1967: a woman ran in the Boston Marathon. A race official reacted violently

[Bucky]

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon.The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.
--from Wikipedia

[Brickbat]

1. Great photo.

Switzer was the first one to enter and try to run as a sanctioned runner; Bobbi Gibb and, IIRC, others ran it as unsanctioned participants. In 1966, Gibb got a much different response: people cheered her and she was welcomed at the finish line. That photo of Switzer, however, is amazing and so important.

[obamanut2012]

8. Switzer was welcomed by many, many of the male runners

I'd like to give teh guys props for that. And by a decent chunk of the crowd, too. Jock Semple was one of the few who really had a THING about women running Boston.

Bobbi Gibb finished about an hour faster than Switzer, but it wasn't official, of course.

Women weren't sanctioned to run Boston until five years after the photo in the OP was taken.

[undeterred]

2. Amazing what we can now take for granted.

But I am old enough to remember the days before Title IX, when the boys high school track coach fought against having a team for girls too.

[RebelOne]

4. I am more than old enough to remember those days.

I went to high school in the 1950s in Miami, FL, where racism and discrimination against women were rampant.

[hlthe2b]

3. thanks for posting that incredibly important reminder... we've come far, but we surely aren't there,

yet.....

[freshwest]

5. K & R thanks very much. Still a beautiful spirit, here she is in Berlin 2011:

In addition to saluting her courage breaking barriers, the men who protected her deserve credit as well. I have met many such men who treat women with true brotherly love and help us overcome those who want us to be kept down. There are good men who stand up for the rights of others, and don't feel threatened by the success of another being.

[pinboy3niner]

9. Marathon Woman

I love it! Thanks for the update photo, freshwest.

[freshwest]

10. Cheers to you, too.

[Quantess]

11. She looks great, too.

Running does wonders for one's appearance as well as health.

[randome]

19. Well, it depends.

She DOES look great. But too much sun and elements exposure can have a not-so-good effect, too.

Just something to keep in mind.

[Quantess]

25. You can always go running at night, with the dog.

Or wear sweatproof sunscreen.

Dedicated runners don't mind a little rain. You won't get tan in the rain.

[randome]

31. That's what I do. Sort of. I run early in the morning, before the Sun is up.

[monmouth]

6. Does anyone remember that woman who jumped into the NYC marathon back in the day, and either "won"

or placed in the top five? Anyway, of course she was dis-qualified, had no muscle-tone in her legs and some saw her jump out of the bushes and join the runners. That was hilarious. Geez, I'm old.

[schmice]

12. I remember.

Her name was Rosie Ruiz. Soon after, a store was selling nylon stockings and had Rosie's picture on the display with the caption: "Guaranteed not to run".

[monmouth]

15. HAHAHA, Oh lordy, never heard that one before. Excellent and welcome to DU...n/t

[HiPointDem]

13. In 1982, Ruiz was arrested for embezzling $60,000 from a real estate company...

She then moved back to southern Florida, only to be arrested for her involvement in a cocaine deal. At last report, she was working in West Palm Beach as an account representative. To this day, she still maintains that she ran the entire 1980 Boston Marathon...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_Ruiz

[Drunken Irishman]

16. Totally believable woman...

[obamanut2012]

7. She and Joan Benoit are two big heroes of mine

Switzer's book is a very interesting read, btw.

[Odin2005]

14. "How dare you disprove sexist pseudoscience about women's health!"

Apparently it was conventional wisdom at the time that women would keel over and die if they ran a marathon.

[obamanut2012]

18. Not just at the time, well past that

The Women's Marathon wasn't in the Olympics until 1980, and even then the Men in Charge didn't want in in because they expected women to collapse and die. That's why ski jumping for women still isn't in the Olympics, even though it's a world sport.

[valerief]

30. Yeah, because they'd get their period or something. Of course, they could spend 36 hours in labor

giving birth.

Authoritarian logic in action.

I remember not being able to play sports as a kid, because I was a girl.

[Rex]

17. Amazing.

I've seen that and read about it before on DU, but it still is shocking. That was not that long ago.

[pokerfan]

20. sequence of photos

The "Great Shoving Incident" in the 1967 race takes place as (left) Jock Semple closes in on Kathy Switzer in an attempt to tear the number from her running suit. Tom Miller (center photo) slams into Jock and (right) sends the old Scot flying off to the side of the road.
(United Press International)

[underpants]

23. What is amazing to me (4 marathons myself) is the full gray sweats and the shoes

Runner's World has been very diligent in documenting Kathy and other female marathons (many ran in disguise or just got through) and it is endearing as a human being to see what people will do to "go the distance". Chills up my spine right now.

[4th law of robotics]

21. I'm not sure why they'd oppose it, even from a sexist standpoint

women are rarely a challenge to men in elite athletic events. If anything it would reinforce traditional notions as she is almost guaranteed not to win.

[Enrique]

27. me too

usually I can relate to bigoted attitudes, at least theoretically, but I do not understand this man's motivation in any way.

[Skittles]

33. these kind of men don't fear women WINNING

they fear WOMEN - end of story!!

[Bucky]

29. It's not prejudice born of fear. Men and women get separate medals.

No, it's just the belief that women don't belong in sports, which is rooted in the older belief that women are too delicate to handle sports. Women's basketball in the 50s used to have the court divided into six zones so that the girls playing wouldn't have to run too far or risk contact with opponents--it was entirely a game of passing and throwing, with blocking relegated to simply waving of arms in the path of the ball.

http://womensbasketballmuseum.com/

She would break the court into 3 zones and 9 players would exist on each team. Each zone would have 3 players in it.

No player could leave her zone. The player could only hold the ball 3 seconds and dribble the ball 3 times before passing. This reduced the ability for single players to become stars and required the effort of all.

No snatching of the ball was allowed as well.

On March 21st 1893, the first collegiate game was played at Smith. The freshman class played the sophomore class. The doors to the gym were locked and no men were allowed in to watch, as it was not considered socially acceptable.

[wickerwoman]

22. Had never heard this story before.

Thanks for posting it.

[underpants]

24. As a runner and 4 time "the distance" finisher I offer a short history -- good read

When the Olympics were revived in 1896, women were again excluded. But, in March of 1896, Stamatis Rovithi became the first woman to run a marathon when she covered the proposed Olympic course from Marathon to Athens. The following month, a woman named Melpomene presented herself as an entrant in the Olympic Marathon. Race organizers denied her the opportunity to compete. Undiscouraged, Melpomene warmed up for the race out of sight. When the starter's gun sounded, she began to run along the side of the course. Eventually she fell behind the men, but as she continued on, stopping at Pikermi for a glass of water, she passed runners who dropped out of the race in exhaustion. She arrived at the stadium about an hour and a half after Spiridon Louis won the race. Barred from entry into the now empty stadium, she ran her final lap around the outside of the building, finishing in approximately four and a half hours.

Violet Piercy of Great Britain was the first woman to be officially timed in the marathon, when she clocked a time of 3:40:22 in a British race on October 3, 1926. Due largely to the lack of women's marathon competition, that time stood as an unofficial world record for thirty-seven years. On December 16, 1963, American Merry Lepper ran a time of 3:37:07 to improve slightly on Piercy's record.

Before 1972, women had been barred from the most famous marathon outside the Olympics-Boston. That rule did not keep women from running, though. In 1966, Roberta Gibb hid behind a bush at the start of the Boston Marathon, sneaking into the field and finishing the race in an unofficial time of 3:21:25. She was the first woman known to complete the arduous Boston course. Gibb had been inspired to run by the return of her race entry with a note saying that women were not physically capable of running a marathon.

"I hadn't intended to make a feminist statement," said Gibb. "I was running against the distance [not the men] and I was measuring myself with my own potential."

The following year, number 261 in the Boston Marathon was assigned to entrant K.V. Switzer. In lieu of the pre-race medical examination, Switzer's coach took a health certificate to race officials and picked up the number. Not until two miles into the race did officials realize that Switzer was a woman, twenty-year-old Kathrine Switzer of Syracuse University. Race director Will Cloney and official Jock Semple tried to grab Switzer and remove her from the race, or at least remove her number, but her teammates from Syracuse fended them off with body blocks. Switzer eventually finished the race after the race timers had stopped running, in 4:20. Switzer had not used her initials on the entry form to deceive the race officials. She was merely a fan of J.D. Salinger and liked the sound of her initials. While Switzer was creating a stir with her unauthorized entry, Roberta Gibb again ran the race, this time being forced off the course just steps from the finish line, where her time would have been 3:27:17.

On October 28, 1973, the first all women's marathon was held in Waldniel, West Germany.

In the late 1970s, Kathrine Switzer, retired form competitive running, led the way toward the inclusion of a women's marathon in the Olympics. In 1977, Switzer, then director of the Women's Sports Foundation, met an executive for the Avon cosmetics company who told her the company was interested in sponsoring a running event for women. Switzer wrote a seventy-five page proposal describing how Avon might sponsor a series of events, and the company liked her idea so much they hired her to plan the races.

The first Avon International Marathon was held in Atlanta, Georgia, in March of 1978, drawing women from nine countries. The 1979 Avon Marathon, held in Waldniel, attracted over 250 world class entrants from twenty-five countries. The theory that women's marathoning was not popular enough to become an Olympic sport was dramatically disproved. Still, the drive for inclusion in the Olympics was far from over.

http://www.marathonguide.com/history/olympicmarathons/chapter25.cfm

[tabasco]

26. What an imbecile.

Why do we have people like this on our planet?

[B Calm]

28. Fascist bastard would fit in great with the modern

republican party!

[virgogal]

32. What brought this on? Very old news.

[Skittles]

34. just so everyone knows

Jock did come around, and welcomed her in the 1973 race