It's absolutely true that there are gender roadblocks, but the point is that it is not individual people who put those roadblocks there. It's not because the manager of the mine says that a women is not allowed to work there that she is not allowed to work there; it is because that manager lives within a community in which gender values prohibit women from working in mines. In the same sense, if I try to purchase alcohol but I'm under 18, it's not because the shopowner refuses to sell me alcohol that I can't get it - it's because of a broader system governing behaviour - the law. (I'm just using this is an example, so as to avoid seguing into a discussion about the intersectionality of gender and law and so on...)
Is there de jure enforcement of no women in coal mines? I'd always assumed that it was a de facto thing... (See my cousin comment for more chit-chat)
Huh. Well, actually, I didn't mean to imply that there was de jure enforcement - de facto works just the same.