Why did some men try to stop Katherine Switzer from running the Boston Marathon in 1967?

At that point, women weren’t sanctioned to run in the marathon – rules of the race sponsor and the Amateur Athletic Union (or some such body).

It was thought (in 1967) that women were too weak and delicate to run in such a long race.

snort!

You know the answer to this. If you don’t slap some aspirin between your legs and let us pipe-swingers sort it out for your you my delicate flower.

1992 was billed as the “Year of the Woman” because 6% of US Senators were women.

We are barely out of the Dark Ages.

Why are you expecting anything different from almost 50 years ago ? (48, to be exact)

We’ve come a long way, baby

As Dylan wrote “for the times they are a’changin”.

I just wondered what the thinking was? Did they think they were “protecting” her, or were they afraid she might actually do better than most of the men?

“Still, with the 1980 Summer Olympic Games on the horizon, Olympic organizers had given no serious consideration to creating a women’s marathon.

Two reasons were often given for this exclusion. First, some experts claimed that women’s health would be damaged by long-distance running. This theory was proved false not only by medical studies, but also by the success of women marathoners during the 1970s. Second, the Olympic Charter stated that to be included in the Games, a women’s sport must be widely practiced in at least twenty-five countries on at least two continents (for men’s events the requirement was fifty countries on three continents). Women’s marathoning, the Olympic organizers argued, was simply not popular enough to include.” from here.

But the Boston Marathon is a coed thing, not a men vs women thing. Overall, I have to agree. Baseball, basket ball, almost everything is more interesting to watch when the men are playing. Coming from a former athlete, that’s a hard thing to admit.

I get that. The article was specific to the exclusion of women in the Olympics, but spoke to some attitudes and beliefs in the time period you reference.

I thought the second Olympic exclusion reason was interesting and I had not considered it. Even if organizers of the Boston Marathon thought that women could handle the marathon, they might have felt that women needed a separate event which would not generate enough interest to take place on it’s own.

So (1) fear of damage to women’s health and (2) belief that there would not be enough interest to change the inclusion criteria or hold a separate event.

I doubt anyone thought women would do better than most of the men.

Lots of above average women would do better than the average man. A top female athlete can’t really compete with a top male athlete in any sport that requires strength though.

Men just seem to have been so afraid of us for so long.