Breaking the Unbreakable
Today, women are displaying their talents and abilities in almost every domain of human effort. They compete with men in once male-dominated sectors, such as politics, business, science and technology, and sports. In the course of time women’s rights have progressed a lot and now everyone accepts women in these roles as natural. Most people would be surprised to know, however, that as recently as the 1960s, women were severely restricted in their working lives due to irrational discrimination against them. Even in America, where equality has long been considered one of the noblest human values, women were once not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as men—for no reason except that they were women. Women also were not eligible for admissions to Ivy League universities. Yale and Princeton did not accept women students until 1969. In some states in America women were kept out of jury pools because they were thought to be too fragile to hear the horrible details of crimes and too sympathetic by nature to be able to remain objective about those accused of offenses. Banks could refuse to issue a credit card to an unmarried woman. Even if she was married, her husband was required to sign for it.
During the 1960s revolutionary changes emerged in American society. Initially, the demands for change were triggered by sustained racial discrimination against African-Americans. Led by the Civil Rights Movement, which called for all people to receive equal treatment, people who had been treated unfairly in American society began to organize collective movements to regain their suppressed rights. They demanded equality for all people regardless of race, sex, age, disability, national origin, religion, or other characteristics.
It was this social environment of the 1960s that made American women begin to challenge both the visible and the invisible restrictions put upon them by outdated cultural and societal stereotypes, struggling to gain their due rights as equals to men. The following story shows you how a brave female athlete, Kathrine Switzer, was able to overcome one barrier in the male-dominated athletic culture.
Kathrine Switzer was born in Germany, the daughter of a major who was stationed there in the United States Army. She graduated from high school in Virginia and entered Syracuse University in the mid-1960s. Having had a passion for running since childhood, she looked for a women’s running team in the university. To her regret, there was none, neither there nor anywhere. She trained unofficially with the men’s cross-country team. There she caught the eye of 50-year-old volunteer coach, Arnie Briggs. She wanted to run in the famous Boston Marathon, but Briggs intensely discouraged her, saying women could not run in the marathon because they were too fragile to complete the long distance race. Upon her insistence, Briggs finally agreed to let her sign up for the race. Switzer and her coach checked the rule book and entry form. At that time, it was taken for granted that only men could enter the race. To avoid the controversy that would come with her registration as a woman, she entered as “K.V. Switzer.”
In 1967, the Boston Marathon was on April 19. She had no idea she was going to become a part of the race’s history. She was given the bib number 261. There were 741 people listed on the program. Boston had always been a mecca for marathon runners. Now Switzer, too, was one of the pilgrims. At about the four-mile mark in the race, there was a man in the middle of the road shaking his finger at Switzer. He was Jock Semple, the race director of the marathon. He screamed, “Get the hell out of the race and give me your number!” Then he swiped down her front, trying to tear off her bib. Switzer was so surprised and frightened that she turned to run away. Semple continued to swipe at the bib number on her back. Having never felt such embarrassment and fear before, she wondered if she should step off the course. That thought, however, was only a flicker. She knew if she quit, nobody would ever believe that women could run a 26-plus mile race. Her emotion turned from fear to anger. “I have to finish this race. I have to, even on my hands and knees. If I don’t finish, people will say women can’t do it.”
At last she crossed the finish line and stepped into a different life. Switzer finished the race in 4 hours, 20 minutes, proving with an official bib number and time that women are capable of running long distances.
To the male runners it was a one-off event. Without a doubt, it was a lot more than that to Switzer. After the historic race in Boston, Switzer, along with other women runners, tried to convince the Boston Athletic Association to allow women to participate in the marathon. Finally, in 1972, women were officially allowed to run in the Boston Marathon for the first time. Her ceaseless efforts to achieve gender equality in the marathon finally led the 1984 Olympic Games to introduce the women’s marathon for the first time in its history. For her part, Switzer was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011 for creating a social revolution by empowering women around the world through running.
In 2017, at the age of 70, Kathrine Switzer once again ran in the marathon, getting the media’s attention globally with the same bib number—261—that was assigned to her in 1967. That marked the 50th anniversary of her historic marathon in Boston. At her advanced age, she finished in 4:44:31, a remarkable achievement. She had told the media that she had decided to run in the Boston Marathon again to prove that even people at her age could successfully complete a marathon. Now she dreams of another revolution in athletics by securing acceptance of the notion that elderly runners should be able to compete with younger ones.
In honor of Switzer’s accomplishment, the Boston Athletic Association announced it would retire bib number 261, and not assign it to any future runner.
Supplementary Reading
The African-American Civil Rights Movement was a long fight for racial equality that went on for over 100 years, beginning after the American Civil War ended in the 1860s. The Civil Rights Movement has its background in the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War. People opposing the slavery system thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted it to end. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. After the Civil War, however, many southern states continued to treat African-Americans as second class citizens. They implemented laws that kept black people separate from white people. For example, public facilities such as restaurants, restrooms, and buses had separate spaces for white people and for black people.
The Civil Rights Movement gained momentum in the 1950s. Leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks paved the way for non-violent protests that led to changes in the law. In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman living in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott to protest the racial segregation, which lasted for more than a year and brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the forefront of the movement. King led a number of non-violent protests, including the famous “March on Washington” in 1963, a landmark in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. This act outlawed the segregation of black people in America. It also outlawed discrimination based on race, national background, and gender.