Whilst what I’ve read indicates that it was originally a misinterpretation of the basketball rules, if you want to take the view that netball was designed for women, then your statement should read “netball is a more complicated variant of basketball designed for girls”.

Oh yeah, whilst rugby is fun, aussie rules is the most fun you can have on a field! Why should the guys have all the fun?

http://www.womenplayfootball.com

This seems to be a fairly universal thing; you’ll find our limey friends bashing baseball as a “girl’s game” because one of the early mentions of baseball comes from a Jane Austen novel where the female character plays something called baseball. Of course back then baseball meant rounders, a game for boys and girls; modern American baseball is so radically different from rounders that comparisons are meaningless.

Our British friends also play this trick with basketball, by implying that basketball is just netball, which is a girl’s game. But basketball came first, and if anything netball is just a simplified game of basketball redesigned for girls. So call netball a girl’s game (which it is) but please don’t confuse it with basketball.

Getting back to Americans, we also have some odd ideas about sports that aren’t too popular here; for instance we think badminton is just some silly game you play during a summer picnic, but in the rest of the world it is a serious sport, as serious as tennis, both for men and women. We think handball is that game you play with a small ball against a well, but in the rest of the world it means a fast team sport that combines elements of soccer and basketball and which is very popular in parts of Europe, Asia, etc.

Or take hockey - ie, field hockey - which if you go outside of North America is just called hockey (this is an endless source of amusement for me on web forums where you get Brits and Americans talking about ‘hockey’ and neither side understanding that they are talking about different sports). In the USA, hockey was introduced as a women’s sport in private schools, college s and universities. Americans still have this idea that “field” hockey is a girl’s game. I have tried to explain to fellow Americans that “field” hockey is a major amateur men’s sport in Europe and Asia (esp. in India and Pakistan); all I get are quizzical looks and I was even asked once if the men also played the game while wearing skirts! I kid you not.

People have the weirdest notions.