rojo wrote:
The reason why only did Steven is mainly because he was the only one impacted by the BAA's decision to separate the elites from the masses. We've been focused on the 2 minute start controversy.
Did LetsRun similarly focus on the sub-elite women who were missing out on their chance to compete with the elites when a women's start was added 15 years ago, and write similar articles about the "open women's champion" any time during the last 15 when you had that opportunity?
rojo wrote:
But if you want to get technical, Steven won the whole corral 1 start. If say Paula Radcliffe in her prime had started in Wave 1 and won the whole thing, we would have written about her as well.
"But if you want to get technical. . ." isn't really a compelling argument. Yes, the fastest men are faster than the fastest women. I and everyone get that. But technical arguments like this hold no water in a society like ours where we've decided women's marathon achievements are equally as impressive and important as men's (and you say you agree that the women "deserve the same attention as the men" in the next paragraph).
rojo wrote:
Look, you say they deserve the same attention as the men. We 100% agree but you can't treat both sexes exactly the same if you are going to give the women a 28 minute head start. That's just reality. The only reason why we have these problems that you are complaining about is because women are biologically slower than men and people were upset it was hard to cover the women's race when everyone started together. So women were given a hard start.
No one (that I've seen) is saying we should "treat both sexes exactly the same." Treating different groups "equally" is frequently not the same thing as "exactly the same." It makes equality a challenging and elusive goal, but that doesn't make it any less worth pursuing. I think we agree on this, too, because it's clearly treating the women "equally" and not "giving them a crazy advantage" to give them an early start that allows for better media coverage and exposure, and that's something that you accept as a positive (right?).
I also don't accept that "The only reason why we have these problems that you are complaining about is because women are biologically slower than men." While that causes us to have to think more complexly about how to treat different groups equally, I would argue that the primary contributing factor to "why we have these problems" is that, when the systems that cause these problems (and that we are still correcting) were built, gender equality frequently wasn't thought about at all (and, if was at all, certainly not enough) and the systems were built in ways that systemically advantaged males. (And this isn't a problem that's specific to just the B.A.A., or even running.)
rojo wrote:
Women deserve the same attention as the men? We agree. They certainly get that. They get 28 minutes of uninterrupted coverage that the men don't get at the start of the race. Once the women's race ended - there always are replays, interviews. Even on NBC gold which doesn't have commercials, that took up a bunch of time and they didn't go back to the men's race until 8 minutes were left in it. So the women get 28 minutes of uninterrupted coverage at the start and the men get 8 at the end. My god the men are being shafted.
I don't know that women "certainly get" the same attention as men. I don't know that they get more, I don't know that they get less. I think that a multi-year study on broadcast screen time across major American races with separate women's starts would be a good piece of data to have in that discussion. (I also think studies of women's runners media mentions versus men's, contract sizes versus men's, and appearance fees versus men's would be interesting.) I truly don't know where this data would lead this discussion, and I would be interested to see it. But I do know that this cherry-picked set of times that refers only to specific time windows during a single Boston Marathon broadcast. . . isn't that.
rojo wrote:
If you are looking to be a victim, it's easy to find something to complain about.
Any amount of reflection on the position that LetsRun has chosen to stake out on this issue would have led a more self-aware person not to say this.
Also, let's be clear, I don't think 2:20-2:24-ish guys who wanted to be in the elite start and weren't this year were wrong to complain, or "looking to be a victim" (a judgment that you seem to be willing to pass on people fighting for equal treatment of women in our sport). But I do think that the complaints of 5-20 guys in a field of 30,000 have been amplified so much by platforms like LetsRun (and not only LR--RunnersWorld.com wrote a similar article on the men's mass start winner and not the women's) is a sign that they have a position of privilege that gets their concerns taken more seriously than those of sub-elite women.
rojo wrote:
Or I could have just saved myself a bunch of time and written what NotThatHardToUnderstand wrote.
NotThatHardToUnderstand wrote:
The BAA made a bad decision so LetsRun reached out and interviewed someone negatively affected by that decision. You're welcome to ignore it if you don't care.
I don't accept that the BAA made a bad decision on this issue (although I do have, from my outsider's perspective, some quibbles with how they handled some aspects of it), but I do care that LetsRun, one of the major and most influential outlets covering our sport, is pushing what I think is (intentionally or not) a biased angle that comes from a position of privilege on this story. So I chose to read the article and reply expressing my different view.
rojo wrote:
PS. The one grievance that I think is somewhat legitimate that people don't complain about - is how poorly the African runners are covered. I'm serious. I heard them on NBCSN say they didn't even talk about Cherono in the broadcast until the very end. Is that true?
Maybe talk about that.
While "how poorly the African runners are covered" is absolutely an issue, that doesn't solve the gender inequality issue and throwing that in here is classic whataboutism. (I will note, though, that I do recall LetsRun attempts to do its part to rectify the poor-coverage-of-Africans issue on multiple occasions, writing profiles and using their megaphone to tell their stories. That's appreciated, but doesn't change the fact that they're off the mark here, though.)
On the bright side, there's a simple thing you and LetsRun can do, rojo, to help this situation; write about Mia Behm, the first woman to cross the finish line from the mass start, with the same attention as you did the first male mass start finisher. She's a strong runner and a UT-Austin alum; you guys will think she's great. This wouldn't "solve" gender equality (that's outside of even LetsRun's considerable powers), or even solve the gender gap in coverage of this issue, but it's something you can and should do.