lack of protective equipment for the game.
To avoid these concerns, women should be allowed to wear proper helmets and padding. In fact, women’s lacrosse also encourages women and young girls to wear soft helmets or visors to help avoid head trauma.
According to USA Lacrosse, women’s lacrosse is ranked fifth in head and face injuries for women’s sports behind soccer, basketball, softball, and field hockey. Each of these top five sports do not include physical contact. Softball is the only sport in the top five that includes using a helmet.
In the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), players are required to wear helmets with a full cage similar to how players do in men’s lacrosse. With that being said, hockey is one of the most physically demanding sports and the sport isn’t even in the top five for head and face injuries.
With that, I ask why can’t women wear helmets with more protection that covers the whole head and face? Why can’t women wear pads and body-check each other? Isn’t women’s lacrosse supposed to be a safe sport?
Women’s lacrosse is not a safe sport because women can get very physical. Even if they aren’t allowed to body-check each other, you still have women pushing and shoving to get the ball and having to run down the field to get a goal.
The rules for the women’s and men’s games should not be different. A sport is a sport and they shouldn’t have to downgrade the rules just for women and young girls. I understand that safety is important especially to young girls, but they could modify the rules for hitting.
They can modify the rule by saying you have to be a certain age. They have that rule in soccer for headers.
I understand that some women would not be comfortable if they were hitting in the game, but the women that are comfortable with hitting are capable enough to hit in sports.
