Kathrine Switzer’s efforts have expanded opportunities for women in running. Your actions can also set the gender multiplier effect into motion.
By Andrea Stevenson Conner
As we celebrate Patriots Day, the third Monday in April, and also the day the Boston Marathon would have been run were the pandemic not still in progress, let’s also take time to celebrate a woman whose love of running created an opportunity not only for herself but for many other women.
When Kathrine Switzer donned bib No. 261 to run the Boston Marathon in 1967, she wasn’t planning on making a statement. She wasn’t trying to pave the way for the next generation of marathoners. “I was just a kid who wanted to run,” she says in an FAQ on her website.
But then a race official attacked her at the two-mile mark because he was angry to see a woman running in what had been considered a race suitable only for men. Despite the stress of that event, Switzer became “determined to finish and speak out on behalf of all women.”
Since completing that Boston race in 1967, Switzer has run 39 marathons, including winning the 1974 New York City Marathon and ranking sixth in the world in for her two-hour and 51-minute Boston Marathon finish in 1975.
She also has written several books, done public speaking, and received numerous awards. And, she founded 261 Fearless, a global non-profit organization that uses running as a vehicle to empower and unite women.
Switzer’s actions have helped changed the perspective of girls and women today, putting it well within reach to decide to pursue distance running and wear an official bib in marathons.
Switzer’s story is a great example of the gender multiplier effect. The GME is the idea that when a woman is lifted up, the effect ripples out, benefitting not only the initial woman but many women in her network. In the biggest picture, the GME can have a positive impact on the global economy. Think about how adding female runners to marathons expanded the economy surrounding such events!
Fortunately, we do not all have to be distance runners to leverage the GME to do good in the world. We can each employ the GME within our own sphere of influence. During my tenure as president of ATHENA International, helping to honor Kathrine Switzer with the 2019 National Leadership Award was one of many ways I threw in a pebble and saw the GME ripple out.
We don’t even have to lift up women in formal ways like awards to have a positive effect on women, the people in their networks, their companies, and the overall economy. Reaping the benefits of the GME can come from such simple actions as mentoring an emerging leader in your company or talking about your professional work with students attending a local school’s career fair.
Pioneers like Kathrine Switzer pave the way for a big change. But we can all do our part to lift women up. When they bring others with them, we’ll see the positive ripples from the GME in action.
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