UKC

Amanda Vestergaard explores the reasons behind the lack of women in route setting, and what could be done to increase the number of female route setters in our gyms and competitions.

Ever since I started climbing, I have felt surrounded by strong women. I was part of the generation that saw indoor climbing explode in popularity amongst both men and women, and grew up with idols such as Janja Garnbret, Shauna Coxsey, Sasha DiGiulian, Emily Harrington… the list goes on. So, when I started working as a route setter, the complete lack of female colleagues and role models to learn from came as a surprise.

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Short anecdote from the local lead wall: the chief route setter had put up a load of new routes and we had a great time trying for onsights and discussing the grading. One route I found outstandingly good, imaginatively set and mentally very challenging. I congratulated him on it and he told me that it was one of three routes set by a local female setter whom he‘d invited. 

Good luck to all women trying to get established in the setting world, we want more of that!

I'm all behind this, having climbed or attempted to climb problems set Holly Kilo Duce, formerly of The Arch in Bermondsey. As long as women aren't there to check the inclusivity box as some walls have done it can only bring greater diversity. There are so many good female climbers but I feel the pathway into setting is based on 'who's yer mate' and 'can you climb hard'? Are you in the club?

Climbing to a good standard is necessary, especially considering testing is a team effort. Many men can set well at grades they want to climb but are useless below F7A because they don't climb enough of those grades to create quality movement. I feel that we need more setters who bring an educational element to the line. Regardless to the grade, Holly would set problems that challenged the climber and made them think and importantly, return.

Nowhere near the standard of setting that these ladies are, but I have set routes for many years in the wall I worked in. I never found any barriers to me doing it, and all the experienced staff got trained to set ( it was a small staff team), so I did sometimes set with another woman. 

I used to find it amusing that men would often say my routes were reachy (I am teeny weeny), when actually I had a lot of balancy moves, high steps and rock overs. My routes favoured flexibility and core strength. 

Generally though, I think the customers liked having a range of route setters giving different styles of climbing to keep it varied. 

I don't live near a wall now, so no longer working there, sadly. I enjoyed it!

From my perspective as a male setter which would also translate to my female colleagues is the longer term setting game.

Can this be a career? Can I afford to make a living, potentially have and raise a family, buy a house, be covered if I sustain a serious injury on the job?

A fair few setters might view this as a transitory gig before moving on to something long term, but folks like me that want to stick with it need to know that I can earn an actual living from it without destroying myself in the process.

Good article, thank you. 

As a climber I don't inherently care about the gender of the setter as long as they genuinely do consider different climbers' body types (not just make it harder by making it reachier; also - which so often seems to go unnoticed - consider the fact that on a smaller body, holds from other routes, especially volumes, can actually really get in the way of the move). If more female setters can solve this, please do! 

Also agree with the comment (albeit not really about gender) that a lot of setters are bloody lazy when it comes to lower grades or top rope. Please do include more interesting moves, not just reach and haul, reach and haul... I have a widely popular local wall where I just know that at 5'3" the moves on 5s or 6as will be boring but they'll also be exhausting (and much harder than the intended grade) because they're just reach, reach, no creativity.

Having just been out cragging on a weekend designed to get more women into the alpine, and watching my female instructors experience sexism from other climbers on both days, at two different crags, to which as professionals they have no real right of reply, my serious respect goes out to women in the industry.

Really interesting particularly considering it's part of climbing I basically have no personal connection to, so hence know next to nothing about. 

Does anyone know where this stat: "In 2019, about one third of climbers in the UK were women, with numbers rising since then" comes from? Is that customers of climbing walls? Or all types of climbers?

Hi Toby, 

Thanks for your comment. The statistic comes from the 2019 BMC membership survey. So, as with all statistics, comes with some caveats : it includes all climbers, but is a sample based on climbers with BMC membership. This means that it is likely skewed towards outdoor climbers. Given that we generally see more women climbing in gyms than outdoors, the female to male ratio in gyms is likely to be higher than this.

All the best

Amanda

Most importantly routes need to be accessible to most climbers with varying body types.  That takes skill and creativity.  Getting precious about the gender of the route setter is somewhat woke and irrelevant. It is the talent and ability of the route setter which is most important. Men and women both can set amazing routes, and at my gym they do. 

As a climber I agree, I don’t care.  
As a general principle though lots of climbing walls are now large enough businesses that they should be a bit more professional in hiring than just setters recruiting their mates, particularly when they’re training people up. 

My local wall Ratho has jess as the head route setter,and in twenty  years climbing she by far the best setter I have come across. 

setting is an unfortunately hard profession to get into, somewhat gatekept...

Yeah, definitely agree. 

Quite surprised by these numbers. My sense as a predominantly trad climber is that the male/female ratio is much poorer than that. I'm often struck by how few women I see out trad climbing, it's not uncommon to be the only woman or to be massively outnumbered at the crag. Plus I rarely see obviously female usernames in the UKC logbooks (caveats obviously apply here about non-obviously female usernames and the greater tendency towards puerile ticking in menfolk...). Did you data have a trad/sport/bouldering gender split?

I've mainly been climbing in the Peak in the last few years. I've got a number of regular partners who are women so that might skew my impression somewhat (in that where ever I climb there is often a woman or women around!) but at crags popular with the easy to mid grade crew (like myself) be that Stanage or Horseshoe it's not actually that hard to believe at least a third of people out are female.

That would be Jess who was the only woman setter in the team for the World Cup at Ratho last year!

I feel as well that many of the guys that got into route setting is because they were part of the founders. And here I suppose the numbers are quite bad at representing the females.

But as there are more females in setting and since it's a mentorship the problem should be on the way out? If all of you take the effort of guiding the next generation of setters.

There are other trades I'd hope to see a better representation as well: development of boulders and sport routes. Here you don't even need to apply to anyone. Just go out and waste your time.

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If the stats came from BMC membership, that has a trad/mountaineering bias compared to the climbing population. Despite that, I'd agree with your general observations, and I'd suggest several possible explanations: the regularity or location of BMC member activities may have gender differences; you and I may climb more in less popular places for women; women are on average more responsible and so more likely to join the BMC with its access and conservation ethos (slightly increasing membership %). It's interesting though, so I'll ask if anyone in the BMC has looked in more detail at gender differences in regularity of activity/location.

I'd add that I've climbed on a couple of busy Peak crags during women's trad fest (not being part of it) where I may have been the only man.

WTF is less than once a year though... that's definitely not the same as being the minority (and often treated as such) for the rest of the 364 days. 

Would also be interested in the genuine stats on this. Not quite sure how to achieve that given the inherent biases in where you ask, mind. 

It's still a lovely thing.

Yes, I assumed that the BMC membership would have a trad/mountaineering bias, which is why I was surprised at the split. But as you say, I think crag  choice probably makes a big difference. My trad predilections lean more towards Yorkshire lime (which tbf hardly anyone climbs on, male or female!), Lancs quarries and mountains/sea cliffs Maybe I'd see more women if I climbed on Peak grit?

I've never been to the WTF but I was a host on the Women's International Meet back in 2016 and it was amazing. I found it really inspiring to meet and climb with some strong independent female climbers, whether that was the international wadettes, the Pinnies or the other hosts. And yeah, seeing crags covered in women was brilliant!