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Thread: Women winning outright

  1. #41
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    Since at least Victorian times, women have been treated as the weaker sex. In terms of muscle power, this is true, so that the best women are typically 10-15% slower than the best men over the distances that most fell races are run; the gap is maybe a bit less over the longer distances. But in events which require sheer endurance, do the anatomical and physiological differences between the sexes actually favour the women? And what about psychological differences?

    I am not trying to take anything away from Jasmin; knocking twelve hours off the Spine Race course record is a remarkable achievement for anyone, and her place in the fell-running hall of fame alongside the likes of Joss Naylor is secure. I am just wondering whether we should actually consider it to be the norm that events like this are won by women. Is it only the remnants of those Victorian attitudes that are preventing this being the case?
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  2. #42
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    Clearly a race like the Spine involves a lot more than the physical effort - you have to get the navigation right, take in enough food (my personal failing in long events), put on extra layers before it is too late, decide how long to stop at checkpoints, etc etc. Perhaps there is some truth in the claim that women are better at multi-tasking?
    Anyway, as you say, a tremendous achievement by Jasmin.

  3. #43
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    I think at these kind of distances and this amount of time racing, gender is completely irrelevant. As gej says above, it's down to, for want of a better term, race management and, probably more importantly, being tough as nails.
    Geoff Clarke

  4. #44
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    @Anthonykay - i don't see how we can say it is the norm, or that it was victorian attitudes preventing it. I think biology might have a part to play in it! but clearly Jasmin is not the norm. She is not average. She is exceptional and one of the top fell and ultra runners of all time (male or female).

    i can't see what victorian attitudes has to do with anything - maybe i'm missing your point.

  5. #45
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    Carol Morgan did mention the lack of women in this game and sexist attitudes in her post race interview.

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by benshep View Post
    @Anthonykay - i don't see how we can say it is the norm, or that it was victorian attitudes preventing it. I think biology might have a part to play in it! but clearly Jasmin is not the norm. She is not average. She is exceptional and one of the top fell and ultra runners of all time (male or female).

    i can't see what victorian attitudes has to do with anything - maybe i'm missing your point.
    What I was thinking of when I mentioned "Victorian attitudes" was that, even though we now know that women are just as capable as men of completing this kind of event, there are far fewer of them (compare numbers of women to those of men at ethnic Spine Race): I was wondering whether this might be the result of a remnant, unspoken feeling that this wasn't the sort of endeavour that women should be doing.
    In his lifetime he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen.
    Jorge Luis Borges

  7. #47
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    Is it fair to say that with Victoria Wilkinson, Jasmin Paris, Nicky Spinks Double BG, plus a whole host of other females achieving superb performances and times.... that we are seeing the 'golden age' of female fellrunning, similar to the men in the 80's....?

  8. #48
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    i think we are simply seeing more and more women participating in the sport and of course therefore more and more women at the top of the sport. long may it continue. i hope that the victorian attitude anthonykay refers to are not present in the sport, and that if they are they are a very very small minority and i hope they are not deterring women from taking part if they want to. there's no place in society for sexist attitudes at all - but i certainly don't think fell running is more sexist than society at large (if at all).

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Travs View Post
    Is it fair to say that with Victoria Wilkinson, Jasmin Paris, Nicky Spinks Double BG, plus a whole host of other females achieving superb performances and times.... that we are seeing the 'golden age' of female fellrunning, similar to the men in the 80's....?
    Travs

    I am more interested in understanding why you think the "golden age" of male running was the 80s rather than any other time period, including the last three decades?
    Last edited by Graham Breeze; 18-01-2019 at 11:22 AM.
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  10. #50
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    Graham

    To be honest i didn't put too much thought into it, and picked it as an example of a particularly strong time... just an opinion based on the likes of Billy Bland, Kenny Stuart, John Wild, Colin Donelly, and others, all doing great things, and a good strength in depth, some records still existing etc...

    Whenever the 'greatest ever fellrunner' topic gets bought up, the prime candidates are usually Naylor/Stuart/Bland, with healthy arguments for John Wild and Colin Donelly put forward, and as they were mostly all prevalent during the 80's i picked that era as an example.

    (also quite possibly influenced by the fact that my current choice of reading material is my collection of The Fellrunner magazines from the early 80's!!)
    Last edited by Travs; 18-01-2019 at 11:26 AM.

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