At the 1967 Boston Marathon, 20-year-old Kathrine Switzer was creepily grabbed at mile four by race co-director Jock Semple, who tried to throw her off the course. (CREDIT: KathrineSwitzer.com Press Photos)

A Life-Long Marathon for Gender Equality

55 Years Ago Kathrine Switzer Broke a Barrier for Female Runners

Experts at the time still believed a woman’s uterus could fall out from basketball or distance running

This year’s 2022 126th Boston Marathon marks the 55th anniversary of the first time a registered female runner completed the famous race: Kathrine Switzer in 1967.

Medical experts at the time claimed distance running wasn’t good for females’

Only 55 years ago American women were told they were too fragile to run marathon distances, which were for male runners only.

There was even a myth (started by a German doctor in 1898) that a woman’s uterus would fall out if she participated in sports!

Though this idea sounds crazy in the 1950s and ’60s American sports and medical experts still claimed that women’s health would be damaged by long-distance running and even basketball.

Switzer mentions in her 2007 memoir Marathon Woman that her own high school basketball coach — a woman — told her that girls could never play the men’s version of basketball because the “excessive number of jump balls could displace…