Pictures can help people to capture a glimpse of how society once operated. The picture of Kathrine Switzer, running in the Boston Marathon of 1967, represents an action of bravery that changed the history of marathon running in the United States. At the time of the event, Kathrine was a 20 year old journalism student at Syracuse University and unofficially a part of her school’s cross country team. (foot) Known for being the first woman who officially entered and ran in the event, Kathrine challenged the tradition of an all male marathon to prove that women are capable of running long distances(foot). The photo of Kathrine Switzer can be analyzed using the social sciences. Anthropology A picture can display events that explain the culture of a particular time period. In …show more content…
For 70 years, running in the Boston Marathon was an all male event.(foot) This is influenced by the ideology that women are unable to run long distances because they are weak, their legs will get bigger, and their uterus was going to fall out. (foot) These stereotypes gave Kathrine a reason to train and enter the Boston Marathon to prove to men that women are just as capable of running long distances as men are. A few miles into the run, Jock Semple, a marathon official, noticed a female running in the marathon and chased down Switzer; attempting to take away her official race number. (foot) However, Kathrine continued to run the race and finished with a time of four hours and twenty minutes. (foot) An anthropological school of thought that relates to this photo is Cultural