Women & the marathon

Women’s experience with running has come a long way, but more needs to be done to ensure that we can continue to secure our place in the sporting spotlight. We examine the history - and the future - of women, running, and the marathon

Words: Louise Pyn

For thousands of years, it was assumed that men were naturally more sporty than women. Thankfully, this claim been challenged and disproved in more recent years thanks to a string of grand successes achieved by elite female athletes, from Olympians to Commonwealth Games medallists, who act as crucial role models for future generations.

Spurred on by the closure of fitness centres and gyms as a result of ongoing national lockdowns, running is now more popular than ever. And interestingly, research carried out recently by Strava showed that women led a global fitness boom last year, with a huge surge in the numbers of runners, cyclists and walkers becoming more active during the pandemic.

The Strava research showed that the number of uploaded runs and cycle rides almost doubled compared with the same period in 2019 and that, while some of the growth was down to new users, much of the increase in numbers was down to women being more active. Between April and September 2020, women aged 18-29 uploaded 45.2 percent more activities than during the same period the previous year, compared to a 27.3 per cent increase by male Strava athletes.

The increase in women participating in sports like running is encouraging but there is still so much work to be done in order to accelerate gender equality and bring about the social change needed to provide sportswomen with the opportunities they deserve. Read on to find out more about the sporting achievements made by women through the years and how we can best support female athletes.

Men-only marathons

Prior to the 1970s, men dominated the sports scene. Running was considered a male-only sport from which women were completely banned. Back as far as the 1800s, sport idealised ‘maleness’ and kept women at an inferior position to men. The ideology behind femininity was that women were destined to solely bear children and nurture the home. Doctors even made claims that running destroyed a woman’s fertility, with one renowned German doctor outrageously claiming that “a woman’s uterus might fall out” while running! Many more absurd comments have been thrown around through the years, with a number of false allegations that training would ‘alter’ a woman’s appearance. Some said that “women’s legs would grow big from running” and that “running made hair grow on their chests.” Back then, a woman’s reproductive capacity controlled her existence, shaping everything from social roles to physical abilities so these kind of outlandish comments posed a real setback in the emancipation of women.

The idea of women running a long distance race was utterly unthinkable until American runner Kathrine Switzer broke boundaries by entering the male-only annual Boston Marathon during the 1970s. It was this groundbreaking milestone that made history in women’s sport, setting in motion steps to help women break free from the shackles of traditional roles.

Kathrine Switzer broke boundaries by entering the male-only annual Boston Marathon in the 1970s