On Kathrine Switzer and Living 261 Fearless-ly in BloNo

A few years ago, Kathrine Switzer came to Illinois State University for a speaking engagement, followed by a short community run where you could Run with Kathrine.  She was doing a book tour, I believe, and kicking off a global running community called 261 Fearless, Inc.  The goal of the community was simple: share your love of running - specifically with women in mind - empowering women around the world through running and walking.  

She was kicking off an "Ambassador" program, which was free to participate, and essentially asked you to blog or comment or share on social media channels a couple of times a month on a given topic.  With the goal of engaging the public and fostering community using the hashtag #261Fearless, #BeFearlessBeFree, #Runwith261 and others.  In exchange for participation, you got a shirt, some discounts with partner brands, and access to a private Facebook page dedicated to Fearless Ambassadors.  It was pretty cool.  It's how I came up with my mantra:  Live it.  RUN It.

I suppose I should back up.  Who is Kathrine Switzer?  I don't know if you know her.  The very short version is that she was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with an official bib.  This was in 1967.  The race director tried to forcibly remove her from the course but she and her teammates fought him off and she finished the race.  It took 5 more years before the BAA officially ALLOWED women to enter the race in 1972.  There were 8 women that year.  Eight.  Kathrine was bib number F6. (Not to be confused with the men's bib numbers, which were... you know... numbers.)

It was Kathrine's activism that helped start the Avon International Running Circuit - a women's racing series including marathon distance.  It was Kathrine's activism that helped convince the International Olympic Committee to create longer distances, including the marathon, for women to compete.  The first Olympic women's marathon wasn't until the 1984 Olympics in LA.  

So Kathrine is pretty badass.  

I wasn't able to attend the event and run with her, but I joined the Ambassador program and helped spread the love.  261 Fearless Inc grew globally and began operating local clubs in Europe.  When they offered an opportunity for some of the Ambassadors to attend a Train the Trainer and become a 261-certified running coach, I jumped at the chance.  

Last summer I attended the 4-day training in Des Moines, where I met two other women who were pursuing a local club as well.  One woman from Brazil who had flown to Des Moines specifically for the training and the other from Des Moines.  There were more trainers than trainees, but we had a great long weekend together.  Kathrine herself joined us for the final two days and I actually got to share a meal and a few drinks with her at dinner.  Literally!  She and I were seated next to one another and were debating the same two entrees and she suggested we each order one and just split them! 

I returned from the training and began the lengthy process of establishing the Club and filing state and federal paperwork to incorporate the Club as an Illinois not-for-profit organization.  The Hubs and two of my girlfriends agreed to be on our founding board of directors, and late last year, we became THE FIRST 261 Fearless local club in the United States.  

Greetings from the founder, President, and certified Coach of 261 Fearless Club Bloomington-Normal.

Our mission is to empower, engage and connect women through non-competitive, non-performance-based running and walking.  261® Fearless Clubs are not traditional running clubs.  We offer a different club model: placing no emphasis on distance or pace.  We offer an hour of non-competitive social running.  We play games and do activities, incorporating running often without members even realizing it, like playing tag.  There is a short group run at the end of each Meet Run, and no matter what her experience or pace, all participants are able to be part of the run and enjoy it.

This year was the 50th anniversary of Kathrine's historic Boston Marathon finish.  She and over 100 other women teamed up to raise over $800,000 for 261 Fearless globally and ran the Boston Marathon together last month.  No one from our area was able to join that crew, but we created an event to celebrate locally:  we had special shirts printed and organized a 26.2-mile route throughout BloNo, and held the first-ever full marathon in Bloomington-Normal.  Event participation was free and open to the whole community, but we purposefully kept it small since it's a HUGE endeavor and our first-ever attempt at organizing such a long run.  

It was billed as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style relay, meaning you could join the group at certain points along the way and we would all run together.  Members could run one mile or all 26, as long as we all stayed together.  The event was a TON of work but very successful.  Eighteen women participated.  We raised over $500 to support our club and THREE women completed the full distance - all three completing their FIRST MARATHON.  I couldn't imagine a better way to honor and pay tribute to Kathrine's groundbreaking run.

I'll attach some photos and close out this long post.

Initial meeting with Kathrine.  It was VERY, VERY hot in Des Moines.

Receiving my certificate after Train the Trainer.  Did I mention it was VERY, VERY hot and humid in Des Moines?

Our "official" Des Moines training group photo.

At the start of our Fearless Together Marathon Relay event, April 8.

The first women ALLOWED to run Boston

The 2017 Boston Marathon Team for 261 Fearless.  Along with over 12,000 other women running the race this year.

I Should Have Written This Months Ago

I thought I was past this whole Pussy Grabbing Thing. 

Yup, I don’t like Trump.  I think he’s a disgusting misogynist who clearly has no regard for women whatsoever. And yup, he managed to pull together enough Electoral College Votes to get himself into office.  And yup, I accept that.  I don’t like it. I don’t like him. I think he’s dangerous.  But yes, I accept that this man will become the leader of our country. 

And I was willing to let it go, the Pussy Grabbing Thing.  It was appalling, it shook me when I heard it, it took me a LONG while to put it down once I picked up that thread, and I can hardly conceive that a man who speaks of the women in his life in such derisive terms was subsequently elected to the Presidency, but the media and the voters moved on and so would I.  I would move on and accept this reality.

And then THIS came into my world:

Photo from Mary Numair (cropped)

A new President?  One I don’t like and didn’t vote for?  Fine.  But this?  UNACCEPTABLE.

What I REJECT, what I expect all decent men and women to REJECT LOUDLY AND UN-EQUIVOCALLY, is the idea that words and images don’t matter.  

WORDS MATTER.  IMAGES MATTER. 

Bragging about grabbing a woman “by the pussy” is unacceptable.  MERCHANDISING the “grab 'em by the pussy” concept is so far beyond as to be truly deplorable.  (You don’t like the word “Deplorable?”  Fine.  Try “Reprehensible,” “Dishonorable,” “Disgraceful,” “Intolerable,” or “Sickening.”  Pick your own; I’m good with all of them.)

  

Don’t talk to me about “Locker Room Talk.”  Don’t give me any nonsense about “harmless jokes."  And DO NOT tell me I’m being sensitive.  This message trivializes sexual assault.  This message normalizes something that is already ENTIRELY TOO COMMON.  

This message is NOT HARMLESS.

There is NOTHING harmless about the type of physical harassment that women are subjected to on a DAILY basis.  I have personally been subjected to this kind of “harmless” assault.  EVERY woman I know over the age of 9 has been subjected to some version of assault, most have experienced it NUMEROUS times. 

Every friend of mine.  

Every mother I know.  

Every daughter. 

YOUR DAUGHTER.  If she’s older than 9, SOMEONE has made her feel uncomfortable in some “harmless” way. A schoolyard bully has yanked down her pants or loudly pointed out she was the first in class to wear a bra.  An adult has looked at her too long or in the wrong way.

I have been grasped, groped, fondled, stroked, kissed, and shoved.

Men have grabbed my ass, my thigh, my knee, my breasts, and yes, my privates. Want some highlights?

The Creepiest: A man gently stroked my arm during a professional function – while complimenting my outfit and leering at my chest. 

The Most Blatant: A man once took hold of the fabric of my blouse and yanked it forward to look down my shirt.  This man LITERALLY said OUT LOUD that he was ENTITLED to do that, to see skin that I had chosen not to display. 

The Most Insipid: Male “friends” have touched me inappropriately in social situations. 

The Worst:  The boyfriend of a close friend once grabbed me and stuffed his tongue down my throat for no apparent reason, then walked away once I shoved him off of me, never said a damn word about it. 

And that’s only the PHYSICAL assaults.  Men have propositioned me in all manner of situations and suggested all manner of things I could do for them or they could do “for me.”  As if, apropos of nothing I’ve been given some impossibly lucky opportunity to be manhandled by a random stranger. 

These men did and said these things to me, most of them in BROAD DAYLIGHT.  With the exception of that one disgusting kiss, every single one of these incidents occurred in PUBLIC spaces, bars full of people, on the street or subway, a crowded bus or in a not-at-all-crowded diner or in the middle of a WORK FUNCTION in front of a couple hundred coworkers. 

It’s disgusting.  It’s demeaning.  It’s shameful.  In every form, every time something like this happens, my first thought is WHY?  (What made that man think I was open to that?  Why did he think I would be OK with what he did to me?  What did I do to provoke that comment?)  Is it really any wonder that rape victims are so reluctant to report or that SO MANY WOMEN blame themselves after an attack?

After many of these incidents, I did nothing.  Sometimes it seemed pointless. (Some Rando on the street yelled for me to show him my tits, what are the cops gonna do – issue an APB for Asshole in a White SUV?).  Sometimes it seemed like more trouble than it was worth (Jackass in a bar grabbed my ass.  I could tell the bouncer or my boyfriend / husband, but it’s just going to cause a scene and we were getting ready to leave anyway.  Let’s just go.).  

There are a few incidents where I did nothing.  I did nothing because it was just TOO HARD or too complicated. (I need this job. Or My friend needs that guy and she can make her own decisions.  I don’t want to be The Reason They Broke Up.)  And I Did Nothing.  And to this day I Said Nothing. (And there’s a whole other Shame-Circle for that.)

These men, EVERY SINGLE ONE, felt they were doing absolutely nothing wrong until I took action: to push them away, yell something, make a complaint to HR, a knee to the groin, kick in the ankle or elbow in the chest.  Why?  What is it that makes a man think it’s completely OK to grab a woman, a stranger, uninvited, in a public place, in broad daylight?  Something he would surely never do to another man. Certainly many factors are at play in such a decision.  But it’s so prevalent, so ubiquitous, there must be common ground between so many men that would normalize this behavior.

I have never experienced a traumatic sexual assault or rape.  My experiences have been humiliating, demeaning, but have left me relatively unscathed. 

Yet these words.  THESE images. 

Photo from Mary Numair (cropped)

As Michelle Obama so simply put it, they shook me to my core.  Months later, I am shaken when I am reminded of them. 

If this is MY response, with my relatively benign history of being publicly assaulted by men in my life…

IMAGINE THE RESPONSE of those women who are victims of more serious assaults. 

What do these words and these images evoke from them?

Yes, Words Matter.  Images Matter.  Call Spencer’s Gifts Today. 1-800-762-0419. Ensure they stop selling this particular T-Shirt.  Tell them you believe it’s inappropriate for a corporate venture to profit from the normalization of sexual assault.  Tell them you do not think that sexual assault is funny or that sexual assault victims are a joke. 

* * * * * *

When I called 1-800-762-0419, I pressed 8 to speak with Marketing.  After talking to the woman who answered, providing my name and phone number (I do not expect a return call), I asked if she could share with me the name of their supplier or others involved in the selection and distribution and sale of these particular shirts.  She could not, but forwarded me to the Public Relations department, where I was sent to the voice mail of one Kevin Mahoney. 

I left a detailed message for Mr. Mahoney.  I asked him to return my call, and told him I’d like to provide my feedback to their supplier, vendor, manufacturer, and the designer of this shirt, if only he could kindly provide me with their names.  I haven’t heard back from him, but I think I may call again tomorrow and ask for him directly.  

It felt good to let my voice be heard.  

I have stayed silent far too long.