Does society allow men but not women to have comebacks?

This New York Times article argues that women don't "get comebacks like Tiger Woods" because "society" doesn't "allow . . . women to get high enough to fall." Ann Althouse (my mom) responds:

It seems to me, there's no one to compare to Tiger Woods — the ascent, the crash, the long time in the wilderness, the perfection of the big comeback win. You can't generalize to: Men can do that, women can't. . . .

There are a lot of people who only care about golf to the extent that it's about Tiger. Who else has done that with a sport — made millions of people care about it only because of him (or her)? . . .

Getting that high means beating everybody else. There's no way for the rest of us to "allow" that. Women already enjoy the allowance of playing in separated women's sports. . . .

[The article] really does undercut women by insisting proactively that women be given something no man was given.

This is a pet peeve of mine: gender/race articles that claim men (or white men) "get" to do something or are "allowed" to do something while other people aren't. That kind of framing makes it sound like the writer is boldly announcing a discovery about how society's rules are discriminatory. But the supposed rule isn't real; it was created by the writer, not by society.

Right under the Tiger Woods piece is a New York Times article about Martha Stewart, which says she recently joked at a roast "about surviving the five months she spent in prison beginning in 2004 after being convicted of lying to investigators about a stock trade," and the joke "was a hit." The article goes on to say that she's "still a competitive business woman" and "still expanding her empire." Apparently women are "allowed" to make comebacks.