In Canada, to some extent ringette has been portrayed as having served as the female counterpart to ice hockey, in the sense that traditionally, boys have played hockey while girls have played ringette. However, when the game was created, girls ice hockey and broomball programs and opportunities were available all across Canada and ringette was created only as a means to ameliorate the problem of a lack of participation in these programs that was observed to have existed in a small area of Canada. There is no existing evidence that suggests ringette was created to serve a feminist agenda or function, making it a target for gender feminist detractors who intentionally superimpose either a feminist narrative when analyzing the sport or portray the game as a rampart of a patriarchal conspiracy to keep women from participating in traditionally male oriented sports.