Running of the cows?

Women demand cow runs to balance Spain's San Fermin bull festival

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:53 a.m. CT July 10, 2007

MADRID, Spain - A group of women wants equality in Pamplona's San Fermin bull running festival — they are demanding cow runs.

"If the boys run ahead of the bulls, we (women) have to run with the cows. It's pure logic," said a tongue-in-cheek petition on a Spanish student Web site, www.estudiln.net.

The Web site said the initiative had received dozens of messages of support in recent days.

The anonymous group asked people to pass along the "Cows Want to Run" message to friends through their cell phones.

"Cows, like bulls have four legs too, and a natural instinct to run," the statement said.

No one at the Web site or at Pamplona town hall was immediately available for comment Tuesday.

The highlight of the San Fermin festival, which began June 29 and ends Saturday, are the 8 a.m. runs in which people test their mettle, stamina and daring by racing with six bulls along a 875-yard route from a corral to the city bullring. The bulls are fought by professional bullfighters each afternoon.

While most participants are men, a number of women also take part in the runs.

The festival in this northern town, renowned for its all-night street parties, dates back to the late 16th century. It gained worldwide fame in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."

Since records began in 1924, 13 people have been killed in the runs. The last person killed was a 22-year-old American who was gored in 1995.

"A cow-run would fill a fundamental void: what do we women do at 8 in the morning when the boys are risking their lives?" the manifesto asked. "A little exercise after so much alcohol and food would do us no harm."

It said the introduction of a cow-run "would make our festival greater and place Pamplona at the vanguard of traditional fiestas with total equality between males and females, men and women."

© 2007 The Associated Press

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