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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 26, 2015 - 01:21am PT
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I decided Ed will probably succumb to the charms of Cat like so many others here have, give her a pass on her naïveté, and passively support her in the form of a lack of statistics to prove my point.
got tied up in work... sorry...
but I have met Cat (at the gym) and I've seen her outside (I believe)....
and I've met you too Kevin...
certainly true that the two of you have unequal charms...
no pass on stats... but wait until tomorrow (at the earliest)
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Gary
Social climber
Hell is empty and all the devils are here
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Aug 26, 2015 - 05:25am PT
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Of course, Gary, there are more areas than Yosemite, I just happened to get stuck there for a few years, and had an old guidebook to reference. I did see Ellen Wilts' name on one or two routes in the Green Roper Guide.
I don't think its a whole lot different elsewhere,
Well, you might see Ellen Wilts and Barbara Lilley mentioned on some first ascents in the Canadian Rockies. That's adventure climbing, no? More adventurous than roadside climbing in Yosemite Valley.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 26, 2015 - 07:06am PT
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Just wanted to take a break to salute the awesome climbing work of Jan Conn. She's badass and her badassery started a LONG time ago!!
And don't forget Joanne Urioste. She's still killing it and has passed it on to her daughter.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 26, 2015 - 07:07am PT
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^ Indeed! She was just in town too and still crushing!
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 26, 2015 - 07:19am PT
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Why is that?
You're completely and absolutely wrong and have been 0wned by your own run a way mind.
Women are the only First Ascentionists period.
Men can't do sh!t without them.
They give birth, ..... so that you can spout your illusions here ........
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viv.r.e
climber
Sacramento
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Aug 26, 2015 - 08:37am PT
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was not actually trolling Kevin in particular in my last post. He is right that women don't do as many first ascents as guys. That is a fact, obviously. WHY not, is the question that you guys can argue about. Personally I would disagree with the claim that women made the modern climbers more tame.
You're right, trolling is the wrong word, sorry about that V. It's more like you were calling him out for being "surprised," which I appreciated :)
WHY, is a question that's been beaten to death. I guess besides the list of things I can agree on with Kevin, there's also the list of things Kevin and I could agree to disagree on, but this is also in the rehash territory:
1.I'm always going to think that culture had a much larger influence on the number of women climbers pushing the edge in that period than innate biology.
2. I'm never going to agree with the original thesis that pulled me into this thread. Women making climbing more tame is still like claiming per capita cheese consumption is causing more deaths due to getting tangled up in bedsheets. Also, the reason I was curious about the first FA/FFA number, was to get at the question of is climbing getting more tame? If that number is steady, then maybe not. Also, going back to Ed's earlier post--if people are doing less FA/FFAs, it's probably more to do with amount of easily accessible FA/FFAs, not the number of women in climbing.
Also, does having women around make guys more or less likely to do stoopid sh!T?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifptOxN3gdI
WHEN BURT BRONSON SAYS SORRY YOU GRATEFUL REST OF LIFE. WHY WOMAN NO BRING COFFEE YET?????
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 26, 2015 - 08:38am PT
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Guys (at least of the teenage variety) apparently want to get laid less than their parents, probably because they are all too busy dogging up their bedwetter gym bolted sport projects to care. Here is a graph.
I liked el cap ' s post on low testosterone levels. A logical explanation.
Seriously though, what has changed over time is the gender roles in society. United States at least. Especially when it comes down to choice of a career and priority. Women, on average, are a lot more independent and a lot more goal oriented than 30-50 years ago. While dropping out of college to raise kids, modern day women are way more likely to stick around work/career. Equality and independence go hand in hand IMO. Modern day women are a lot more independent than before.
As far as climbing and FAs...Rock climbing and alpinism, were looked as dangerous activities. On average it was just socially uncommon for females to participate in risky activities and many people today believe it is not a lady like activity to risk death riding bulls, joining the army or...climbing big mountains. I am fairly sure less women received the medal of honor too. Not because they can't or are inferior in some way, but because we are different physiologically, have hormonal differences and for the most part we are raised differently and value different things.
Gym climbing removed the risk out of climbing. It allowed the general public to step in the door. Some realize they could go outdoors and climb. Some move on to bouldering, sport or trad. The risk involved in doing long FAs deep in the backcountry is still there and we will continue to see less women than men participating in that sort of climbing, even though the number of women who find this sort of thing did rise and will rise in the future. Maybe they will have no low hanging fruit to cherry pick like 40 years ago, but there will always be sh#t to climb for those who are willing to think outside the box. The number will still lower in comparison due to the hormonal, physiological and social norms, not because women are inferior or less independent. Nature and nurture...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 26, 2015 - 09:09am PT
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It's a spurious correlation.
Not quite sure how someone cannot see that it's the bolts which emasculated 'climbing'.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 26, 2015 - 09:36am PT
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But burchey...nothing matters...
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 26, 2015 - 09:45am PT
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Kevin, I don't have a Ten Sleep guidebook to check how many, but the obvious exception to the trend of women not developing routes/doing FAs is Alli Raney. Not sure if it's come up in this thread already or not.
Is a sport crag. Doesn’t really relate to adventure climbing, which was what Kevin touched on, in his initial statement. Putting up sport routes could be as easy and simple as putting up climbs at the gym. Of course it depends on the style and the character...but for the most part, it is not as risky as climbing a 2000 ft new route 15 miles from the closest road, out of cell reception and without any humans in sight for miles. BTW, how many female route setters are there in Planet Granite? 0? Why are there so many females operating the front desk but not setting routes?
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Mike Friedrichs
Sport climber
City of Salt
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Aug 26, 2015 - 09:51am PT
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But if they want to show that female climbers are as adventurous as men, ON AVERAGE, or more so, then show me something, anything that proves that.
You aren't going to provide evidence to support that or refute that from a list of first ascents. You've got a denominator problem. Most first ascents were done by White people because most of the climbers at the time were White people. It doesn't prove or disprove one's proclivity for adventure.
It was, and still is a sexist world. Women still make .70 on the dollar. There were fewer women climbers in the 1970's because they were expected to have babies, raise families, take care of the men, all without compensation. No time for recreation. It's patently unfair to judge their "adventurousness" based on an activity they didn't even have much time to do.
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Daphne
Trad climber
Northern California
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:25am PT
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^^^Wait, you've been in the gym?
I keep trying to leave this thread and it just keeps sucking me back in! Going climbing this weekend though. But no first ascents planned.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:29am PT
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The girls I've seen in the gym the last five years don't seem to fit your oppressed stereotype, especially the no time for recreation baby making part.
Let's say we agree about the cultural expectations and limitations that applied to the previous generation. Then--do you really think it's possible to have a complete cultural turnaround in one generation??
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Mike Friedrichs
Sport climber
City of Salt
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:34am PT
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Since the ratio of men to women climbers seems much more equitable now than in the 1970's, 1980's that seems like a more fair comparison.
Interestingly, the people I see in my gym are the same people I see every weekend at the crags and many are like me...not exactly young.
It may be that younger people are more "adventurous." I've observed that older climbers seem to take less risks once they have had a few serious injuries, or at least realize that they are not indestructible.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:34am PT
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Also have you been to Wyoming man? Ten Sleep is like more in the middle no nowhere than SEKI :)
Yes. The approaches are shorter and the runouts are usually no longer than 3 ft.
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Matt's
climber
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:47am PT
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http://alpinist.com/doc/web15x/wfeature-smith-kadatz-free-climbing-in-baffin-island
gender equality is such a difficult subject. I think that everyone agrees men and woman are different (biologically), and that men and women should have the same opportunities.
The problem is that it is very hard to disambiguate between innate differences between the sexes and discrimination.
As a society, we have essentially given up trying to do this-- we just assume deviations from equal gender participation (etc...) are the result of (or a legacy of) discrimination.
Vitaliy-- yes, planet granite has almost no female route-setters. It is pretty much all young white dudes. Also notably absent are older people, non-white people, etc...
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 26, 2015 - 10:56am PT
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No, I'm saying that sort of shift takes longer than one generation, so the gap likely will not be entirely made up in this generation. I would expect an increase in the the number of women doing FAs or adventure climbing, but not an increase so large that it makes up the gap.
Taking part in an activity where your group (gender, race, age, whatever) is underrepresented presents an interesting set of challenges and pressures. Whether it's actually the case or not, it's easy to feel that you're some sort of ambassador responsible for the reputation of your group. That's a lot of pressure, a pressure that the majority group does not feel. It somehow doesn't feel acceptable to be in the minority and be just middling at the activity--if you're going to be breaking boundaries, you better be exceptional, or no one will ever take you seriously, instead you'll just be another example of how whatever minority you're part of "can't" do the activity in question. (When in reality, you're just about the same as the average member of the majority...) I think this pressure can drive even very motivated people away from activities that they would really love.
Some examples: a dude who wants to be a tap dancer, a person from a racial minority trying to break into STEM fields, a white teenager trying to rap, an overweight person training to run marathons, the list is endless.
To elaborate on what I mean, I'll take one of the more benign scenarios:
There are countless teenagers that think they can rap. Most of them are terrible. If it's a black teenager that's terrible at rapping, he's just a bad rapper. If it's a white teenager, it's because "white people can't rap."
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 26, 2015 - 11:01am PT
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Great article Matt has posted. If genders were treated equally it would not have been noted in the Alpinist that guys repeated a route of that length/difficulty. Routes that had a first and a first free ascent in the past. First Female Ascent would be an interesting independent topic...
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Daphne
Trad climber
Northern California
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Aug 26, 2015 - 11:07am PT
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Cool, Warbler. To each their own. I will always disagree that women are to blame for initiating the changes you see in climbing.
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