Quote Originally Posted by mountainringlet View Post
It's an issue now for plenty of people interested in XC and other races - you may have missed the debate about the LDMT trophies for example? Women running shorter distances perpetuates a (hopefully outdated) message that they're not as capable as men, as that's where different distances originate from. What equalising the distances would 'prove' is that the organisers don't believe this. It's an atavism that is straightforward to rectify and hopefully one day will look as archaic as women being excluded from full-length fell races.

If it's just a glorified parkrun, great, let's all run the same distance

No intelligent person now believes that women are incapable etc...and your need to " 'prove' that organisers don't believe this" by equalising distances is slightly off the point that the women's race is still the women's race - even if it were to be twice as long as the men's.

As to atavism: it is of course ironic that it was women, and not men, who determined the distances that women should run for XC since in the dim and distant past athletics was governed by two different organisations.