Today we are marking International Women’s Day (IWD) and its theme #ChooseToChallenge that highlights how important it is to call out gender bias and inequality to continue the move towards gender equality and equity. Please find more information about the day here.

Picture source: www.internationalwomensday.com

Challenges facing women in running

We are a long way away from equality in women’s running whether on a professional or recreational level. Women’s running, especially long distance running, was very slow to be accepted by the patriarchal society and women were often banned from events – most people know about Kathrine Switzer’s Boston marathon where she was chased by the race director trying to pull her out of the race. The recently published “Mighty Moe” book highlights the extraordinary story of Maureen Wilton, a 13 year old girl who broke the Women’s Marathon World record in 1967 just two weeks after the aforementioned Boston marathon. Her achievement got almost no recognition and Maureen soon disappeared from running but that little-known race sparked the fight for equality in long distance running. However, more than 50 years on there are still issues of unequal prize money, misunderstanding of female physiology in training, the implicit discouragement of young girls from exercise, a lack of diversity and lack of acceptance to those who identify as women and the very serious issue of harassment and assaults that women regularly experience on their runs. Thankfully progress is happenning and there’s increasing recognition and intolerance to the discrimination mentioned above as all genders seek to proactively challenge and change inequalities in this field.

A personal perspective - how GoodGym helps women to stay active

Being part of GoodGym I realise that my view of women being as active in their lives as men is not a status quo as I’m often struck by the contrast when I talk to my female friends, neighbours, family, acquaintances away from the GG community and really notice inequality in physical activity levels between genders: men do nearly three times as many cycling journeys as women, boys are more likely to be active than girls and these trends continue into adulthood. It’s not surprising that the GoodGym world feels very different to me as c. 75% of our membership is female, which is an astonishingly fantastic statistic that not many similar organisations that are not explicitly targeting women can claim. So what are we doing right to attract and retain this high level of female participation? Here are my thoughts based on my own experience:

• No one is left behind: Fear of judgement and lack of confidence are some of the key reasons why many women might not feel comfortable exercising. I believe our commitment to making our sessions inclusive to all abilities, no matter their pace, is key to helping women to feel welcome. Knowing that they will not be left behind ‘to catch up’ or made to feel like everyone is waiting for them makes them feel able to come along and try out our training sessions and group runs.
• Safety: Running has always been essential to me, I’m not good at it, I’m slow, I get chronic injuries from my bad form, but I cannot imagine not doing it - for 30 years it has provided me with something that makes me feel better and makes my mental and physical health stronger. As a woman running I’ve sadly experienced a fair share of unpleasant and even dangerous encounters that changed my running behaviour including where and when I run and how I dress. As a female runner and cyclist, harassment and heckles are nothing new, thankfully it doesn’t happen as often anymore but just last week a man thought it was a good idea to jog alongside me saying ‘chop chop’, or a few months ago a driver was yelling at me because I was cycling in primary position to get through a pinch point. I’ve had worse and I’ve learned how to deal with it (both got more than an earful from me) but as a much younger woman that made me reluctant to run, especially in the evenings. I hadn’t run in the evening for years before I’d joined GoodGym Redbridge and immediately felt safe and rediscovered the joys of running at night. I think a lot of women will relate to this, especially if they had bad experiences like me: safety in numbers but also the motivation of a group and banter helped to build confidence in plodding on the road in the evenings again.
• Support and camaraderie: The support and motivation from my local group and overall GoodGym community helps to drive me on and that has been invaluable in the last year! Without GoodGym I’d still be running but would I be running as much or cycling or exercising? Definitely not.
• Meaningful reason to run: Many had bad Physical Education experiences in younger age so for a lot of people, and women especially, exercise such as running might never have a positive association. Having to move your body so that you can get to your coach, community mission or mission might just be the change that gets so many of us out of the door and slowly, over time, helps to change our relationship to being active.

I could probably write another 100 pages on this topic but I know that my thoughts and experiences are my own and other women might have different reasons for joining GoodGym in the first place and have different motivations that help them to stay active. We’d really like to hear about them here in the Central Team, please get in touch to let us know what GoodGym means to you in the context of gender equality (all genders are welcome to contribute!) and of course we’re keen to hear more specifically from women and how GoodGym helps them to stay active, build confidence and set new fitness goals.

Happy International Women’s Day all!

Further reading/sources:

• Forbes article "Why we need gender equity now"

• Kathrine Switzer

• Runner's World article "Mighty Moe"

• Runner's World article "Running while female"

• Cycling UK statistics

• Sport England report on active lives of children and young people

• Sport England report on active levels by gender