I understand where your coming from Irulan. I think gentle encouragement is the key.

I don't know about where you live but in England women and sports are a minority, mainly, I believe , due to the way it's taught in English schools. A lot of schools have hardly any games / P.E lessons and what they do have is usually limited to hockey ,netball, and tennis. ( I must add here, I'm a bit one sided - I don't really get on very well with ball sports )

When I talk to girls in my office or in the pub (in their early 20's), time and time again they say they don't like sport or exercise because they don't like getting sweaty or getting their hair messed up. This is where I usually loose patients - not all sports are like that and there are such things as showers. ( Sorry, minor rant there- that attitude really bugs me )

Then you get the girls who are genuinely interested when I tell them about cycling but write themselves off right away, saying it sounds cool but don't think they could ever possibly be able to do that.

I suppose the world is so full of images of the perfect female, with perfect hair and makeup it's hard for some women to understand that they can actually let their hair down from time to time and getting muddy is actually good fun.