Parkrun and progressive misogyny

The 'fun run' that puts women in their place: last.

I need to start this post with a disclaimer - I bloody well hate running. I’ve tried, I really have. I live in the countryside, I work from home, I have a dog: running is an absolute no brainer for me in terms of free, accessible exercise. But, after several years of trying to make myself get into it, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I just can’t be bothered to pound my already knackered body across five kilometres of uneven ground three times a week. I’d rather read a book with a plate of cheese and crackers. I’m ok if this means my butt is a couple of inches bigger or I die a few years earlier. It’s a trade off I’ve made my peace with.

Nor do I like sport. Again I realise this may upset some of you but it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if all sport was cancelled for the forseeable. I don’t watch it, my family don’t watch it, and none of us play it. I just don’t get the concept of caring about who gets the most balls in a particular net or what colour shirt they are wearing. Fill your football boots but it’s not for me.

But do you know what really does light me up? Injustice. If I see something happening that’s obviously unfair, I put the book and the cheese down immediately and spring into action. And what’s happening to women’s sports is so patently, obviously unfair, that sometimes I have to pinch myself to check I’m not having a dystopian nightmare. There are two layers to the madness: firstly that male people are being allowed to play in women’s sports categories at all, and secondly, and even more mind-bogglingly, that people are actually going along with this and arguing that it’s ‘inclusive’ and right.

Here’s a prime example, shared on Monday by ITV’s breakfast show Good Morning Britain.

The person in the clip is Hailey Davidson, a trans identifying male who has taken one of only five places set aside for to provide ‘growth opportunities’ for women on a prestigious golf tour. And yet without even a moment’s hesitation, the male interviewer Noel Phillips - who has got to be at least a couple of dress seizes smaller than Davidson - asks, “Why do you think people have such a big problem with you competing in women's golf?".

Hmm, it’s a real head scratcher. We women with our objections are just baffling. “Injustice? What injustice? We see none”. “Why do you think people have such a big problem with you competing in women's golf?". Everything about the situation reeks of patriarchal power being protected at any cost. The fear of that power being damaged is clearly way more powerful to both Davidson and Phillips than the embarrassment of a blatant public lie.

Whenever I try to write or tweet about males like the golfer I am always tempted to offer a caveat about how hard it must be for such a person to feel such discomfort in their birth sex, and to try to live authentically in a world that is no doubt cruel to them at times. But then I remind myself that this person is happy to get out of bed every day and take women’s medals and prizes, their places in sporting competitions and on podiums, and their opportunities without a moment’s hesitation or apology. And my sympathy wanes. As a woman, I may have been socialised to ‘be kind’, but they have clearly been taught the opposite: a breathtaking level of self-centred entitlement. For a better world, it’s not me who needs to change.

I think it was the fabulous

Suzanne Moore

who coined the phrase, ‘progressive misogyny’. This is the wiliest and most dangerous backlash to women’s rights we have ever seen - a new state of affairs in which woman-hatred wears a mask of progress and inclusion and in doing so places itself not just above scrutiny, but right at the front of the queue for the woke cookies. Both male and females alike can wear this mask and wreak havoc on women’s rights whilst claiming to be ‘kind’ and ‘on the right side of history’. But really, they’re just reinforcing the patriarchal status quo, lining themselves up for a lifetime service award to male power.

This progressive misogyny comes alive in unlikely places, like ‘parkrun’. As an organisation, parkrun have decided to let runners choose their own ‘gender identity’ when they register. If you go to their registration form here, you will see that they not only allow runners to self-select, but that they also clearly conceptualise male and female not as ‘sexes’, but as ‘gender identities’.

Research from Policy Exchange has found that there are at least three parkrun ‘fastest woman’ records held by males. One of these three is a male who goes by the name of Lauren Jeska, currently serving 18 years for attempted murder - but their record as fastest female ever to run the Aberystwyth parkrun still stands and you can see it if you click here. And yes, before you ask, Jeska is serving his time in Folston Hall in Derbyshire, a women’s prison.

There are also apparently a further 18 women’s parkrun age group records held by men. Just a few weeks ago, in December 2023, a man in his fifties finished as ‘first female’ at parkrun. Males can also change their ‘gender identity’ to female at any time and thus retrospectively adjust all their previous parkrun records, pushing women down from the higher places they had already achieved.

But when women raise questions about the clear unfairness of parkrun, they are repeatedly told, “It’s just a fun run!”. Here’s one of their volunteer Run Directors in a now deleted tweet - and his comment reflects dozens of others, for more examples see some of the replies here.

But if it’s a ‘fun run’, and therefore ‘unimportant’, why have categories at all? Why have a start line and a finish line? Why keep track of the fastest runners on a record table? It’s tempting to get caught up in this argument. But scratch a little deeper and you’ll find it’s nothing to do with the ‘fun’ aspect of parkrun. In this recent tweet, Graham reveals he doesn’t care much about female only categories in the Olympics either:

And it’s not just Graham or indeed men whose argument that ‘it’s not a race’ so women should just give up on any ambitions they may have to make the leaderboard, is hiding something darker. Hannah Kitching is a Lib Dem councillor and also uses the ‘fun run’ argument. But again, scratch a little deeper and she’ll tell you that anyone who is fighting for female only categories in any sport (including the legend that is Martina Navratilova!) is ‘disgusting’.

Hannah gets to call women ‘disgusting’ in a public forum because she’s wearing the mask of progress and inclusivity. And don’t get too fixated on her because she’s a dime a dozen. Today’s example has got to be Guardian journalist Zoe Williams, who, after Professor Jo Phoenix had spoken on Woman’s Hour about how being bullied by her Open University colleagues for her gender critical views was reminiscent of her rape trauma, tweeted that the interview was evidence of BBC bias. (This in spite of the fact that Woman’s Hour is notorious for ignoring the voices and stories of GC feminists). Williams was retweeted by Billy Bragg, of course, the King of Progressive Misogyny himself.

Parkrun founder Russ Jefferys has been challenged about the impact of their current policy of ‘gender self ID’ on women but guess what, he’s another one who seems to care more about protecting male power than he does about enhancing women’s opportunities. He says parkrun ‘champion inclusion’ and he has ‘absolute confidence’ in their policy.

Inclusivity is supposed to be about making the world fairer and more accessible for those with less advantage. It is obvious even to a child that allowing men - who are on average bigger and stronger and faster - into the women’s category of any sport is the antithesis of ‘inclusive’. But taking their direction from the top, parkrun is now actively suppressing any protest to their self ID policy. One woman, who wishes to remain anonymous but tweets as No to Unfair Self ID, told me more about this top down policy of silencing dissent at parkrun.

“Russ Jeffery’s tweet set the culture for parkrun of not just not listening to women’s concerns, but the silencing of them as well.

At one parkrun, women from Manchester Women’s Rights Network wore tops saying “Save Women’s Parkrun”.  Unbelievably the official parkrun photos had the logo scribbled out - but a male running with a defund the BBC protest sign was allowed.

With still no reply from parkrun to the letters I and my friends had sent to them and also finding out that parkrun gets £7m of taxpayers money via Sport England, part of which is specifically to encourage women and girls to get active, I felt I had to find a way to be heard.

I tried to change my parkrun name but the system only allows you to change your gender, so I had to create a new registration as No To UNFAIR SELF ID.  The last time I ran as ‘No To’ was at a very quiet parkrun between Christmas and New Year and so I managed to come 4th overall, was the 1st Female finisher and broke the course record for my age group.

My results and registration were deleted by parkrun HQ within hours and now appear as “Unknown”.  I have been deleted from the first finisher list and my record has been erased.

I managed to run four times as ‘No To’ and keep the results before I received an email from Joanne Sinton-Hewitt , wife of the parkrun founder and Head of parkrun Support, giving me an ultimatum to change my name within the week or have my account deleted.  

Despite my sending several more emails explaining the unfair impact of the parkrun policy and asking what rules I had broken, I received only one reply saying they would be sorry to lose me.  All my results and record have now been deleted and I can no longer access my registration.     

Personally, two of my local parkrun female records are held by a male, in times that are so fast, it’s going to be difficult to ever get them back in female hands. This doesn’t feel like an inclusive health charity to me.”

When a woman’s record is removed because she is protesting unfair treatment but a man convicted of attempted murder’s record is allowed to stand, we cannot come to any other conclusion than that parkrun has a woman problem. The new misogyny of gender has enabled their supporters to unapologetically put women’s rights in last place and revel in calling us bigots when we object. As someone who hates running and can’t be bothered with sport, I don’t really think results and timings and leaderboards matter either. So I wonder why parkrun doesn’t just get rid of them? If it’s just for fun, then ditch the start line and the finish line and the stopwatch, and let everyone just move their body with none of the elements of a sporting contest? If their aim truly is inclusivity, then why not? Otherwise it just looks like they’re determined to gaslight and insult women in order to prioritise males at any cost. Surely that would never happen.

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Take action!

Watch this short film from the Women’s Rights Network about parkrun and then download their open letter and send it to Russ Jefferys.

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I’ll see some of you tomorrow at my new writing group, Writing for Change. You’ll get an email tomorrow morning with the zoom link. Be sure to subscribe by then if you’re planning to come! Milli x