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How Women Won the Marathon and Changed Our View of Gender

A Stories and Voices program

This talk explores the nearly twenty years between Bobbi Gibb’s run and when the women’s marathon was finally entered into the 1984 Olympic Games.

When Bobbi Gibb tried to enter the Boston Marathon in 1966, she was told women were not “physiologically able to run twenty-six miles.” Even when she snuck in and finished the marathon, the running federations, medical community, and broader culture continued to tell women they weren’t capable of such feats of endurance.

This talk explores the nearly twenty years between Gibb’s run and when the women’s marathon was finally entered into the 1984 Olympic Games. It’s the story of how women from different walks of life came together to change our social ideas about what they can and should do.

Maggie Mertens is an independent journalist and author. Her work, which often focuses on the intersection between gender, culture, and sport, has appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and The Guardian, among others. Her first book, Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women, is a national bestseller.

Join us and learn about the histories, contributions, and lived experiences of those around us as we uplift community voices and explore stories that act as mirrors of our own lives and windows into experiences different from our own.

Presented through the Humanties Washington Speaker's Bureau program.

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