Thursday, February 25, 2010

Women In Climbing

Quite a lively discussion here about women vs men and the apparent gap in ability to climb the hardest routes. Here’s a short quote from the article:

“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?”

Read the whole thing esp. the comments. (Don’t worry the comments are thoughtful not flaming.) This article from Slate calls climbing the only “gender-blind” sport.

As usual, I have a few comments on this.

  • Does it matter if women and men can do the same climbs? Many men can’t do the same climbs as other men.
  • Maybe women have more important things to do that to spend so much time throwing themselves up a rock.
  • Women are superior to men in everything else; how ‘bout you throw us a bone here?

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Richard might be a better climber than me because he is stronger, less junk in the truck, more competitive or because he works a lot harder at it, But it is probably just because he is a man. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

richard said...

And I have shoes that match my shirt. Don't forget about that. Next time I buy shoes, I will be sure I get a color that matches my wallet.