Those who are not familiar with the sports frequently assume that because they are both referred to as Lacrosse that men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse are the same sport played by different sexes. In actuality men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse are different sports.
The first written record of lacrosse was from Huron County in the 1630s. Prior to white intervention, traditional Native American lacrosse represented numerous meanings for its participants and their tribes. The game served as both a training ground for combat as well as a tool in diplomacy among tribes. Men were the only participants in the matches; women were spectators.
There is no exact event that sparked the beginning of women’s lacrosse, but there are records of physical educators at St. Leonards School attending men’s games, in Montreal, Canada in 1884, and then they brought the game to their students.
In 1890 lacrosse was officially added to the St. Leonards program, and the first recorded women’s lacrosse match took place on March 27th.
After the turn of the century, women’s lacrosse spread to other colleges and universities in Britain. Although earlier attempts were made to encourage participation among women, women’s lacrosse did not become popular in the United States until the late 1920s and the 1930s when physical educators who studied in Europe transported the game to their places of employment in the United States.
Rosabelle Sinclair, referred to as the “Grand Dame of Lacrosse,” was born in Hughesofca, South Russia, now known as Donetsk, Ukraine, in 1890. She grew up in the United States and then attended St. Leonards School in Scotland. Upon completing school, Sinclair moved to the United States again and in 1925 was appointed the Athletic Director at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. Shortly thereafter she introduced women’s lacrosse to the school and formedwhat is considered to be the oldest team in the United States.
Sinclair was inducted in 1992 as the first woman in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Contemporaneously with Sinclair, Joyce Cran, originally from Scotland, strove to include women’s lacrosse at her place of employment, Wellesley College. According to Fisher, in 1929 at a American Physical Education Association convention, Cran announced that lacrosse was an “ideal game for girls” and that it was superior to field hockey because of the posture the athletes maintained during the course of play. In 1931 Cran, Sinclair, and others formed the United States Women’s Lacrosse Association (USWLA) and Cran served as the first President.
It is evident that men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse have some historical similarities; tewaarathon was central to both. It is also evident that they have historical differences as well.
Lacrosse, as girls play it, is an orderly pastime that has little in common with the men’s tribal warfare version except the long-handled racket or crosse that gives the sport its name. It’s true that the object in both the men’s and women’s lacrosse is to send a ball through a goal by means of the racket, but whereas men resort to brute strength the women depend solely on skill.
There are some prominent differences between the sports in regards to equipment, time, personnel, field markings and this impacts game play on the fields, and the rules related to contact.
Stick or Crosse
The crosse, or stick, was a key element that demonstrated the distinctions between the games. Although the crosses seemed similar in appearance, they varied in length and construction.
Women’s lacrosse required all field sticks to fall within the same length range (36-44 inches). Men’s lacrosse sticks needed to meet a similar requirement for midfield and attack players’ sticks, short crosse (40-42 inches), but defensive players had crosses, or long crosse (52-72 inches), which were much longer in length than the attack sticks and all women’s sticks.
Stick Pocket
Stick pockets in men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse also embodied contrasting ideologies. According to the women’s lacrosse rulebook, the crosse was not permitted to have a pocket. When the umpire holds the stick horizontally, the top of the ball must remain “even with or above” the top of the sidewall. In the men’s game, the relationship of the ball to the stick was reversed. A stick was illegal if the entire ball was visible below the sidewall.
As a result, the variance in permissible pockets demanded varying amounts of force to release the ball from an opponent’s stick. The outcome of these practical distinctions was that it was more difficult to remove a ball from a men’s lacrosse stick than from a women’s. It is logical, then, that it would be more difficult to maintain possession of the ball in women’s lacrosse. These incongruities in crosses point to differing expectations of physical contact as well as varying techniques utilized to maintain possession.
Protective Equipment
Men wear hard helmets and women do not. Men wore hard helmets with a face mask and chin pad. They also wore protective gear all over their bodies excluding their legs; goalies were an exception. Men were required to wear mouthpiece, protective gloves, shoulder pads, shoes, and jerseys. Goalies were required to wear throat and chest protection and could wear shoulder pads. Goalies are an exception in the women’s game as well. They were required wear a “face mask and/or helmet” and throat and chest protection. They could wear padding on the hands, arms, legs, shoulders, but they were not required to. Field players were required to wear a mouth piece.
Players
The number of players on the fields during contests varied as well. The men’s game had ten players on the field: the goalkeeper, defense, midfield, and attack. In contrast, women’s lacrosse positions were more unique in name. The women’s game had twelve players.
Field
Distinctions between the lacrosses also extended to the field itself. Although field markings may not be the first aspect of a sport that nonfans notice, the markings on the men’s and women’s fields are clear evidence of substantial dissemblance.
On the men’s field, a square marked the center of the field and indicated the location of the face off, which (re)started play. In a face off, the ball began on the ground and the players held their sticks on the ground with the reverse surfaces of the crosses lining up, but not touching. When the referee blew the whistle, the players moved and tried to direct the ball in any manner with the crosse.
The women’s field had a center circle and center line that indicated the location of the draw, which (re)started play. In a draw, the players stood with their sticks somewhat parallel to the ground and their stick heads back to back. The umpire placed the ball between the stick heads; when the referee blew the whistle, the players moved their sticks up and away in order to legally send the ball into play.
Contact
Men’s lacrosse was considered a contact sport; women’s lacrosse was not. That was the simple distinction in contact, but the differences were far greater than such classifications. In men’s lacrosse, stick-to-body contact and body-to-body contact may have been considered legal with limitations.
In contrast, women’s lacrosse had numerous classifications of illegal body-tobody and stick-to-body contact. These classifications show that the players’ movements were limited in relation to other players’ movements; that is, their movements were not permitted to forcibly move or cause them to move into their opponents.
Summarised from Where’s the Line? An Analysis of the Shifts in Governance of Women’s Lacrosse, 1992-1998 by Melissa C. Wiser