UKC

Women's Equality in ClimbingVideo

© REI

Earlier this year the REI Co-op (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) commissioned a nationwide study in the US on women in the outdoors. They found that 85% of women surveyed believed the outdoors positively affects mental health and overall well-being. However, there were various obstacles in their findings; 63% of women said they could not think of an outdoor female role model and 6 in 10 women say that men’s interests in outdoor activities are taken more seriously than women’s.

This documentary challenges some of the stereotypes women experience whilst climbing and examines the reasons for conducting the study.


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9 May, 2017
It's always going to be difficult to get equal representation in outdoor news and media because the majority on news is focused around hardest, fastest, biggest etc. Which is understandable since pushing the boundaries of a sport does generate a lot of excitement and interest. Unfortunately first ascents/absolute fastest times are always going to get a bit more kudos than first female assents/fastest female and through both biology and proportional representation in sport, men do tend to get the vast majority of hard first ascents/fastest times/whatever metric your particular outdoor pursuit is measured in. This kind of article does seem to give the impression that women can only be inspired by a female role model though, which I'm sure is not true. There are plenty of female athletes who I find inspiring (Shauna, Ashima, Nicky Spinks to name a few) and I'm sure many women find inspiration from male role models. Why does a role model have to be the same gender as you?
9 May, 2017
I agree totally with Lee's post above but would also like to hear people's comments in relation to the UK climbing scene. My personal viewpoint, as a weak male punter, is that climbing is a pretty inclusive sport/pastime, regardless of age, gender or ability. At the high end, there are all sorts of role models doing all sorts of different things and many of them are not "typical athletes" - Kev Shields, for example? In the mid-grades, climbing is a pretty level playing field between males/females - individuals may have their strengths/weaknesses but I would expect it to balance out to commitment/experience overall. I know it can get a bit more "tops off" at the tougher end of the scale/bouldering, but I don't think this is reflective of the majority. This just leaves the social/sexual dynamic, which is more difficult to quantify but I would still be surprised to hear that UK climbing clubs/walls/crags are terrible places for females to hang out. I'm confident that the women I climb with are far more concerned about the weather we're likely to encounter at the crag rather than the possibility of bumping into a sexist pig! ;) Just my 2 cents worth but happy to consider I may have my blinkers on. J
9 May, 2017
That is a very interesting observation and shows some form of slight sexism in itself.
9 May, 2017
You're right, role models if you're going to have them can be of either sex, I can see while a woman might relate more to a female role model in very narrow ways but in the broader perspective of climbing and overall attitude to life I don't think there is any requirement for them to be gender specific. Personally I don't have any climbing role models, I don't feel the need to try and emulate the climbing or lifestyle of any well known climbers, male or female. I simply go about my climbing and my life in my own way, it is maybe not perfect, it is maybe not going to lead me to the maximum possible performance but it gives me fulfillment and fits within my broader life. As for > "6 in 10 women say that men’s interests in outdoor activities are taken more seriously than women’s." I don't really know what this means, presumably if men and women's interests in outdoor actives were taken exactly as seriously as each other then if you asked a lot of people who's is the more serious then you'd expect about a 50-50% split. So okay, there is a 10% leaning towards men's interests here which I wouldn't really consider much of an issue when you consider men in general do take their recreational activities (outdoor or not) much more seriously than women. By which I mean tend to focus more on performance than simply using it as a social or fun activity. Straying a bit from the video now I think people need to look at this supposed sexual inequality in climbing and ask is it not largely just insecurity about being in a climbing wall full of people where you're abilities put you quite low down on the ability scale? In any sport, you get natural hierarchy's which form based on ability because naturally you're going to want to train with people of a similar ability to your own so people split off into groups. In a climbing / bouldering wall situation, anyone, male or female operating at a low level can feel intimidated by those around them. Better climbers might for example see you struggling and offer advise (beta) for your problem because they can see where you're going wrong. Or someone might walk over and casually flash your project as part of their warm up etc. This could sometimes feel intimidating or whatever if it happens a lot, that is understandable. Now women, on average operate at much lower grades than men do, either because performance isn't their main focus or due to physical limitations so women are more often going to find themselves in this lower band within the climbing walls scene. So I'd ask women to consider if when they feel they have experienced discrimination in a climbing wall, if it's really sexual or is it just ability based? I climb with and/or alongside a few quite to very high performing female climbers on a regular basis and I've never noticed condescending behavior from other men towards them in a climbing environment. I suspect a large part of that is that they are crushing harder than a lot of the guys (or girls) in the room at any given time.
9 May, 2017
Is there a UK equivalent to this group http://blog.rei.com/climb/brothers-of-climbing/ ? Always bothered me that even when I lived in London 5 years ago the wall was full of white people, total lack of diversity.
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