parkrun is encouraging as many women and girls as possible to come along to one of their free, timed 5K events across the world this Saturday (5 March).

The campaign is part of the organisation’s celebration of International Women’s Day (Tuesday, March 8) – a global day of observance celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, first marked in 1911.

In encouraging women and girls to take part on Saturday – as runners, walkers, volunteers or spectators – parkrun acknowledges that too many of them face very real barriers to taking part in physical activity. ‘From the fear of walking or running in public, of coming alone, to feeling nervous about what to do on arrival, or worrying about coming last’, many women who would otherwise love to join in feel unable to do so. 

Parkrun’s inclusive nature – with everyone welcome regardless of gender, race, experience, wealth or ability – aims to reduce some of those barriers.

But there is still a long way to go. Parkrun’s own research shows that while women outnumber men in terms of registering for parkrun in the UK (53% to 47%), the percentage of female runners on any given Saturday drops to 44%. The same pattern is repeated across all the parkrun territories. Despite women being around 51% of the population, men take part in parkruns more often than women, with a ratio of 56:44. A similar pattern emerges with volunteering: while women carried out 53% of volunteering last year, only 48% of run and event directors are female.

Parkrun is working hard to understand what stops some women from taking part or taking on more active volunteer positions – but individual parkrunners have their role to play in breaking down barriers too. 

In an email sent out last week, parkrun UK asked all their runners to ‘tell their friends, bring their family, call their neighbours and encourage them to come along and take part in whatever way suits them’ this Saturday – as well as to forward the email to all their female friends. We certainly hope they do! 

Image: parkrun uk