Women in Climbing… have women fallen behind?
Cross Posted & Edited from B3Bouldering
In 1994 Lynn Hill free climbed The Nose on El Capitan in a day, a stunning feat that is clearly one of the greatest achievements in rock climbing history. Not only did she climb the first ascent of one of the hardest routes in America at the time, (it went unrepeated for 10 years and that was only after a 261 day seige!), it was arguably the best route, on the most prominent rock climbing feature in the world. On top of that, she did this in a completely male dominated sport and built the road for the future of free climbing big walls, one day ascents of such walls, and women climbing hard around the world. Few ascents could claim to have such an impact.
But where has that left women’s climbing today?
In America, 2008 was a pretty good year for women’s bouldering, in terms of difficulty.
Lisa Rands made an awesome ascent of the Mandala V12 in Bishop.
Angie Payne climbed European Human Being V12, in RMNP, Alex Johnson climbed Clear Blue Skies V11/12 at Mt. Evans, and Alex Puccio did CBS, The Marble V11 or V12, and most impressively Trice V12 on Flagstaff Mtn.
This year Puccio added The Gentleman’s Project V11, The Maze of Death V12, and several other V11s to her ticklist.
During the same two years the top men flashed several V13s (including a V14) and established problems up to V15, one of which is 25ft tall. It would be hard to argue that the gap hasn’t grown. Have women fallen behind, or is this gap appropriate? Should there be any gap?
While Ms. Hill’s ascent was not a bouldering ascent, it was a significant advancement in climbing, and in some way addresses two key issues. First, the idea that women can climb at the same level or higher in terms of pure difficulty, and secondly that women can do important and classic first ascents.
Perhaps twenty years ago the top women of today would have been climbing stronger than the strongest men. If one were to look at the total number of hours men have spent climbing, it would far out number the total number of hours that women have spent climbing (simply due to the fact that there are far more men than women in our sport) and is this the gap that is reflected? Often times when such a debate arises, the fact the men and women have different bodies is used as the reason for the difference. There seem to be climbs that favor a smaller climber, like Chablanke in Hueco Tanks and Clear Blue Skies at Mt. Evans, but those are the exception. More often than not climbs established by taller climbers will favor taller climbers, and most of the climbs established are put up by taller climbers. Perhaps The Nose just happen to fit into the exception, an excuse many men used when they failed to repeat Hill’s route. Do men have a psychological advantage simply because as a group they have more practice and have had the opportunity to push the bar farther? Should we even be comparing the differences between men and women? Perhaps it is the lack of an objective standard that blurs this line, unlike swimming, or track and field.
Angie Payne trying hard in Fontainebleau
The second issue is that of women actually going out and doing first ascents. Women have done very little development in modern bouldering, more specifically of individual problems, let alone finding and developing whole areas, as Fred Nicole and Dave Graham have. A situation where a guy steps aside so a girl can do a first ascent does nothing to push forwardly. Women are not the ones hiking to the boulders with rope, harness and wire brush to clean and climb the newest boulders. This is one obvious niche that has yet to be filled in the growth of our sport. The argument could be made that only a small percentage of the total number of men that climb develop new problems, and if more females did climb, the number of female developers would increase. Conversely, almost no women have done any significant first ascents of classic problems at the best climbing areas. Are men acting selfish, territorial, and egotistical, and do these generalized traits lead to development? This is a complex issue but one that is rarely addressed. The intention of this post is to be honest, and to generate some discussion as to why women haven’t made more significant contributions to our sport (bouldering) as Lynn Hill demonstrated could be done with her sport (traditional climbing) almost 20 years ago. I for one would love to see them do so.
7 Responses So Far
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My perspective comes from climbing in the latter 90′s and then taking an eight year break to find that the sport of rock climbing had dramatically changed. When I left climbing to pursue school and children the top female names that stuck out in my mind were Lynn Hill, Tiffany Levine (Campbell), and Bobbi Bensman. I had just broken into climbing 5.13a sport routes which had actually gotten me free shoes from a prominent shoe company. Imagine that now!? When I first attempted a route in American Fork Canyon called Dead Soles (13d/14a) out of pure curiosity, I was ostracized by many men for even thinking of attempting it. Actually sending that route ten years later was hardly even mentionable. So from my point of view, I believe the bar has been dramatically raised for women climbers. I also feel that it is growing at an exponential pace. I find it a bit trivial to divide up climbs as if they are more female or male friendly. Just because this sport has a variety of variables that can lend difficulty to a climber or favor a climbers strength, does not suddenly even the playing field for men and women. On rare occasions such as Lynn Hills free ascent of The Nose, we women will shine amongst the greater climbing community, and maybe even make a few of our male counterparts a little insecure. On a whole, I do believe that it is natural to have a “gap” amongst male and female climbers, and find nothing wrong with this. I wonder who is more concerned with this topic anyways? Is it women screaming for equality, or men who hate being out climbed by women? Just a thought.
February 25th, 2010 at 8:34 pmthis is a very well-written post that i believe jamie worked hard on. do you think it might be more appropriate to post it as a link to his blog instead of reposting it to your site? he works hard on his blog and it seems that he deserves the traffic for such a thoughtful article. i see that you did at least give him credit, but shouldn’t you do more to encourage people to visit his site? just a thought…..
February 25th, 2010 at 11:21 pmTo whom it may concern,
I don’t mind if you post a link to my original post, but copying and pasting my post and then putting it on your site, without bothering to ask, is a little tactless. My contact information is clearly labeled at the top of my blog. Please remember that all of the information on my site is copyrighted.
Jacinda, thanks for your response. I would encourage you to see what other female climbers had to say, check out the original post here http://www.b3bouldering.com, with several excellent comments. I would also encourage you to repost your comment there, as it is very appropriate to the discussion. I think Prana’s re-edit gave the post more of an anti-female sentiment, when nothing could be further from the truth on my end.
Finally, as I think Hill’s ascent of The Nose was the greatest achievement in climbing history, and as I wrote in the last sentence, I would love to see women really push the limits. As Angie would tell you, there were many days when she out climbed me, and I was cheering for her to do it more.
February 25th, 2010 at 11:46 pmHey Jaime,
We apologize if our promotion of your article was in some way offensive to you. We often cross-post articles in hopes of providing exposure to great information and causes. Although re-posting of articles is common across the web, we have always been sure to give credit to the original site along with an active link. We also made sure to inform you through the comments section on your site. The article, which was thought provoking, was also promoted on the prAna Facebook page giving it an additional 10-15k impressions. You may notice that not only did we reach out to Jacinda, but to all of the prAna athletes in order to get their perspective and input on a subject that we realized might be important to them. You can see more of the teams responses at http://www.facebook.com/prana.
You state that “Prana’s re-edit gave the post more of an anti-female sentiment, when nothing could be further from the truth on my end” which we find a little confusing as the only editing that was done to the article was the addition of hyperlinks to help readers who were interested in learning more about the people and places mentioned. We also swapped a video but neither of these changed the original writing or gave the post “more of an anti-female sentiment”. The article was unchanged so we are a little surprised at your statement.
Finally, we reiterate our apology and if you would like us to remove the content we will do so glady.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:10 amThe title of the post “Women in climbing…have women fallen behind?” is the line I take offense to, as the addition of “have women fallen behind?” sets, in my eyes, a less than positive female tone. My intention was to be neutral, factual and to open thoughtful discussion.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:35 amIt’s my understanding that linking is common practice, but reposting is not.
The internet is a powerful tool. If you are interested in reposting my blogs verbatim again, all I ask is that you ask.
Jaime, your clarification makes things clearer. We will be sure to contact you if we are interested in posting material from your site.
Cheers
February 26th, 2010 at 12:54 amI think this is a very thought provoking article, and I am glad to see this issue being addressed. I have been bouldering for 6 years, and when I first entered into this sport I never dreamed that I would accomplish what I have. As I look back on some of my hardest sends I see a common ingredient; it was the support and encouragement from stronger male climbers. These guys are few a far between, and I love them dearly for putting aside gender and just climbing with me. But finding equally strong females climbers has been even harder, (or so it seems for me in the mid-Atlantic region). I too have wondered for a long time, how we can encourage and support more female climbers to push their limits. While I love climbing with the guys, sometimes it would be really handy to swap beta with a short girl who understands how to overcome the reachy burly moves. Thank you Lynn, Alex, Lisa and Angie, for what you have accomplished it is truly inspiring.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:55 am