Thank You, Kathy Switzer
Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to officially enter and run the Boston Marathon in 1967.*
Now personally, I couldn’t care less about marathoning. And that goes double for the Boston event being run on Monday. I like running for cardio – I’ve been doing it for most of my adult life, in fact. But frankly, about 5 – 6 miles is my upper limit – past that point, boredom kicks in. And since I have nada to prove to myself, running a marathon ranks about minus 37 on my top 100 List of Things to Do.
So why say “thanks” to someone who accomplished something I’m indifferent to?
The reason can be found in Switzer’s story. Today, it’s no big deal for a woman to run a marathon if she wants to. But in 1967, things were very, very different. ESPN has a good overview:
Switzer, at the time a 19-year-old journalism major at Syracuse University, simply loved running. She had trained for months, even completing a 30-miler, to be sure she could finish. She and her coach, Arnie Briggs, had checked to see whether there were any rules prohibiting women from entering. There weren’t; in those days, the idea of women running the 26.2-mile distance was so foreign, the rulebook made no mention of them. So she entered the race using her initials, K.V. Switzer, as was her habit, and was issued No. 261.
“I thought K.V. Switzer was a very cool signature,” she said. “Like J.D. Salinger.”
Switzer, her boyfriend, Tom Miller, and Briggs were two miles into the marathon when officials tried to evict her from the course. Their tactics were terrifying. In a rage, race director Jock Semple came lunging at her. He got his hands on her shoulders and screamed “Give me those numbers and get the hell out of my race!” The wild look in his eyes still haunts Switzer. “Seeing that face scared the s— out of me,” she said.
Before Semple could rip off Switzer’s numbers, Miller, a 235-pound athlete (he was a football player and hammer thrower), laid a cross-body block on Semple, sending him to the side of the road in a heap. The entire sequence was captured on film by the press corps bus, riding just ahead of Switzer’s group.
Switzer kept running. Over the next 20 miles, she felt humiliated, then angry, then brushed it off. Semple was a product of his time, she thought. It was inconceivable to most men that women could run long distances without doing harm to themselves, their reproductive systems (a woman’s uterus might fall out, the thinking went) or their fragile psyches.
Basically, Switzer helped to blaze a trail for women to participate in athletic activities that were deemed exclusive to men… and not back in my grandparents’ time either. This happened within MY lifetime (I was a very-aware 10 year old when Switzer ran Boston). When I was born (1957), serious people actually thought women were so fragile and dim that they couldn’t even be allowed to choose to participate in strenuous activities that would surely harm them (or rather, their reproductive potentials, the raison d’être for a woman, doncha know). They were so convinced of this, that they were prepared, like Semple, to use coercion, if necessary, to keep women in their “place.”
So that’s why I’m grateful to Kathy Switzer, and the women (and their male allies) who came after her. While marathoning ain’t my “thing,” lifting weights surely is. And – if anything – lifting weights was/is branded “male” even more strongly than marathoning. The welcoming vibe I experience in the gym is a testament to women like Switzer (such as powerlifter Jan Todd) who bucked the system, and changed hearts and minds in the process. We’re all the better for it.
*Roberta Gibb also unofficially ran Boston in 1966 and again in 1967 (she finished well ahead of Switzer, too). Gibb, however, never actually entered the race or was given a number.
April 15, 2012
I’m about the same age as you, but being a naive young man at that time, I really have no recollection of this. I guess living out in the “sticks” kept me out of the loop.
I do agree this is a very significant event. It’s hard to believe this happened to her. I’m sure back then this was a very common thing.
April 15, 2012
Being a girl heightened my awareness, because even in the relatively progressive urban environment I grew up in (the area now known as “Silicon Valley”), the official rules were different for boys and girls, and girls typically got the short end of the stick. To take a tame example, in elementary (public) school, girls were required to wear dresses each day, which not only hampered our abilities to romp on the playground, also made us subject to frequent harassment by the boys in the form of “dress up day” (i.e., having a boy or boys pull up your dress to expose your underwear, while yelling “Dress Up Day!!!” – the boys thought this was hilarious, and the girls understood that these little humiliations only occurred because “they liked us.”). Eventually, girls were permitted to wear shorts under their dresses, so we could climb the monkey bars, etc., without the risk of embarrassment. But the “dresses only” rule stayed in place until I was in Junior High.
In Junior High, girls were required to take cooking and sewing classes. Boys, on the flip side, took wood and metal shop – both of which seemed much more interesting than cooking (which I already knew how to do) or sewing (which I had zero interest in learning – booooorrrrrring!!!).
It’s worth noting that having gender rules officially enforced limits men’s options too: I can recall a small group of boys who took cooking in summer school (which – in those days – included enrichment as well as remedial classes) who were teased because of it. But more often than not, the rules for men gave them more freedom (they were allowed to enroll in the class, after all), while the rules for girls gave them less. For example, when Title IX kicked in (I was a junior in high school), all of a sudden, a number of new gym class options opened up to the girls. Before, the classes were strictly sex-segregated, and you did whatever the formidable girls’ gym teachers commanded you to do. But in the spring of my junior year, I was able to enroll in the boys’ golf class (one other girl joined me). This ability to actually be able to choose a sport seemed amazing, lol. And that wasn’t all: we didn’t have to wear our horrible, dorky-looking white, one-piece gym uniforms (which were mandated only for girls… sigh) – we got to wear regular clothes. The teacher was a real nice guy, too – for the first time, gym class was actually fun!
So Switzer’s story was pretty meaningful for girls – she persevered, and eventually helped change the rules, which gave them more choices and opportunities.
April 16, 2012
Wow Elissa! I had no idea this type of thing went on for girls. At our rural school in Michigan we didn’t have that many different rules for gender. Girls could take power mechanics and auto classes, but few did. All the boy’s were required to take home-ec.
All-in-all it seemed pretty equal in my veiw. I’m glad things have become more liberal over time and allowed girls and boys to follow whatever path they choose.
April 16, 2012
Personally, I think having everyone take home ec is a great idea – everyone should know how to manage the domestic side of things.
It’s interesting that your rural school would be more egalitarian than urban schools standing in the shadow of San Francisco. But then again, perhaps it’s understandable: the members of rural families need to be pretty self-sufficient, male or female. In addition, the populous, well-financed California schools likely had a more rigid, entrenched bureaucracy, which would have made change more difficult – thus, all the 50’s-style carryover. From their POV, it wasn’t “broke,” so there was no need to fix it until government and social pressure forced the issue.