Women-only races promote gender discrimination

Many women want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to be able to run in women-only races and ban men. Yet they also want to run in co-ed races when they feel like it.

These women-only races, such as the Tinkerbell Runs, Nike Women's Marathon and Diva Runs, are all the rage and are growing by leaps and bounds.

Many of these races even say in the rules that there will be no age-group awards for male participants.

But do they charge men less to enter because they don't receive all of the race benefits? No.

Men pay the same registration fees yet are treated as second-class citizens.

Imagine the public outcry and uproar if some men wanted to have a men's only race.  NOW (National Organization of Women) and every other women's rights group would be up in arms.

But it's OK if women want women-only races because it's a sisterhood thing. I think not.

Discrimination is disrimination, plain and simple.

If we allow this gender-based discrimination to occur in road races, what next?

Why do cities that issue parade and other permits to these race organizers allow this type of discrimination?

If women want to continue with these female-themed races, fine, let them. But they need to make the rules the same for both genders.

The simple solution is to create men's categories the same as women's.

If women can earn medals three deep in 10-year age groups, then men should be able to, also.