Paula Radcliffe's 2:17:18 is about 9.29% slower than Kannouchi's men's WR. If she could run that same 9.29% slower than the men's WR at other distances, she would run roughly an 8:01 3000m, a 13:50 5000m, and a 28:50 10000m (those times should be accurate within a few seconds; I couldn't be bothered calculating for shorter distances). Obviously these times are significantly better than the actual current WR's for women (Chinese times included), so I am left pondering several possibilities:
A. The men's marathon WR is relatively soft.
B. Radcliffe's run in Chicago is by far the best distance-running world record, men included.
C. The other women's distance WR's are soft and only the marathon is where it should be.
D. Radcliffe is a one-of-a-kind talent and should not be used in statistical comparisons.
E. There is something to the claim that women are better-suited to marathon and longer distances than men, relatively.
I imagine all of these play a factor, but personally I think she's ahead of her time; she didn't think in terms of hopefully getting close to the old record, but rather thought about what she had the potential to run and trained towards that, not worrying about the fact that her potential time would make the old record look a bit silly. I think she deserves full respect for having the best current distance record out there, men or women.