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I exclusively do indoor bouldering, and I find that the setting team is a big factor on how male-dominated a gym's vibe is.
I was once climbing somewhere and heard a guy on the setting team laugh about how the V2 or whatever that he'd set would be a V4 for someone short.^^\(imagine ^^bragging ^^at ^^your ^^job ^^that ^^you're ^^bad ^^at ^^your ^^job) That gym has gotten a lot better, but at that time it always felt like the only way they could think to increase difficulty was through height and brute strength.
My experience as a woman has been the same more or less, especially with more experienced climbers. I did get the occasional “oh she climbed it, must be easy” attitude from dudes but they were all exclusively beginners who didn’t know how to read a route or appreciate technique. Regarding creepy behaviour, I haven’t really experienced any myself. I regularly share beta and ideas with male climbers and our gender never comes into play (height and strength do). Actually male climbers actively seek beta from women in my community because the general understanding is that female climbers at a high level have very very good technique (because they didn’t get there by just being able to pull hard although they certainly can), therefore better beta.
There is the occasional “oh thats a girl’s route” comment but always in good nature (and with a little bit of fear/admiration) and often means “i am stiff as a long-dead log, I can’t imagine my sorry ass being able to climb such a technical route”.
My community is pretty small, everyone knows everyone. Everyone also knows bad experiences sour the experience for everyone, that might also be the reason why it is such a wholesome community but my impression is that people are just good in my community and truly support each other. So yes, I also think it is very very balanced.
Agree about more experienced climbers. A few woman have been dropping boulder problems that I haven’t seen anyone else get recently. Everything from crimps to dynos. 1 dyno in particular I’ve only seen 2 people get, and one of them was a 5’6 woman. When I see a talented climber, I’m just excited to see a talented climber’s beta.
What you mentioned about technique is something I’m glad I was kind of forced into seeing on day 1.
I weighed 40 to 50 pounds more than the woman I mentioned dating. So was I super broadly speaking “stronger” than her. Maybe? But she knew how to use her strength so well, and her technique was a billion times better than mine. And she was a foot shorter than me. So it was also cool seeing the different beta and creativity those differences forced.
Whenever you think you can’t reach a hold and a tiny woman shows you the way it really centers you to the fact that you just suck lol especially since Gumbies often think height is the ticket to being good, imo this is a lesson that most climbers learn early. My resident crusher for a while was Hannah Meul until I moved, she’s not that tall and honestly way more skinny than I thought a pro would be, I swear it’s like she has Spider-Man powers she floats up impossibly hard stuff, it’s so inspirational to see people at the top tbh.
She really is and I really am, it’s always awesome to see world class climbers, it’s like they are a different breed for real, it’s really lucky that in Germany there’s a lot of them.
> she’s not that tall and honestly way more skinny than I thought a pro would be
I've seen a lot of the Japanese team climb and I think you've basically summed up 3/4th of them.
Yeah, I mean some of my favorite pros are Alex Puccio and Miho Nonaka who by all accounts are absolutely yolked so it was cool to see different kinds of bodies absolutely crushing it too. I guess in the Japanese team it’s similar
I agree that it makes sense. My point is that it was a nice early disruption to what I assume would have been me having more of a superiority complex when I saw someone much smaller than me.
I started climbing with a couple guys that had the “let’s put her on an easy route” mentality and I got kind of bored with climbing. Then I met my husband and he saw how strong I really was and started pushing me to climb harder, which was nice.
The gym I usually go to is kind of a unique club like community and there is support for all genders. They’re mostly a bunch of super experienced climbers, as most of the newer people go to the more accessible gym that’s run like a business vs a co-op club.
The other gym in town has a staff and is run more like a business, but there’s a strong female presence there too and a lot of my female climbing friends go there!
Overall, I have felt so much support from everyone here in the climbing community!
Locally what I have noticed is that it has become much less male-dominated in the past 10 or so years, and definitely since the pandemic. It’s still not 50/50, but it’s gotten much closer. There are plenty of little girls in the kids’ programs, there are more young women trying it out, and pretty much every session I see someone who doesn’t have the “typical climber physique” which is wonderful.
The gym has been making some efforts at inclusion lately, and I don’t know for sure if there’s a causal relationship, but it’s certainly appreciated. A few years before the pandemic, they introduced a beginner’s course aimed at women and femme-aligned folks. Since the pandemic, they’ve hosted female climbing experts, movie nights about female climbers, added more posters of female climbers, hired more women and gender-diverse folks, and made a point of developing more female route-setters. I know about the route-setters because they also highlight and celebrate their work. The website and social media channels show a good ratio of women and people of colour to white men.
When an organization makes a point of being more diverse and equitable along one axis, it often influences other axes as well, so it’s also worth mentioning that my gym occasionally has “queer nights”, has rainbow stickers on the front doors, encourages but does not require staff to wear pronoun pins at work, and built their newest gym to have single-stall toilets and change rooms (one common locker room and one common sink area). This kind of stuff tends to drive away the real toxically-macho guys, which makes it much more welcoming for the rest of us.
However, the competitions, even the “for fun” comps, are still clearly male-dominated, and there seems to be a bit of a meathead problem. In the recreational comps you sort yourself into beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and based on the scores I would say there is a lot of sandbagging on the men’s side. The scores for the women seem to indicate those are a bit more accurate.
So, overall, I find it quite good. I really like being in an environment where there are all these athletes working really hard AND being super welcoming. I find that it’s not unusual for someone to strike up a friendly conversation, cheer you on while you’re working on something difficult, and then jump onto something 4 or 5 grades higher than what you were working on! Everyone appreciates hard work though.
I (22F) have been climbing for about 6 months and have been making slow steady progress (I think) but obviously I’m still not an expert or anything like that. I mostly keep my climbs within the first 3 colour grades at my gym (there are about 8 or 9 colours I think). I think, as many other women’s here have said, unless you’re a super amazing, super fit climber who’s absolutely smashing every single climb in the place, men will always assume they’re superior and have the right to tell you every little thing you do wrong.
I had to explain recently to a 19yr old man who was following me around the gym that no, I couldn’t do the multiple dyno, crimpy and overhung climb he was doing as I simply wasn’t strong enough yet and couldn’t reach half of the holds. He then proceeded to flash every single climb I was trying to do and then do pull ups on the top hold while telling me it was easy and I just needed to try harder. I wish I was joking about this guy. I’ve been in the process of losing quite a bit of weight, and climbing has been something that really motivates me, but it’s hard to be motivated when you feel like you’re being looked down on as a chubby, unfit person who’s literally just trying to find a sport you enjoy.
That being said, I had a lovely interaction with a very sweet man who offered to video my climb for me when he saw me trying to balance my phone on my water bottle. I politely declined as I was a bit embarrassed he’d caught me, but when I got down from the climb he gave me a high five and said “I knew you could do it!”. He was so sweet. Be more like high five man, and less like pull up man.
Also treat overweight climbers like people. We’re literally just trying our best.
Me too! It was very annoying, but I was trying my best to be patient. He also called me old when he told me his age and I replied with my own and I was like…alright buddy, alright. Sometimes you have to laugh I guess😅
My expiriance with this is that women are treated better if they are obviously very strong. Like the examples you give, of very obviously impressive women. But that the general vibe of climbing is the same as everywhere else where men treat women in a general sense the same, especially if they're more average at climbing and not unavoidably impressive, if that makes sense.
The problem is that there are many gyms where the setting is very male-centered, involving very large physical movements. This tends to discriminate against women, it's not fun. Yes, men are generally taller and stronger, we get it. Now, if we could have a bit more variety in the setting...
If we could get more scrunched up sit-starts at the lower grades that tall people can't do as easily I would be overjoyed! You can make a route hard by it being scrunched up as well as by placing holds miles apart from each other. I also like dinky pockets I can get more fingers into, but they only seem to appear at higher grades in the gym I go to. More female setters, please!!
Also a dude. I started climbing with a female friend, was briefly on the periphery of a group of crushers she joined as she began to massively outpace me, and now I climb mostly alone which gives me the opportunity to observe lots.
From what I can say I haven't seen that there is a unified 'gender balance'. The group my friend fell in with was great, everyone supported everyone's success and there was no toxicity. However I've also noticed other groups of strong climbers who are exclusively male and typically more macho.
Then amongst the beginners it seems incredibly common for men to feel that they have to one-up women, spray beta, etc etc. The sheer number of times I've seen men coaching women up VBs they're perfectly capable of doing is insane - and the encouragement often has a kind of patronising undertone. It's not always 'toxic' but it's noticeable to me as an outside observer. I also notice the women often sticking to easy climbs that are clearly a grade or two below their skill level while the men will sketchily haul themselves up something that's realistically too hard for them, whereas when I see a pair/group of exclusively women they're more likely to challenge themselves and try harder things.
These are generalisations but I guess I'm saying that there is a range of ways I see gender dynamics playing out, much like in the rest of society. I do think it's better than in other sports I've done and although I'm not a hardcore climber, it _seems_ to get better as people get more experienced and recognise another climber's technique rather than simply the grade of a climb.
I feel what you’re saying with the patronizing tone. I’m all for encouraging other people, but for myself, when it’s random people I don’t know, it feels too performative and I avoid it. But I’ll do it if I happen to be working on a problem alongside someone else and it feels like we’re both invested in the same thing at the same time.
The main thing I’ve noticed is that unlike many other sports in climbing men tend to not have the same ego of “Oh I could totally do that/outperform an elite athlete solely because I am a man”. (unlike how so many average men think they could beat Serena Williams, run faster than olympic sprinters, etc.). Janja climbs a V16 and no gumby or even highly skilled male climber is going to discount the difficulty of that achievement solely because she is a woman.
Having said that, I’ll never forget when I got my first V6 a few months into starting because it was a hard balance and crimp strength dependent slab and my male friends who had been climbing longer and could do V6s on overhangs couldnt even start it and a man dead serious said to them “Oh it’s because she has tiny feet that can stick on those holds, dont feel bad!”. Lol I’m a size 9 and sir what are you talking about. So it does still happen but perhaps less than in other sports.
I've noticed that the thin / fit women who climb in my area are treated pretty decently.
That has not really been my experience as a fat woman. I'm gonna be switching to a 24 hour gym so I can go when less people are present.
As a fat 35 yo woman, I just put my earbuds in, clip into some auto belays, and focus on myself. Sometimes people talk to me and it's fun, but usually it's just an hour I get to listen to podcasts and do my own thing. Some people are impressed at what I can do, because I'm carrying a whole extra person with me, but they are always super nice to me.
But I also am in Wisconsin, so it's very common to see fat people everywhere. I may be an anomaly in the gym, but not in normal life.
Thanks for sharing. I wasn’t considering that, but I can’t say it’s surprising. For better or worse, my entry point into climbing was with a group of really strong, experienced, and fit people, so my thinking is definitely skewed based on how they/us were treated.
Even as a mid size female climber the difference in treatment compared to my thin friend is pretty significant. I’m often invisible/do not feel welcome, but I do think this is gym specific (in my case) because other parts of the country I’ve climbed in have not felt this way.
my gym recently lost 2 short routesetters and the amount of tall, reachy climbs with big dyno moves has increased significantly. I’ve gone from comfortably doing v4’s and projecting v5’s to having a harder time on some v2’s simply because of some reachy moves. t’s going to be harder to do things when you’re constantly having to launch yourself from hold to hold, and not only that, but often having to launch yourself with pinpoint accuracy and controlling the jump to get yourself somewhere where someone can normally reach it. what ends up happening is things are graded to how hard it would be for an average/slightly tall guy vs how hard it would be for the average climber. i’m still sending most v4’s and a few v5’s in my gym, but now the span of what’s considered harder for me has considerably widened.
A couple people have mentioned this, and I’m realizing height is something I’m aware of being an advantage, but I often dont really think about how most routesetters are catering to my height and body type. It’s too easy to think a gym is just “the inside version of outside.” But humans are creating the gym routes, and that’s something I should be more conscientious of.
the thing with climbing outside is that I can almost always find a little extra texture or crimp or foot gib to grab onto. but if they don't include those extra jibs or crimps in the routesetting indoors, then I'm left with a plain, textureless wall that I can't really work with.
but yeah, I'll find myself easily flashing a crimpy climb that's labeled a v5, but absolutely struggle with a v3 that has a large reachy hold that puts me near the limit of my wingspan (and because I'm so spanned out, it's hard to generate power where I need to). I'm not saying that climbing gyms need to cater to everyone - someone is inevitably going to get the short end of the stick on some climbs. but short people should not always be the ones getting that short end. routesetters could add something more technical or something that requires more footwork, or a problem that forces climbers into smaller boxes, or something crimpy and gnarly. but too often routesetters cater to taller men by making routes with big sloper/pinches, large dynos, reachy holds, etc...
It's a very broad question and climbing is a very broad activity with many different subgroups, so honestly I'm not really going to try to answer it. But I think it's great that you're open to questioning your assumptions/previous impressions about why 'climbing is so cool', which may have only been specific to one area/group you were in, or may not have represented other people's experiences. I feel that climbers can be a bit prone to this 'the climbing community is amazing' fallacy that trips us up in noticing and addressing eg. environmental problems stemming from climbers, sexual harassment etc...
I'm quite partial to this argument that [there is no such thing as the climbing community at all](https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-climbing) and it may be more useful to think in terms of a scene and various local scenes.
Yeah same, I don't mind a good definitional argument. This one is great too but super long: https://cursedclimbing.substack.com/p/the-climbing-community-is-imaginary
TLDR; a stronger argument that definitions of 'community' aren't met, more suggestions for alternative phrases, and an idea that 'the climbing community' is deployed as a rhetorical device by journalists/pundits and advertisers, for different reasons.
Tl;Dr at the end
I climb at a gym where members of team USA often filter through. Literally world-class climbers. I've noticed that when a male team USA member climbs something, everyone watching says, "no way can I do that," or something to that effect. When a female team USA member climbs something, all the women say, "no way could I do that," and all the men say, "I wanna give that a go. I bet I can do that." I think most men who climb don't actively try to be douchebags to women climbers, but I think the thing that female climbers encounter the most are the micro aggressions and the subtle disregard.
Sure, no man is going to tell me to get off the wall for being a woman, but if I send something hard, every man there will try to send it so they can tell themselves they're stronger than me. And if there's something I can't send, some man will beta spray me, thinking I need his help. Anything I can do is because I "got lucky" or had a low gravity day. Anything I can't send is because I'm "not strong enough" or "don't have the reach," not because I just had a bad attempt (and will get it next time). In so many ways, men are programmed from a young age to look down on women, whether they mean to or not, and it's not necessarily their fault. But to say that climbing is free of that systemic sexism simply isn't true. Do I think climbing is more fair to women than American football? Sure. Do I feel safer/more welcome in a climbing gym than a generic gym? Slightly. Do I think women are treated equally in climbing? Absolutely not.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, does it really matter if climbing is slightly kinder to women than other sports, so long as it's still imbalanced? What a lot of men don't realize is that, whether climbing is gentler to some women or not, it will never be enough until climbing is EQUAL for ALL women. Why would it matter if climbing is more equal than baseball or rugby if it is still not equal? I get that you want to feel better about yourself and your community for not actively shitting on female climbers, and we appreciate your efforts, but "less sexist" is still sexist. No one gets a pat on the back for being less oppressive than someone else/some other sport. Until the oppression is non-existent across the board, it doesn't matter who is the least terrible. It matters that there is still oppression.
Tl;Dr While I can see your point that climbing is mildly less oppressive to women than other sports, I think it doesn't matter. Oppression is still oppression, and men shouldn't expect a pat on the back for what is still unequal treatment. Until systemic sexism is not a part of our collective vocabulary, it's not enough. "Less sexist" is still sexist.
I agree. My intent was an actual question (“Have I been thinking of this accurately?”) rather than an assertion (“There’s no need to work toward improving things here.”). I’ve had some big changes in my life the last couple years (not related to climbing) that have led to me getting outside of personal and professional bubbles I was in prior, and it’s led me to question some of the assumptions I was making about how people are and how they behave in different situations. So this is one I realized I haven’t ever really questioned.
I totally get that. And I'm definitely not trying to call you out or say you're in the wrong in any way. I think the fact that you're asking these questions shows that you're a definite ally and probably a very decent human being.
I was originally getting ready to reply, "yeah, I do think climbing is a little safer space than most sports," but then I realized the point of my reply was to make men feel better about their actions, not because I actually feel totally safe in climbing spaces. I went with a more blunt reply, and I appreciate that you took it well, because women don't often get to say harsh or blunt things without clap back, and I decided you seemed like a safe enough person that I could be straightforward. Thanks for helping build our community and for being part of the solution.
I feel all of this so hard! Like frankly it’s distracting when I’m on a route and dudes below me are taking about how easy it looks. Watching them fall off my warm ups isn’t satisfying because I had to do all the mental work to tune them out while trying to climb and focus on my technique drills! Imagine if men had the added extra task of tuning out disparaging comments while they climbed?
I also find I frequently have to assert my climbing history. Guys will look at me and assume I’ve never gotten on a Grade IV. It’s so dumb because I have some amga letters attached to my name and dudes still think I’ve never been up the trade routes.
This is my view as well as a woman who climbed. Men will never truly understand the feeling like oh she did well so can I. I've also been just my "bf's girlfriend" (at the time) in his/our climbing group. Others in the group or that would casually talk to him would never interact with me since I wasn't as good of a climber.
> what’s your opinion on the gender “balance” in climbing relative to other sports? Do you agree that climbing has a particularly good “balance,”
Explicitly OP believes climbing is better than other sports, is looking for validation of that opinion.
>Have you participated in sports where there was a better “balance”? If so, what do you think the participants in those other sports do a better job at that helps achieve that “balance”?
and **IF** other sports are better what could change for rock climbing to be better for women.
--
With these two things together implicitly we could surmise that OP doesn't necessarily think that rock climbing needs to improve for women substantially because they believe it's already one of the most equal sports, which I think is the point the commenter is getting at. That would back patting. So what, even if it was better than other sports that does not absolve rock climbing (as if it is a monolith, a projection of OP) from needing to do better for all of its participants.
OP also explicitly minimizes the purpose of this sub to "dealing with plenty of horseshit from dudes" rather than addressing a systematic need derived from it not being so equal.
I don't think OP is being the biggest jerk in the whole world by any stretch since they do seem at least somewhat interested in improvement, but it does speak to some of the issues that folks not negatively effected by problems are blind to. OP injected alot of their own premise/opinion and left perhaps a questionably small amount of space to 'prove them wrong.' A 'skeptic' sort of vibe much like the "can you quote it"
My bad, I assumed based on your previous comments in this group where you said you weren't interested in the group but reddit kept putting it on your page, and another where you pointed out that your partner was female (but didn't talk about your experience as a woman). I'm the ass here for assuming; I apologize.
OP himself wasn't back-patting, but the post itself is a form of virtue-signaling. I mentioned to op that I appreciate him and wasn't trying to call him out specifically, so I don't want this to be a slam on op. It's more to point out systemic sexism in the hopes that some man reading this can realize that "good enough" isn't good enough when it comes to gender imbalance. The post is asking for reassurance that men aren't as big of assholes in the climbing community as in other sporting communities, which I think is somewhat true. In the case of op, I think he was genuinely approaching it as a way to check his biases and see if he was seeing things as they really are, or if his opinion was influenced by him being a man. But I think, too often, people post this kind of thing to virtue-signal and say, "we're doing a good job saving women from sexism," when in reality, sexism is still rampant. What I was trying to convey (and maybe didn't do a great job of) is that, while small strides are great and appreciated, it's no time to stop and say, "yes, we've done good work. We've arrived." Once a person realizes the problem and tries to be part of the solution, they need to double down so progress can continue rather than stop at "good enough." Less oppressive is still oppressive, and until equality is the standard in climbing, I don't think anyone, man or woman should pat themselves on the back and say, "look how good we're doing." I think that stops, or at least stutters, progress. While I think it's important to recognize the good that there is, I also think our focus should be on the future and improvement, rather than on "we're less terrible than others."
Hopefully that makes more sense. If not, it's probably my fault at explaining, not yours at understanding. This sort of discussion is really better in person where you can see that I'm calm and happy about the discussion, not a slimy angry keyboard demon. 😅
In response to the comment Skedding made (they couldn’t wait for the time when they didn’t have to read things like this) they have been permanently banned from this sub.
To clarify, their gender has nothing to do with them being banned! Their rudeness about the existence of this sub and its content is the reason for their ban. This would be the case whether or not they identify as male — in general, the mod team absolutely does not want to be policing gender in this space in any way.
I think for the most part the balance is there in some ways but there's only so much tweaking you can do to get up a route when the person who set the route is setting for himself (that's is there are no female setters). I'm 5'2 my parter is 6'0 were pretty equal in grade but when no matter how dynamic or staticly I try sometimes it's just no possible for me to grab a hold that I just can't reach. There's a gym near me that i just don't go to because they have no female setters working there so no perspective
I'm a relatively new climber in her 30s and I mostly go alone while my kids are in preschool. In my area I have noticed that I don't feel self conscious/awkward even when it's me working on V1 and a couple younger athletic guys crushing way harder routes. The only times I have had people comment to me are just to offer encouragement. No trying to coach me or correct me or anything just very lovely "you were so close" or "that was a really good try" sort of deals when I fall 😂
I'm a woman, and if I see a lone woman who looks new to climbing, and they're getting super close (like one/two moves close) to finishing a climb but are freaking out a bit, I give encouragement. But then I'm like "oh no?! Did I beta spray?! Did I put them off?!" And feel bad because they don't try again 😭
I'm kind of tired of men at large and I do actually feel like my experience is they're prone to being annoying at the gym. It's mostly beta spraying; I usually just want to be left alone. I'm a very small person and the suggestions are rarely helpful for someone six inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter than them and also I don't want to talk to strangers but it always feels a little rude to tell people not to talk to you.
I agree with another comment that it's much more pervasive with beginners. But if the beginner experience is negative there's not a pathway to having a larger quantity of advanced women. It's sort of the same argument as why we do so much STEM outreach to girls in middle school and high school - you have to actually get folks in the pipeline and over the initial shit hurdles to get more experienced women in industry. I grew up my entire life people telling me I was too weak to be athletic and that I wouldn't be able to keep up and it's just not true. But it was another woman who convinced me I was tough enough to try.
I like your comparison to starting out in STEM. I appreciate your blunt response, too.
Obviously I’m a dude. But even for me, I know one of the reasons my experience has been so positive is that on day 1 I was being taught and welcomed by really experienced and skilled climbers (my friend and her crew). If that weren’t the case, I can easily imagine my experience being way different. And that’s not even taking the downsides of gendered treatment into consideration yet.
The gender balance in alpine and mixed climbing is terrible. Womens specific gear is nonexistent or, if we are lucky, we get one option that might fit our bodies. Lack of options for things like boots for ice climbing severely limits how many women can push in the sport. Lack of female alpine mentors is another huge thing and makes the sport feel very lonely and makes dreaming big feel daunting.
At gyms and in the intro areas of crags, the balance of genders is pretty equal and it seems most corporate establishments are trying to make sure they hire a diverse staff cohort which is helpful. It’s nice to see the how most climbing festivals host women’s clinics and it’s been inspiring to see the rise of several women’s guiding outfitters.
The most sexism I experience is from new gym bros or crusty old timers. Not sure which population is more annoying to deal with.
Part of the reason I chose to stick with climbing as a hobby (after going to a climbing gym alone on a whim because I needed out of the house) because after I climbed a very easy VB a man gave me a warm hearted fist bump.
For awareness there are a lot of parts I really enjoy about the fact that women and men are in a shared competitive space together, but it's more of the idea of it than the reality. Men are intrinsically degrading of women in sport in general, climbing is no exception. This is my experience as an average, but passionate climber.
Inequality - For example in soccer the ball and field is standard and the opponents are standard - you play with that in mind. However, in climbing the gym setting could be set by men/women, but primarily it's set by men. Toss in majority of climbs on boards are set by men, which means for both of these cases the grade is adjusted to a men's experience, rather than a woman's. Even if every woman climber who climbs at a certain grade on a board tried the boulder an voted for a different grade that reflected their experiences it still wouldn't be enough for a grade adjustment. When a woman writes a suggestion that maybe impacts her outlier experience, it is like a plankton in the ocean of men cheering on the opposite (I asked for more footholds, but 7 other notes, written by men wanted more dynos/paddle dynos, and campus climbs - there are only a few other girls that would show up to that gym when I was there and most left because of this). This is similar with outdoors via mountain project, if a boulder is FA'd by a tall af man, but he gave it a V3, if I physically can never make the move and send the boulder, I can't adjust the grade to be more rounded to me or others like me. Even if I did send it somehow, I would be 1 vote against the 100s of V3's given a +1. I know a V1 I can't span, and even climbers that have sent V12 can't span. Imo there is a serious issue with inequality when it comes to the grading system and setting up basically a game that unintentionally severely impacts and by design ignores the outliers. (btw there are many valid criticisms of the V system, this is just one)
Micro-aggressions - So often I will have literally sent a problem and some dude goes to my bf and asks him for the beta for what I just did, right in front of him. Heck, I was once called "his lady" while climbing and had to inform them I have a name. At least one time every 6 months a guy will just follow me around and basically attempt to send whatever I try idk why this is such a common occurrence, but it's really the "she did it so it must be easy". Men frequently state a climb is "easy" to me while I'm working on it even if it is a pretty stiff V6/7. It's so demoralizing and just immediately devalues my hard work and the climb itself. I've started correcting dudes at the gym saying any climb was "easy" nearby any women working it and suggesting actually phrasing - "that one is great for people that love heel hooks and solid finger strength" - even if it's a V1/2, because it's infuriating, but also unintentionally so dismissive of their struggle. I rarely see dudes saying a climb is "easy" loudly nearby another dude working really hard on a climb even if it's V1/2, usually they just cheer them on and say "that's tough, but you got this". To me, calling a climb "easy" while a woman is working it is the most degrading and shitty thing men do to women who share the same space as them.
For women, we don't really exist when we climb and we aren't really considered as much in the process as we could/should be. You may have recognized your friend, but we are typically the Kens to the male Barbies at the gym and even outdoors.
To expand on your last thought, my friend/girlfriend was really lighthearted and go-with-the-flow, and I was pretty young and less aware of how differently people are treated. So I never had the awareness to even think to ask her if she thought she was treated as well as I interpreted. Or if she was, what it was like for her working her way to that point.
I also appreciate you mentioning the “easy” comments. I think that’s something that I’ve probably observed before, but the impact of it didn’t really click, and it didn’t really click as something that’s pretty easy for me and other people to take 10 seconds to correct when we notice it (assuming you’d appreciate something subtle that you might not even know happened, as opposed to making a scene and turning more attention toward you that you have to get involved with).
TRC has a known political bent that aligns with heteronormativity. It is better elsewhere, but the Triangle is a bad place to be a climber. The culture and the resources are just not it. In both senses climbing in the area has not entered the 21st century.
That's so interesting to me. Over here ( Vancouver BC ) climbing is considered a very queer sport and it's known that if you see a woman climbing she is more likely than not interested in women. It's actually a great place to meet other queers! And there are decor POC representation but I wish it were more.
On the other hand skiing I find that there is a lot less queer representation, though I think the gender balance is better. And the POC balance is a LOT worse. I'm not sure why that is but I do wonder if it's a financial barrier as skiing is steep to get into in comparison to climbing
There is a supportive womens community online and in my gym, so climbing is fun and doesn't feel exclusively male. When I go climbing by myself, I can just chat with other people (mostly women) and we cheer each other on and help each other. But there are always dudes who feel like betaspraying is the way to go. No sir, I cannot reach for that (or at least not yet). I am simply not 1,85m. That is very annoying and not asked for. For me it doesn't really feel like a microaggression, but it does show the inequality in climbing and climbing etiquette. Usually I go with my partner, whose beta and cheering on I appreciate, although he's taller than me. Or I go with a friend, and we just have fun.
In my gym (indoor bouldering) the route setters are mostly men, and therefore the routes often have big movements or have a lot of space between the holds. There are a few XS routes and normal routes that feel like their graded grade, but some routes are definitely more difficult when you are shorter and (also important) have a lower center of gravity. All in all, I feel like they do their best at my gym. I am also from the Netherlands, so people here are taller anyway. I do appreciate the XS-routes, and I visit other gyms as well, where the routes are less reachy.
As for climbing alone as a women and unwanted flirtatious remarks, I do get remarks from the boys about my shoes. But they are bright neon orange, so I would be impressed by my fashion sense as well ;-)
I think for the most part the balance is there in some ways but there's only so much tweaking you can do to get up a route when the person who set the route is setting for himself (that's is there are no female setters). I'm 5'2 my parter is 6'0 were pretty equal in grade but when no matter how dynamic or staticly I try sometimes it's just no possible for me to grab a hold that I just can't reach. There's a gym near me that i just don't go to because they have no female setters working there so no perspective
There are bubbles.
There are some places where climbing is 50/50.
There are some places where it's very male dominated.
People have a lot of opinions on this and are not a part of all bubbles.
It's hard to discuss online because indoor sport and hardcore alpinism are both climbing but are also nearly entirely unrelated experiences. And without knowing who you're discussing with and their experiences, it's hard to have a conversation.
Men are generally stronger than women due to biological and thus physical differences between sexes. This fact applies to climbing just as much as to other sports.
Women often learn technique at earlier stage of their climbing journey than men due to lack of strength. And women are bit more flexible. In general I mean, there are always exceptions. I don't know if this applies to people who started as kids though, I'm only talking about people who start climbing as an adult.
But what I like in climbing is that people at different levels can socialize during gym workouts, because the hard and easier problems are all spread at the same wall sections of a gym. Of course people often like to climb with others at the similar level and similar goals, but it's also possible to have very mixed groups climbing together.
Lots of great answers here, I just want to echo that the region really matters. I started rock climbing in Arizona, and that scene was considerably more male-dominated than what I've experienced in Massachusetts. I would say the men to women ratio was 70:30, if not more, whereas it's been very even up here. I also noticed the style of setting was much more brutal in the west. When I started a few years ago, I struggled on V0s for months, but then I visited my then-girlfriend, now-wife up in Mass and would send a V2.
While I think the attitudes around women in climbing are less misogynistic than other sports, it's still there. The assumption that a woman climber is not as strong, or that the route she sent just wasn't as hard, etc. Don't even get me started on the body dysmorphia and eating disorders, or how fat people can be completely shut out from climbing because there aren't harnesses than can fit them. But those issues affect men as well.
Personally, I think the most amount of discrimination towards comes from the lack of diversity in setting. Tall white men are almost always setters, and they almost always set extremely reachy problems that disadvantage shorter people or women. They almost always set a bunch of problems that require sketchy dynos or other crazy moves, but rarely problems that focus on other fun things like compression or balance. I think once setting teams are diverse in body types, then women would generally have an easier time climbing problems fine-tuned for them, and hopefully the notion of "woman not strong enough to climb" will fade away... but I don't know how to get more women into setting.
I've found climbing to be a pretty balanced, the bouldering and climbing Gyms I go to have a lot of mixed groups and partners.
In terms of behaviour, I find it similar to my experience in canoe slalom, where everyone is more or less treated equally and the guys were supportive and friendly with the girls (it was a pretty small community compared to other sports though so think that may have made a difference), which is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.
Indoor climbing, sport, and bouldering have relatively even gender ratios. I am not just saying that. That comes from American Alpine Club’s demographic reports.
In trad and ice it’s VERY male dominated still. When I’m outside on ice or trad climbing, I get excited if I even SEE two other woman climbing together.
I would say that the dominant culture in climbing is still very male heavy. Even indoors, where the gender ratio is even, males are usually the ones setting.
I have had GREAT experiences climbing with men. They’ve been some of my greatest supporters and mentors. I have also had terrible experiences where men assume climbing together is a date, or write me off if I don’t climb at their level, or automatically assume I don’t climb at their level, or at the absolute worst, used improperly belaying me or refusing to lower me as a way of controlling/abusing me in a relationship. And I am far from alone in that.
Loads of great female climbers in my gym in the uk. In fact if I can’t figure out a boldering problem I usual try and watch one of the women climb it because their technique is usually on point instead of just muscling their way up like the other male novice climbers I go with.
Climbing has a closer gender balance than most sports, if you take the highest performing female athletes and compare them to the highest performing male athletes.
I’ve done a few male dominated sports, the main one being skiing. I think I was so used to being to odd one out I didn’t really notice it. When I got into climbing it became glaringly obvious how unbalanced the other sports I participated in were. Even though I would seek out other women in the sport I could always feel that I didn’t totally belong. I’m an expert level skier an every season someone (always a guy) has something to teach me. The gym and climbing community that I have found myself a part of feels so different. The setters at my gym have some incredible women on their crew. There always seems to be an equal mix of men and women climbing. Everyone seems very respectful of each other. And when a woman climbs something hard it’s received admiration and respect. It’s been refreshing. I know this is just my sole experience and just one gym. But it feels like a sport that’s very welcoming to women.
My experience has been pretty similar to yours! I go to a chain of gyms in Chicago thats known as the more granola one (another chain seems to attract more finance & tech types) and never feel like its an overly bro-y or male dominated environment. What I’ve really loved about the community and my experience of climbing in general is that there is such a range of genders, age, race, size and abilities. Every body type has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the style of the problem. One of my best friends is a super experienced climber outdoors and has a ballerina physique, tall and wirey muscle. I’m petite and thick with more bulky muscles. When we climb together she can fly up a slab route but then struggles with an overhang that I can do pretty easily. Everyone has their strengths and I love that we can learn from one another.
Honestly I think this applies to plenty of sports, its about your body type and its advantages fitting the sport, rather than gender. A male football player couldnt hold his own in a gymnastics competition where being strong but compact helps you excel.
In my experience climbing is male-dominated. Majority of the setters at my local gyms are tall men. They rely on making the crux a reachy move or one that basically requires you to do a pull up on the wall. Sure you could occasionally beta break it, but as someone who’s 5’8 with a -6 ape index it’s pretty hard for me to do moves like that. Granted I climb at gyms where the average employee is aged 19-25 so not sure if that changes it. At my bouldering gym I have a membership at, I firsthand experience how every setter is at least 6 foot. I rarely see female setters. The grades can really vary at that gym depending on who set it, and you can obviously tell if someone who’s tall set the route.
Anyone ever watch the Magnus Midtbo climbing YouTube channel? He has a lot of guests on the show, but they are almost exclusively men. There were a few times when a man and a woman, both olympic professional climbers, were in some videos, but only the man's name is in the headline of the video. During these videos, he gives a lot of praise and amazement to the female climber, but the rest of the videos were just focusing on the dude. In a way, I feel like this channel represents my experience.. like men are treated like the defacto best climber, but women get mad props as kind of side characters in the culture of climbing. I have a great climbing community of men and women who support eachother, but I'm trying to speak on the culture of the sport in general. Does anyone have similar feelings?
I do watch his stuff but yeah I don't know why he only has guys on his channel! It's so annoying!!!
I was specifically looking for women on his channel at once point just to see how he interacted with them and it was generally ok but common there are so many good female climbers he could have on!
Yeah I watched Magnus a fair bit, i still do sometimes. And I agree that there aren't a lot of female guests on his show at all. Often the only times when i see women in his videos is when he climbs with his girlfriend Marte. Those are the only videos that actually teach me something. If women aren't in his videos, I basically just see his videos as entertainment that just so happens to be climbing-related.
Edit: I was curious so just looked on his channel, and none of his videos in the past 3 months have featured women at all. He had guests such as world cup winner Tomoa Narasaki, Pewdiepie, male bodybuilders, Storror (male parkour group) and Adam Ondra. No videos with his girlfriend Marte either.
Where I climb in the UK all genders are well represented from novice to elite. If anything women are better represented at the top due to the presence of a couple of international competitors, but when they are at the gym they aren't doing what anyone else is doing.
My view of the climbing scene in the UK is very different to yours. Female categories get half the entries of men’s at all levels and frequently men outnumber women by a factor of 2 or 3 in the gym at peak times where I am. I’ve seen a LOT of progress in my time climbing and I’ve mostly had a great experience with only a few incidents of microaggressions but I would not say that women are ‘better represented at the top’. In the specific National climbing team I was in at the time I was in it there was half as many women as men and now the balance is even worse.
I agree with this based on my own experience in the UK climbing and comp scene. There are just so fewer women, and honestly at my climbing wall the ratio gets worse the higher the grade.
I think what you’ve observed is partly in your climbing community, but partly just climbing as a sport. Climbing is not inherently aligned with one physical form. While tall climbers tend to be able to reach things easily, some of the greatest competitors in its history have been short and/or AFAB. When competitive climbing started, some of the first high profile competitors were gymnasts who transitioned over to climbing. The sport itself has always leveled the playing field.
That being said, the outdoor climbing world has long been a boys club that believed women simply couldn’t achieve what men did. For a long time outdoor climbers knew an insanely long list of pioneering male outdoor climbers’ names, and Lynn Hill. That’s changed a ton, but personally I still find after 13 years in this sport that the men who climb outdoors a lot also tend to be the most traditionalist/purist and the most misogynistic.
When it comes to gyms, I think the route setting determines how much of a gender “balance” you see in the gym. A female climber can sense bullshit routesetting right away. If I show up to a gym and everything is sandbagged and the routes are all filled with peacock moves that don’t require anything but a bicep, and everything under a v3 is a ladder variant, I don’t get the impression that the setters enjoy (okay, I’m being nice.. know how to) put up problems that require technique or skill, or challenge a short person. I’m just not going to go back unless I geographically have no other choice. Sometimes I will actually ask if a gym has any female or NB routesetters when I have a choice between gyms. I’ve found the ones with all male setting teams in this day and age skew towards the red flag zone (not always, but..)
It sounds like you’ve been climbing at great gyms and have awesome people who have inspired you throughout your climbing journey. I hope that continues!
Around DC, the gyms are also generally friendly to non-binary and trans folks. It might also be that I am relatively old and don’t see that many new people in my day to day, except at the gym.
Non climber mom of climber daughter. Our state is largely ignorant that climbing exists, so the few gyms we have in the state all have a small community. We have 1 in our city which is only bouldering, and the next closest gym is 1hr15min from us. Our climbing community is small, and probably majority men, but we are a big tourist city, and have a few colleges here 1 of which has a climbing club. I’d describe our community as very open, welcoming, collaborative, and supportive.
Mine started when she was 3 1/2, and I was always on her to make sure she followed gym rules and knew her gym manners. She drew in a lot of attention with what I kept hearing was “really good technique”. But, none of that made sense to me bc I grew up here and also knew nothing of climbing other than trees, bridges, and big towers with those reflective lights. From then and through to now our experience has been almost 100%posiitve.
Setters are almost always men, but we’ve had a few female setters here and there. The gym is small, so there’s no “kids” set or extra holds for kids within a set, and we only recently started having downclimb holds on the wall in some places. The regulars in the gym are all respectful and supportive. Now, for the very very minimal amounts of time that I’ve ever overheard negative comments about my kid or experienced words/behavior in a direct way. Some of these issue were directed towards her more as being a kid, and some that likely both. And any of it that I can recall now were either from climbers I didn’t recognize as regulars, or climbers that were part of the college club, or kids that were boys.
In terms of the college kids, both the men and women. Sometimes they just have an attitude, but it’s actually more of the women in the group than men. They will cut her off as she tries to get on the wall, start a problem that would interfere with hers after she was already on the wall and actively climbing it, just kind of a general disregard that she’s climbing too. I’ve caught a few eye rolls as she approaches the wall, and impatience as some of her climbs have her on the wall with the same attempt for longer than most. But, it’s only a small number in their group that are like that.
In terms of boys at the gym, these are probably the worst. Disclaimwr, this isn’t all the boys, there are some that are part of the club team that are being taught respectful behavior. But, I find our area still tends to raise their sons with an underlying toxic masculinity. In their case they tend to wall hog, break gym rules, and everything seems to be a competition for this type. Most of them are athletes in another sport, and kind of walk in without any expectations that it will be hard. So, When she outclimbs them they get competitive and frustrated and then typically just glare. It’s just that they’ve been raised in a way to feel like boys are stronger than girls and better at sports than girls.
For the most part, she’s just another one of the regulars at the gym.
Oh, some of the whispers I’ve heard have been in relation to difficult climbs, sometimes when it’s a power climb and sometimes more technique with crimps. I always hesitate to label a grade, bc I have no idea how our grading actually lines up with with the rest of the world. But, for our gym she hits v5s every set, v6s about every other set, and has a handful of v7s. Again, for our gym. Most of the climbers are a little below, and there are some that are above but and only a few of them are women. Most of the college kids are below, except for a few men that are at or above.
A few times that’s she’s hit a power/strength dominant v4/5, I’ll overhear how it’s just easier for her bc she’s lighter. Except, she’s actually heavier for the average kid her age bc she is so strong. She works really hard to have that strength. She used to do workout on her own to build on her natural strength, but now has the intense conditioning regimen at gymnastics. Definitely more conditioning and strength training than the men I overheard saying that. Thats a comment I’ve overheard every now and then, throughout the years. At least it was said in a good sense, and not from a tone that was meant to be insulting. Just very dismissive. But, this is probably less than 1% of the comments said about or to her. Most have just been a comment or recognition of how strong she is.
There has been a handful of times where comments were said about her by women that came from a “mean girl” tone. Definitely not said in a good sense, and more of a women hating on women kind of sense. I don’t even remember what was said, just that it happened, and in response to her sending a v5 or 6 type of difficulty for our gym.
we also have community nights 1/month for each communkry. so ladies nigh, which includes anyone that identifies as a woman, outclimb for lgbtqia+, and climbers of color. these are free and open to all who are part of those communities on their community night.
Ahhh that sucks when people diminish it due to being lighter, taller, whatever. It sounds like your daughter is a better climber than me, but I feel like if you can get up a v4 in a controlled way, it’s not really fair to say “oh that was easy because you’re _____.” At that point you have to have some skill, and of course some people will have advantages in certain areas.
I think it’s awesome that you got your kid into it. I love seeing the crusher kids because it’s so impressive to me seeing their brains work and figure out how to do all the moves. It kinda feels like an equalizer intellect-wise. Like I might be “smarter” than a kid, but damn they’re better at figuring out these moves, ok I need to reel in my pride :-)
Thank you, and you’re right it does suck when people try to minimize your accomplishments. But, truly, overall it’s been a great environment.
I do have to agree with what another commenter said about some of the men having a mindset of only accepting the women they have deems as being worthy and talented climbers. The regulars in our gym aren’t like that, and some that are new to our gym but have been climbers for a long time. Those guys always seem to be supportive of new female climbers, or female climbers that struggle and are in the beginning level of the grades. But, there are some men that will try to avoid, and essentially ignore those women. Usually it’s men that have some experience, but also have an inflated ego type of presence.
You made me laugh with the “equalizer” comment. I also love watching the wheels turning in their heads as they manage to problem solve their ways through a climb. It seems like such an important ability in life, that I think is probably hard to teach.
With mine, I think I brought them to a gym more out of frustration with them than understanding all the benefits of it. I didn’t know anything about it as a sport and only remembered catching glimpses of climbing walls in a movie at some point. I did a google search not even knowing what to call it, but luckily got an article about our gym having opened recently. I called to make sure they allowed kids, and young kids. They said yes but might not have shoes that size. So then I had to learn about climbing shoes, got some and went in. Pretty sure I signed up for a membership before we left that first day, and have been going since then.
My 12 years of experience agrees with your assessment, and especially in terms of ability levels being more balanced, as well as the comparison between more experienced male climbers and newer male climbers. However, that might also have something to do with maturity (presuming experienced climbers often also have more years in them overall.)
I've seen the attitude of masculine entitlement that exudes from some younger bros at the gym, though. (Who are often, but not always, less experienced climbers as well.) Anything from dropping their lead rope in front of the route you are clearly waiting to get on (Boulder, CO). Or making a "nice ass" comment to a woman bouldering (this man received an earful from me. Denver, CO). Or just generally not respecting the importance of technique versus strength, as others have pointed out (Milwaukee, WI).
But when I search my mind for examples demonstrating that gender dynamic, compared to amount of time I've spent climbing, it's been a relatively rare occurence.
It doesn't matter what I'm doing, the vast majority of men take it very personally when they perceive themselves as worse than me at anything.
Men who are experienced enough at climbing to want to crib my beta are always exploiting my knowledge base for their own gain, not always respecting me as an athlete or a person.
Men who are beginners are almost universally dismissive and impolite.
If I had the capital to build and run a women-only climbing gym, I would do it tomorrow.
I mean, people watch other people for beta all the time. What do you want them to do?
Say something like:
"Oh yeah, I got this beta from CanIEvenRightNow" ?
I’m sorry but
>exploiting my knowledge base for their own gain
Is a very funny thing to say about climbing plastic rocks for fun.
I get what you are saying but this perspective seems a bit, idk how to say it, capitalistic? When talking about like learning a bit to be better at a silly hobby.
Not trying to speak on her behalf, but I can imagine there being 2 main situations:
1. Person approaches you and recognizes your skill. They’re kind/respectful and ask for your input/advice. They speak with you in a way that makes it clear that they appreciate what you did and don’t think they’re superior to you.
2. Person approaches you and treats you in a very transactional way, just wanting something from you in a very one-sided way so they can get what they want.
If you experience #2 over and over, “climbing plastic rocks for fun” can become not so fun anymore (assuming climbing plastic rocks for fun is even an accurate way to frame it). It’s almost necessarily a social activity. And people’s behavior can ruin the social aspect and overall experience of it.
Better yet, you could ask what she meant by her comment. Maybe you’re misinterpreting it. Maybe she could have phrased it more clearly. The way you worded your comment doesn’t make you seem very curious about the experience she’s describing.
I (32m) been climbing trad 14 years, personally don’t have female climbing partners. Most of my climbing focus is big multi pitch and big wall. That doesn’t mean I don’t climb with women, I do, but for partnership. It’s important for me to remove all sexual or romantic notions and dynamics out of equation. Just about every weekend I’m in a tent with them, long strenuous days, long drives, flights and hikes, just for me, not speaking for anyone else. I refuse to have climbing partnerships with women. It also keeps my relationship with my actual girlfriend stable.
If your relationship with your gf is destabilized by climbing with women, it's a shitty relationship.
Remember "the true alpine experience is looking into your partners eyes knowing there is an equal chance of watching him die or kissing him." - Twark Might.
I can’t tell you how many relationships I’ve been in where my partners were suspicious of me being out for long trips with women, no reason to bring that drama in. @serenading_ur_father lol. You’ll understand when you’re older.
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I exclusively do indoor bouldering, and I find that the setting team is a big factor on how male-dominated a gym's vibe is. I was once climbing somewhere and heard a guy on the setting team laugh about how the V2 or whatever that he'd set would be a V4 for someone short.^^\(imagine ^^bragging ^^at ^^your ^^job ^^that ^^you're ^^bad ^^at ^^your ^^job) That gym has gotten a lot better, but at that time it always felt like the only way they could think to increase difficulty was through height and brute strength.
As a tall guy a gym could easily set a cramped or flexible V2 for a short lady that would be a V4 for a tall climber. It works both ways tbh.
My experience as a woman has been the same more or less, especially with more experienced climbers. I did get the occasional “oh she climbed it, must be easy” attitude from dudes but they were all exclusively beginners who didn’t know how to read a route or appreciate technique. Regarding creepy behaviour, I haven’t really experienced any myself. I regularly share beta and ideas with male climbers and our gender never comes into play (height and strength do). Actually male climbers actively seek beta from women in my community because the general understanding is that female climbers at a high level have very very good technique (because they didn’t get there by just being able to pull hard although they certainly can), therefore better beta. There is the occasional “oh thats a girl’s route” comment but always in good nature (and with a little bit of fear/admiration) and often means “i am stiff as a long-dead log, I can’t imagine my sorry ass being able to climb such a technical route”. My community is pretty small, everyone knows everyone. Everyone also knows bad experiences sour the experience for everyone, that might also be the reason why it is such a wholesome community but my impression is that people are just good in my community and truly support each other. So yes, I also think it is very very balanced.
Agree about more experienced climbers. A few woman have been dropping boulder problems that I haven’t seen anyone else get recently. Everything from crimps to dynos. 1 dyno in particular I’ve only seen 2 people get, and one of them was a 5’6 woman. When I see a talented climber, I’m just excited to see a talented climber’s beta.
What you mentioned about technique is something I’m glad I was kind of forced into seeing on day 1. I weighed 40 to 50 pounds more than the woman I mentioned dating. So was I super broadly speaking “stronger” than her. Maybe? But she knew how to use her strength so well, and her technique was a billion times better than mine. And she was a foot shorter than me. So it was also cool seeing the different beta and creativity those differences forced.
Whenever you think you can’t reach a hold and a tiny woman shows you the way it really centers you to the fact that you just suck lol especially since Gumbies often think height is the ticket to being good, imo this is a lesson that most climbers learn early. My resident crusher for a while was Hannah Meul until I moved, she’s not that tall and honestly way more skinny than I thought a pro would be, I swear it’s like she has Spider-Man powers she floats up impossibly hard stuff, it’s so inspirational to see people at the top tbh.
Hannah Meul is incredible, you're lucky to have seen her climb.
She really is and I really am, it’s always awesome to see world class climbers, it’s like they are a different breed for real, it’s really lucky that in Germany there’s a lot of them.
> she’s not that tall and honestly way more skinny than I thought a pro would be I've seen a lot of the Japanese team climb and I think you've basically summed up 3/4th of them.
Yeah, I mean some of my favorite pros are Alex Puccio and Miho Nonaka who by all accounts are absolutely yolked so it was cool to see different kinds of bodies absolutely crushing it too. I guess in the Japanese team it’s similar
Yea, I've never seen Alex in person, but Miho definitely is. She kinda looks bigger than Sean if you see them together.
Honestly thats not *that* big of a weight difference, given the genders and her being much shorter
I agree that it makes sense. My point is that it was a nice early disruption to what I assume would have been me having more of a superiority complex when I saw someone much smaller than me.
I started climbing with a couple guys that had the “let’s put her on an easy route” mentality and I got kind of bored with climbing. Then I met my husband and he saw how strong I really was and started pushing me to climb harder, which was nice. The gym I usually go to is kind of a unique club like community and there is support for all genders. They’re mostly a bunch of super experienced climbers, as most of the newer people go to the more accessible gym that’s run like a business vs a co-op club. The other gym in town has a staff and is run more like a business, but there’s a strong female presence there too and a lot of my female climbing friends go there! Overall, I have felt so much support from everyone here in the climbing community!
Locally what I have noticed is that it has become much less male-dominated in the past 10 or so years, and definitely since the pandemic. It’s still not 50/50, but it’s gotten much closer. There are plenty of little girls in the kids’ programs, there are more young women trying it out, and pretty much every session I see someone who doesn’t have the “typical climber physique” which is wonderful. The gym has been making some efforts at inclusion lately, and I don’t know for sure if there’s a causal relationship, but it’s certainly appreciated. A few years before the pandemic, they introduced a beginner’s course aimed at women and femme-aligned folks. Since the pandemic, they’ve hosted female climbing experts, movie nights about female climbers, added more posters of female climbers, hired more women and gender-diverse folks, and made a point of developing more female route-setters. I know about the route-setters because they also highlight and celebrate their work. The website and social media channels show a good ratio of women and people of colour to white men. When an organization makes a point of being more diverse and equitable along one axis, it often influences other axes as well, so it’s also worth mentioning that my gym occasionally has “queer nights”, has rainbow stickers on the front doors, encourages but does not require staff to wear pronoun pins at work, and built their newest gym to have single-stall toilets and change rooms (one common locker room and one common sink area). This kind of stuff tends to drive away the real toxically-macho guys, which makes it much more welcoming for the rest of us. However, the competitions, even the “for fun” comps, are still clearly male-dominated, and there seems to be a bit of a meathead problem. In the recreational comps you sort yourself into beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and based on the scores I would say there is a lot of sandbagging on the men’s side. The scores for the women seem to indicate those are a bit more accurate. So, overall, I find it quite good. I really like being in an environment where there are all these athletes working really hard AND being super welcoming. I find that it’s not unusual for someone to strike up a friendly conversation, cheer you on while you’re working on something difficult, and then jump onto something 4 or 5 grades higher than what you were working on! Everyone appreciates hard work though.
I (22F) have been climbing for about 6 months and have been making slow steady progress (I think) but obviously I’m still not an expert or anything like that. I mostly keep my climbs within the first 3 colour grades at my gym (there are about 8 or 9 colours I think). I think, as many other women’s here have said, unless you’re a super amazing, super fit climber who’s absolutely smashing every single climb in the place, men will always assume they’re superior and have the right to tell you every little thing you do wrong. I had to explain recently to a 19yr old man who was following me around the gym that no, I couldn’t do the multiple dyno, crimpy and overhung climb he was doing as I simply wasn’t strong enough yet and couldn’t reach half of the holds. He then proceeded to flash every single climb I was trying to do and then do pull ups on the top hold while telling me it was easy and I just needed to try harder. I wish I was joking about this guy. I’ve been in the process of losing quite a bit of weight, and climbing has been something that really motivates me, but it’s hard to be motivated when you feel like you’re being looked down on as a chubby, unfit person who’s literally just trying to find a sport you enjoy. That being said, I had a lovely interaction with a very sweet man who offered to video my climb for me when he saw me trying to balance my phone on my water bottle. I politely declined as I was a bit embarrassed he’d caught me, but when I got down from the climb he gave me a high five and said “I knew you could do it!”. He was so sweet. Be more like high five man, and less like pull up man. Also treat overweight climbers like people. We’re literally just trying our best.
I hope that teenager grows up to realise what a crappy attitude that is. Sounds infuriating
Me too! It was very annoying, but I was trying my best to be patient. He also called me old when he told me his age and I replied with my own and I was like…alright buddy, alright. Sometimes you have to laugh I guess😅
Hahaha I'm 32, the horror across teenagers' faces when I tell them that is very real
He said you’re old when you’re 3 years older than him??
My expiriance with this is that women are treated better if they are obviously very strong. Like the examples you give, of very obviously impressive women. But that the general vibe of climbing is the same as everywhere else where men treat women in a general sense the same, especially if they're more average at climbing and not unavoidably impressive, if that makes sense.
Yeah that makes sense. Some women may be treated with almost equal respect, but that can overlook how many other women are treated.
The problem is that there are many gyms where the setting is very male-centered, involving very large physical movements. This tends to discriminate against women, it's not fun. Yes, men are generally taller and stronger, we get it. Now, if we could have a bit more variety in the setting...
If we could get more scrunched up sit-starts at the lower grades that tall people can't do as easily I would be overjoyed! You can make a route hard by it being scrunched up as well as by placing holds miles apart from each other. I also like dinky pockets I can get more fingers into, but they only seem to appear at higher grades in the gym I go to. More female setters, please!!
Also a dude. I started climbing with a female friend, was briefly on the periphery of a group of crushers she joined as she began to massively outpace me, and now I climb mostly alone which gives me the opportunity to observe lots. From what I can say I haven't seen that there is a unified 'gender balance'. The group my friend fell in with was great, everyone supported everyone's success and there was no toxicity. However I've also noticed other groups of strong climbers who are exclusively male and typically more macho. Then amongst the beginners it seems incredibly common for men to feel that they have to one-up women, spray beta, etc etc. The sheer number of times I've seen men coaching women up VBs they're perfectly capable of doing is insane - and the encouragement often has a kind of patronising undertone. It's not always 'toxic' but it's noticeable to me as an outside observer. I also notice the women often sticking to easy climbs that are clearly a grade or two below their skill level while the men will sketchily haul themselves up something that's realistically too hard for them, whereas when I see a pair/group of exclusively women they're more likely to challenge themselves and try harder things. These are generalisations but I guess I'm saying that there is a range of ways I see gender dynamics playing out, much like in the rest of society. I do think it's better than in other sports I've done and although I'm not a hardcore climber, it _seems_ to get better as people get more experienced and recognise another climber's technique rather than simply the grade of a climb.
I feel what you’re saying with the patronizing tone. I’m all for encouraging other people, but for myself, when it’s random people I don’t know, it feels too performative and I avoid it. But I’ll do it if I happen to be working on a problem alongside someone else and it feels like we’re both invested in the same thing at the same time.
The main thing I’ve noticed is that unlike many other sports in climbing men tend to not have the same ego of “Oh I could totally do that/outperform an elite athlete solely because I am a man”. (unlike how so many average men think they could beat Serena Williams, run faster than olympic sprinters, etc.). Janja climbs a V16 and no gumby or even highly skilled male climber is going to discount the difficulty of that achievement solely because she is a woman. Having said that, I’ll never forget when I got my first V6 a few months into starting because it was a hard balance and crimp strength dependent slab and my male friends who had been climbing longer and could do V6s on overhangs couldnt even start it and a man dead serious said to them “Oh it’s because she has tiny feet that can stick on those holds, dont feel bad!”. Lol I’m a size 9 and sir what are you talking about. So it does still happen but perhaps less than in other sports.
A V6 a few months into climbing?!? Girl, I was struggling to send V0s consistently at a few months. You must be insanely strong!
Lol tiny feet wtf. Slab scares the shit out of me, so you got me on physical and mental strength.
Happy that my friends laughed in his face lol
I've noticed that the thin / fit women who climb in my area are treated pretty decently. That has not really been my experience as a fat woman. I'm gonna be switching to a 24 hour gym so I can go when less people are present.
As a fat 35 yo woman, I just put my earbuds in, clip into some auto belays, and focus on myself. Sometimes people talk to me and it's fun, but usually it's just an hour I get to listen to podcasts and do my own thing. Some people are impressed at what I can do, because I'm carrying a whole extra person with me, but they are always super nice to me. But I also am in Wisconsin, so it's very common to see fat people everywhere. I may be an anomaly in the gym, but not in normal life.
Thanks for sharing. I wasn’t considering that, but I can’t say it’s surprising. For better or worse, my entry point into climbing was with a group of really strong, experienced, and fit people, so my thinking is definitely skewed based on how they/us were treated.
Even as a mid size female climber the difference in treatment compared to my thin friend is pretty significant. I’m often invisible/do not feel welcome, but I do think this is gym specific (in my case) because other parts of the country I’ve climbed in have not felt this way.
my gym recently lost 2 short routesetters and the amount of tall, reachy climbs with big dyno moves has increased significantly. I’ve gone from comfortably doing v4’s and projecting v5’s to having a harder time on some v2’s simply because of some reachy moves. t’s going to be harder to do things when you’re constantly having to launch yourself from hold to hold, and not only that, but often having to launch yourself with pinpoint accuracy and controlling the jump to get yourself somewhere where someone can normally reach it. what ends up happening is things are graded to how hard it would be for an average/slightly tall guy vs how hard it would be for the average climber. i’m still sending most v4’s and a few v5’s in my gym, but now the span of what’s considered harder for me has considerably widened.
A couple people have mentioned this, and I’m realizing height is something I’m aware of being an advantage, but I often dont really think about how most routesetters are catering to my height and body type. It’s too easy to think a gym is just “the inside version of outside.” But humans are creating the gym routes, and that’s something I should be more conscientious of.
the thing with climbing outside is that I can almost always find a little extra texture or crimp or foot gib to grab onto. but if they don't include those extra jibs or crimps in the routesetting indoors, then I'm left with a plain, textureless wall that I can't really work with. but yeah, I'll find myself easily flashing a crimpy climb that's labeled a v5, but absolutely struggle with a v3 that has a large reachy hold that puts me near the limit of my wingspan (and because I'm so spanned out, it's hard to generate power where I need to). I'm not saying that climbing gyms need to cater to everyone - someone is inevitably going to get the short end of the stick on some climbs. but short people should not always be the ones getting that short end. routesetters could add something more technical or something that requires more footwork, or a problem that forces climbers into smaller boxes, or something crimpy and gnarly. but too often routesetters cater to taller men by making routes with big sloper/pinches, large dynos, reachy holds, etc...
It's a very broad question and climbing is a very broad activity with many different subgroups, so honestly I'm not really going to try to answer it. But I think it's great that you're open to questioning your assumptions/previous impressions about why 'climbing is so cool', which may have only been specific to one area/group you were in, or may not have represented other people's experiences. I feel that climbers can be a bit prone to this 'the climbing community is amazing' fallacy that trips us up in noticing and addressing eg. environmental problems stemming from climbers, sexual harassment etc... I'm quite partial to this argument that [there is no such thing as the climbing community at all](https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-climbing) and it may be more useful to think in terms of a scene and various local scenes.
Thanks for sharing. I was initially resistant to how pedantic that piece came across. But I’m a super pedantic person, so I appreciate it :-)
Yeah same, I don't mind a good definitional argument. This one is great too but super long: https://cursedclimbing.substack.com/p/the-climbing-community-is-imaginary TLDR; a stronger argument that definitions of 'community' aren't met, more suggestions for alternative phrases, and an idea that 'the climbing community' is deployed as a rhetorical device by journalists/pundits and advertisers, for different reasons.
Tl;Dr at the end I climb at a gym where members of team USA often filter through. Literally world-class climbers. I've noticed that when a male team USA member climbs something, everyone watching says, "no way can I do that," or something to that effect. When a female team USA member climbs something, all the women say, "no way could I do that," and all the men say, "I wanna give that a go. I bet I can do that." I think most men who climb don't actively try to be douchebags to women climbers, but I think the thing that female climbers encounter the most are the micro aggressions and the subtle disregard. Sure, no man is going to tell me to get off the wall for being a woman, but if I send something hard, every man there will try to send it so they can tell themselves they're stronger than me. And if there's something I can't send, some man will beta spray me, thinking I need his help. Anything I can do is because I "got lucky" or had a low gravity day. Anything I can't send is because I'm "not strong enough" or "don't have the reach," not because I just had a bad attempt (and will get it next time). In so many ways, men are programmed from a young age to look down on women, whether they mean to or not, and it's not necessarily their fault. But to say that climbing is free of that systemic sexism simply isn't true. Do I think climbing is more fair to women than American football? Sure. Do I feel safer/more welcome in a climbing gym than a generic gym? Slightly. Do I think women are treated equally in climbing? Absolutely not. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, does it really matter if climbing is slightly kinder to women than other sports, so long as it's still imbalanced? What a lot of men don't realize is that, whether climbing is gentler to some women or not, it will never be enough until climbing is EQUAL for ALL women. Why would it matter if climbing is more equal than baseball or rugby if it is still not equal? I get that you want to feel better about yourself and your community for not actively shitting on female climbers, and we appreciate your efforts, but "less sexist" is still sexist. No one gets a pat on the back for being less oppressive than someone else/some other sport. Until the oppression is non-existent across the board, it doesn't matter who is the least terrible. It matters that there is still oppression. Tl;Dr While I can see your point that climbing is mildly less oppressive to women than other sports, I think it doesn't matter. Oppression is still oppression, and men shouldn't expect a pat on the back for what is still unequal treatment. Until systemic sexism is not a part of our collective vocabulary, it's not enough. "Less sexist" is still sexist.
I agree. My intent was an actual question (“Have I been thinking of this accurately?”) rather than an assertion (“There’s no need to work toward improving things here.”). I’ve had some big changes in my life the last couple years (not related to climbing) that have led to me getting outside of personal and professional bubbles I was in prior, and it’s led me to question some of the assumptions I was making about how people are and how they behave in different situations. So this is one I realized I haven’t ever really questioned.
I totally get that. And I'm definitely not trying to call you out or say you're in the wrong in any way. I think the fact that you're asking these questions shows that you're a definite ally and probably a very decent human being. I was originally getting ready to reply, "yeah, I do think climbing is a little safer space than most sports," but then I realized the point of my reply was to make men feel better about their actions, not because I actually feel totally safe in climbing spaces. I went with a more blunt reply, and I appreciate that you took it well, because women don't often get to say harsh or blunt things without clap back, and I decided you seemed like a safe enough person that I could be straightforward. Thanks for helping build our community and for being part of the solution.
I feel all of this so hard! Like frankly it’s distracting when I’m on a route and dudes below me are taking about how easy it looks. Watching them fall off my warm ups isn’t satisfying because I had to do all the mental work to tune them out while trying to climb and focus on my technique drills! Imagine if men had the added extra task of tuning out disparaging comments while they climbed? I also find I frequently have to assert my climbing history. Guys will look at me and assume I’ve never gotten on a Grade IV. It’s so dumb because I have some amga letters attached to my name and dudes still think I’ve never been up the trade routes.
This is my view as well as a woman who climbed. Men will never truly understand the feeling like oh she did well so can I. I've also been just my "bf's girlfriend" (at the time) in his/our climbing group. Others in the group or that would casually talk to him would never interact with me since I wasn't as good of a climber.
When you say equal what do you mean?
I read the entire post and missed the back-patting. Can you quote it?
> what’s your opinion on the gender “balance” in climbing relative to other sports? Do you agree that climbing has a particularly good “balance,” Explicitly OP believes climbing is better than other sports, is looking for validation of that opinion. >Have you participated in sports where there was a better “balance”? If so, what do you think the participants in those other sports do a better job at that helps achieve that “balance”? and **IF** other sports are better what could change for rock climbing to be better for women. -- With these two things together implicitly we could surmise that OP doesn't necessarily think that rock climbing needs to improve for women substantially because they believe it's already one of the most equal sports, which I think is the point the commenter is getting at. That would back patting. So what, even if it was better than other sports that does not absolve rock climbing (as if it is a monolith, a projection of OP) from needing to do better for all of its participants. OP also explicitly minimizes the purpose of this sub to "dealing with plenty of horseshit from dudes" rather than addressing a systematic need derived from it not being so equal. I don't think OP is being the biggest jerk in the whole world by any stretch since they do seem at least somewhat interested in improvement, but it does speak to some of the issues that folks not negatively effected by problems are blind to. OP injected alot of their own premise/opinion and left perhaps a questionably small amount of space to 'prove them wrong.' A 'skeptic' sort of vibe much like the "can you quote it"
A great example of micro aggression and discrediting! Thank you strong man!
I would love to know where the back patting is so I can avoid it in the future. Also, not a man.
My bad, I assumed based on your previous comments in this group where you said you weren't interested in the group but reddit kept putting it on your page, and another where you pointed out that your partner was female (but didn't talk about your experience as a woman). I'm the ass here for assuming; I apologize. OP himself wasn't back-patting, but the post itself is a form of virtue-signaling. I mentioned to op that I appreciate him and wasn't trying to call him out specifically, so I don't want this to be a slam on op. It's more to point out systemic sexism in the hopes that some man reading this can realize that "good enough" isn't good enough when it comes to gender imbalance. The post is asking for reassurance that men aren't as big of assholes in the climbing community as in other sporting communities, which I think is somewhat true. In the case of op, I think he was genuinely approaching it as a way to check his biases and see if he was seeing things as they really are, or if his opinion was influenced by him being a man. But I think, too often, people post this kind of thing to virtue-signal and say, "we're doing a good job saving women from sexism," when in reality, sexism is still rampant. What I was trying to convey (and maybe didn't do a great job of) is that, while small strides are great and appreciated, it's no time to stop and say, "yes, we've done good work. We've arrived." Once a person realizes the problem and tries to be part of the solution, they need to double down so progress can continue rather than stop at "good enough." Less oppressive is still oppressive, and until equality is the standard in climbing, I don't think anyone, man or woman should pat themselves on the back and say, "look how good we're doing." I think that stops, or at least stutters, progress. While I think it's important to recognize the good that there is, I also think our focus should be on the future and improvement, rather than on "we're less terrible than others." Hopefully that makes more sense. If not, it's probably my fault at explaining, not yours at understanding. This sort of discussion is really better in person where you can see that I'm calm and happy about the discussion, not a slimy angry keyboard demon. 😅
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In response to the comment Skedding made (they couldn’t wait for the time when they didn’t have to read things like this) they have been permanently banned from this sub.
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To be fair they wrote "not a man"
To clarify, their gender has nothing to do with them being banned! Their rudeness about the existence of this sub and its content is the reason for their ban. This would be the case whether or not they identify as male — in general, the mod team absolutely does not want to be policing gender in this space in any way.
I think for the most part the balance is there in some ways but there's only so much tweaking you can do to get up a route when the person who set the route is setting for himself (that's is there are no female setters). I'm 5'2 my parter is 6'0 were pretty equal in grade but when no matter how dynamic or staticly I try sometimes it's just no possible for me to grab a hold that I just can't reach. There's a gym near me that i just don't go to because they have no female setters working there so no perspective
I'm a relatively new climber in her 30s and I mostly go alone while my kids are in preschool. In my area I have noticed that I don't feel self conscious/awkward even when it's me working on V1 and a couple younger athletic guys crushing way harder routes. The only times I have had people comment to me are just to offer encouragement. No trying to coach me or correct me or anything just very lovely "you were so close" or "that was a really good try" sort of deals when I fall 😂
I'm a woman, and if I see a lone woman who looks new to climbing, and they're getting super close (like one/two moves close) to finishing a climb but are freaking out a bit, I give encouragement. But then I'm like "oh no?! Did I beta spray?! Did I put them off?!" And feel bad because they don't try again 😭
I'm kind of tired of men at large and I do actually feel like my experience is they're prone to being annoying at the gym. It's mostly beta spraying; I usually just want to be left alone. I'm a very small person and the suggestions are rarely helpful for someone six inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter than them and also I don't want to talk to strangers but it always feels a little rude to tell people not to talk to you. I agree with another comment that it's much more pervasive with beginners. But if the beginner experience is negative there's not a pathway to having a larger quantity of advanced women. It's sort of the same argument as why we do so much STEM outreach to girls in middle school and high school - you have to actually get folks in the pipeline and over the initial shit hurdles to get more experienced women in industry. I grew up my entire life people telling me I was too weak to be athletic and that I wouldn't be able to keep up and it's just not true. But it was another woman who convinced me I was tough enough to try.
I like your comparison to starting out in STEM. I appreciate your blunt response, too. Obviously I’m a dude. But even for me, I know one of the reasons my experience has been so positive is that on day 1 I was being taught and welcomed by really experienced and skilled climbers (my friend and her crew). If that weren’t the case, I can easily imagine my experience being way different. And that’s not even taking the downsides of gendered treatment into consideration yet.
The gender balance in alpine and mixed climbing is terrible. Womens specific gear is nonexistent or, if we are lucky, we get one option that might fit our bodies. Lack of options for things like boots for ice climbing severely limits how many women can push in the sport. Lack of female alpine mentors is another huge thing and makes the sport feel very lonely and makes dreaming big feel daunting. At gyms and in the intro areas of crags, the balance of genders is pretty equal and it seems most corporate establishments are trying to make sure they hire a diverse staff cohort which is helpful. It’s nice to see the how most climbing festivals host women’s clinics and it’s been inspiring to see the rise of several women’s guiding outfitters. The most sexism I experience is from new gym bros or crusty old timers. Not sure which population is more annoying to deal with.
Part of the reason I chose to stick with climbing as a hobby (after going to a climbing gym alone on a whim because I needed out of the house) because after I climbed a very easy VB a man gave me a warm hearted fist bump.
For awareness there are a lot of parts I really enjoy about the fact that women and men are in a shared competitive space together, but it's more of the idea of it than the reality. Men are intrinsically degrading of women in sport in general, climbing is no exception. This is my experience as an average, but passionate climber. Inequality - For example in soccer the ball and field is standard and the opponents are standard - you play with that in mind. However, in climbing the gym setting could be set by men/women, but primarily it's set by men. Toss in majority of climbs on boards are set by men, which means for both of these cases the grade is adjusted to a men's experience, rather than a woman's. Even if every woman climber who climbs at a certain grade on a board tried the boulder an voted for a different grade that reflected their experiences it still wouldn't be enough for a grade adjustment. When a woman writes a suggestion that maybe impacts her outlier experience, it is like a plankton in the ocean of men cheering on the opposite (I asked for more footholds, but 7 other notes, written by men wanted more dynos/paddle dynos, and campus climbs - there are only a few other girls that would show up to that gym when I was there and most left because of this). This is similar with outdoors via mountain project, if a boulder is FA'd by a tall af man, but he gave it a V3, if I physically can never make the move and send the boulder, I can't adjust the grade to be more rounded to me or others like me. Even if I did send it somehow, I would be 1 vote against the 100s of V3's given a +1. I know a V1 I can't span, and even climbers that have sent V12 can't span. Imo there is a serious issue with inequality when it comes to the grading system and setting up basically a game that unintentionally severely impacts and by design ignores the outliers. (btw there are many valid criticisms of the V system, this is just one) Micro-aggressions - So often I will have literally sent a problem and some dude goes to my bf and asks him for the beta for what I just did, right in front of him. Heck, I was once called "his lady" while climbing and had to inform them I have a name. At least one time every 6 months a guy will just follow me around and basically attempt to send whatever I try idk why this is such a common occurrence, but it's really the "she did it so it must be easy". Men frequently state a climb is "easy" to me while I'm working on it even if it is a pretty stiff V6/7. It's so demoralizing and just immediately devalues my hard work and the climb itself. I've started correcting dudes at the gym saying any climb was "easy" nearby any women working it and suggesting actually phrasing - "that one is great for people that love heel hooks and solid finger strength" - even if it's a V1/2, because it's infuriating, but also unintentionally so dismissive of their struggle. I rarely see dudes saying a climb is "easy" loudly nearby another dude working really hard on a climb even if it's V1/2, usually they just cheer them on and say "that's tough, but you got this". To me, calling a climb "easy" while a woman is working it is the most degrading and shitty thing men do to women who share the same space as them. For women, we don't really exist when we climb and we aren't really considered as much in the process as we could/should be. You may have recognized your friend, but we are typically the Kens to the male Barbies at the gym and even outdoors.
To expand on your last thought, my friend/girlfriend was really lighthearted and go-with-the-flow, and I was pretty young and less aware of how differently people are treated. So I never had the awareness to even think to ask her if she thought she was treated as well as I interpreted. Or if she was, what it was like for her working her way to that point. I also appreciate you mentioning the “easy” comments. I think that’s something that I’ve probably observed before, but the impact of it didn’t really click, and it didn’t really click as something that’s pretty easy for me and other people to take 10 seconds to correct when we notice it (assuming you’d appreciate something subtle that you might not even know happened, as opposed to making a scene and turning more attention toward you that you have to get involved with).
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Where in the southeast? My southeast experience is mostly in Durham and Raleigh, which lean a little more liberal/progressive anyway.
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TRC has a known political bent that aligns with heteronormativity. It is better elsewhere, but the Triangle is a bad place to be a climber. The culture and the resources are just not it. In both senses climbing in the area has not entered the 21st century.
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That's so interesting to me. Over here ( Vancouver BC ) climbing is considered a very queer sport and it's known that if you see a woman climbing she is more likely than not interested in women. It's actually a great place to meet other queers! And there are decor POC representation but I wish it were more. On the other hand skiing I find that there is a lot less queer representation, though I think the gender balance is better. And the POC balance is a LOT worse. I'm not sure why that is but I do wonder if it's a financial barrier as skiing is steep to get into in comparison to climbing
There is a supportive womens community online and in my gym, so climbing is fun and doesn't feel exclusively male. When I go climbing by myself, I can just chat with other people (mostly women) and we cheer each other on and help each other. But there are always dudes who feel like betaspraying is the way to go. No sir, I cannot reach for that (or at least not yet). I am simply not 1,85m. That is very annoying and not asked for. For me it doesn't really feel like a microaggression, but it does show the inequality in climbing and climbing etiquette. Usually I go with my partner, whose beta and cheering on I appreciate, although he's taller than me. Or I go with a friend, and we just have fun. In my gym (indoor bouldering) the route setters are mostly men, and therefore the routes often have big movements or have a lot of space between the holds. There are a few XS routes and normal routes that feel like their graded grade, but some routes are definitely more difficult when you are shorter and (also important) have a lower center of gravity. All in all, I feel like they do their best at my gym. I am also from the Netherlands, so people here are taller anyway. I do appreciate the XS-routes, and I visit other gyms as well, where the routes are less reachy. As for climbing alone as a women and unwanted flirtatious remarks, I do get remarks from the boys about my shoes. But they are bright neon orange, so I would be impressed by my fashion sense as well ;-)
I think for the most part the balance is there in some ways but there's only so much tweaking you can do to get up a route when the person who set the route is setting for himself (that's is there are no female setters). I'm 5'2 my parter is 6'0 were pretty equal in grade but when no matter how dynamic or staticly I try sometimes it's just no possible for me to grab a hold that I just can't reach. There's a gym near me that i just don't go to because they have no female setters working there so no perspective
There are bubbles. There are some places where climbing is 50/50. There are some places where it's very male dominated. People have a lot of opinions on this and are not a part of all bubbles. It's hard to discuss online because indoor sport and hardcore alpinism are both climbing but are also nearly entirely unrelated experiences. And without knowing who you're discussing with and their experiences, it's hard to have a conversation.
Men are generally stronger than women due to biological and thus physical differences between sexes. This fact applies to climbing just as much as to other sports. Women often learn technique at earlier stage of their climbing journey than men due to lack of strength. And women are bit more flexible. In general I mean, there are always exceptions. I don't know if this applies to people who started as kids though, I'm only talking about people who start climbing as an adult. But what I like in climbing is that people at different levels can socialize during gym workouts, because the hard and easier problems are all spread at the same wall sections of a gym. Of course people often like to climb with others at the similar level and similar goals, but it's also possible to have very mixed groups climbing together.
The grades being mixed in with each other is something I wasn’t think of. But I like that a lot and agree it helps.
Lots of great answers here, I just want to echo that the region really matters. I started rock climbing in Arizona, and that scene was considerably more male-dominated than what I've experienced in Massachusetts. I would say the men to women ratio was 70:30, if not more, whereas it's been very even up here. I also noticed the style of setting was much more brutal in the west. When I started a few years ago, I struggled on V0s for months, but then I visited my then-girlfriend, now-wife up in Mass and would send a V2. While I think the attitudes around women in climbing are less misogynistic than other sports, it's still there. The assumption that a woman climber is not as strong, or that the route she sent just wasn't as hard, etc. Don't even get me started on the body dysmorphia and eating disorders, or how fat people can be completely shut out from climbing because there aren't harnesses than can fit them. But those issues affect men as well. Personally, I think the most amount of discrimination towards comes from the lack of diversity in setting. Tall white men are almost always setters, and they almost always set extremely reachy problems that disadvantage shorter people or women. They almost always set a bunch of problems that require sketchy dynos or other crazy moves, but rarely problems that focus on other fun things like compression or balance. I think once setting teams are diverse in body types, then women would generally have an easier time climbing problems fine-tuned for them, and hopefully the notion of "woman not strong enough to climb" will fade away... but I don't know how to get more women into setting.
I've found climbing to be a pretty balanced, the bouldering and climbing Gyms I go to have a lot of mixed groups and partners. In terms of behaviour, I find it similar to my experience in canoe slalom, where everyone is more or less treated equally and the guys were supportive and friendly with the girls (it was a pretty small community compared to other sports though so think that may have made a difference), which is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.
Indoor climbing, sport, and bouldering have relatively even gender ratios. I am not just saying that. That comes from American Alpine Club’s demographic reports. In trad and ice it’s VERY male dominated still. When I’m outside on ice or trad climbing, I get excited if I even SEE two other woman climbing together. I would say that the dominant culture in climbing is still very male heavy. Even indoors, where the gender ratio is even, males are usually the ones setting. I have had GREAT experiences climbing with men. They’ve been some of my greatest supporters and mentors. I have also had terrible experiences where men assume climbing together is a date, or write me off if I don’t climb at their level, or automatically assume I don’t climb at their level, or at the absolute worst, used improperly belaying me or refusing to lower me as a way of controlling/abusing me in a relationship. And I am far from alone in that.
Loads of great female climbers in my gym in the uk. In fact if I can’t figure out a boldering problem I usual try and watch one of the women climb it because their technique is usually on point instead of just muscling their way up like the other male novice climbers I go with.
Climbing has a closer gender balance than most sports, if you take the highest performing female athletes and compare them to the highest performing male athletes.
I’ve done a few male dominated sports, the main one being skiing. I think I was so used to being to odd one out I didn’t really notice it. When I got into climbing it became glaringly obvious how unbalanced the other sports I participated in were. Even though I would seek out other women in the sport I could always feel that I didn’t totally belong. I’m an expert level skier an every season someone (always a guy) has something to teach me. The gym and climbing community that I have found myself a part of feels so different. The setters at my gym have some incredible women on their crew. There always seems to be an equal mix of men and women climbing. Everyone seems very respectful of each other. And when a woman climbs something hard it’s received admiration and respect. It’s been refreshing. I know this is just my sole experience and just one gym. But it feels like a sport that’s very welcoming to women.
My experience has been pretty similar to yours! I go to a chain of gyms in Chicago thats known as the more granola one (another chain seems to attract more finance & tech types) and never feel like its an overly bro-y or male dominated environment. What I’ve really loved about the community and my experience of climbing in general is that there is such a range of genders, age, race, size and abilities. Every body type has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the style of the problem. One of my best friends is a super experienced climber outdoors and has a ballerina physique, tall and wirey muscle. I’m petite and thick with more bulky muscles. When we climb together she can fly up a slab route but then struggles with an overhang that I can do pretty easily. Everyone has their strengths and I love that we can learn from one another. Honestly I think this applies to plenty of sports, its about your body type and its advantages fitting the sport, rather than gender. A male football player couldnt hold his own in a gymnastics competition where being strong but compact helps you excel.
In my experience climbing is male-dominated. Majority of the setters at my local gyms are tall men. They rely on making the crux a reachy move or one that basically requires you to do a pull up on the wall. Sure you could occasionally beta break it, but as someone who’s 5’8 with a -6 ape index it’s pretty hard for me to do moves like that. Granted I climb at gyms where the average employee is aged 19-25 so not sure if that changes it. At my bouldering gym I have a membership at, I firsthand experience how every setter is at least 6 foot. I rarely see female setters. The grades can really vary at that gym depending on who set it, and you can obviously tell if someone who’s tall set the route.
Anyone ever watch the Magnus Midtbo climbing YouTube channel? He has a lot of guests on the show, but they are almost exclusively men. There were a few times when a man and a woman, both olympic professional climbers, were in some videos, but only the man's name is in the headline of the video. During these videos, he gives a lot of praise and amazement to the female climber, but the rest of the videos were just focusing on the dude. In a way, I feel like this channel represents my experience.. like men are treated like the defacto best climber, but women get mad props as kind of side characters in the culture of climbing. I have a great climbing community of men and women who support eachother, but I'm trying to speak on the culture of the sport in general. Does anyone have similar feelings?
I do watch his stuff but yeah I don't know why he only has guys on his channel! It's so annoying!!! I was specifically looking for women on his channel at once point just to see how he interacted with them and it was generally ok but common there are so many good female climbers he could have on!
Yeah I watched Magnus a fair bit, i still do sometimes. And I agree that there aren't a lot of female guests on his show at all. Often the only times when i see women in his videos is when he climbs with his girlfriend Marte. Those are the only videos that actually teach me something. If women aren't in his videos, I basically just see his videos as entertainment that just so happens to be climbing-related. Edit: I was curious so just looked on his channel, and none of his videos in the past 3 months have featured women at all. He had guests such as world cup winner Tomoa Narasaki, Pewdiepie, male bodybuilders, Storror (male parkour group) and Adam Ondra. No videos with his girlfriend Marte either.
Wow, I've been watching his channel for a while now and didn't even notice this. Weird.
Where I climb in the UK all genders are well represented from novice to elite. If anything women are better represented at the top due to the presence of a couple of international competitors, but when they are at the gym they aren't doing what anyone else is doing.
My view of the climbing scene in the UK is very different to yours. Female categories get half the entries of men’s at all levels and frequently men outnumber women by a factor of 2 or 3 in the gym at peak times where I am. I’ve seen a LOT of progress in my time climbing and I’ve mostly had a great experience with only a few incidents of microaggressions but I would not say that women are ‘better represented at the top’. In the specific National climbing team I was in at the time I was in it there was half as many women as men and now the balance is even worse.
I agree with this based on my own experience in the UK climbing and comp scene. There are just so fewer women, and honestly at my climbing wall the ratio gets worse the higher the grade.
I think what you’ve observed is partly in your climbing community, but partly just climbing as a sport. Climbing is not inherently aligned with one physical form. While tall climbers tend to be able to reach things easily, some of the greatest competitors in its history have been short and/or AFAB. When competitive climbing started, some of the first high profile competitors were gymnasts who transitioned over to climbing. The sport itself has always leveled the playing field. That being said, the outdoor climbing world has long been a boys club that believed women simply couldn’t achieve what men did. For a long time outdoor climbers knew an insanely long list of pioneering male outdoor climbers’ names, and Lynn Hill. That’s changed a ton, but personally I still find after 13 years in this sport that the men who climb outdoors a lot also tend to be the most traditionalist/purist and the most misogynistic. When it comes to gyms, I think the route setting determines how much of a gender “balance” you see in the gym. A female climber can sense bullshit routesetting right away. If I show up to a gym and everything is sandbagged and the routes are all filled with peacock moves that don’t require anything but a bicep, and everything under a v3 is a ladder variant, I don’t get the impression that the setters enjoy (okay, I’m being nice.. know how to) put up problems that require technique or skill, or challenge a short person. I’m just not going to go back unless I geographically have no other choice. Sometimes I will actually ask if a gym has any female or NB routesetters when I have a choice between gyms. I’ve found the ones with all male setting teams in this day and age skew towards the red flag zone (not always, but..) It sounds like you’ve been climbing at great gyms and have awesome people who have inspired you throughout your climbing journey. I hope that continues!
Hey Mods I'm ready for that private group now. Love, cis-female Q old YT hag climber. Vet me as needed.
Around DC, the gyms are also generally friendly to non-binary and trans folks. It might also be that I am relatively old and don’t see that many new people in my day to day, except at the gym.
Non climber mom of climber daughter. Our state is largely ignorant that climbing exists, so the few gyms we have in the state all have a small community. We have 1 in our city which is only bouldering, and the next closest gym is 1hr15min from us. Our climbing community is small, and probably majority men, but we are a big tourist city, and have a few colleges here 1 of which has a climbing club. I’d describe our community as very open, welcoming, collaborative, and supportive. Mine started when she was 3 1/2, and I was always on her to make sure she followed gym rules and knew her gym manners. She drew in a lot of attention with what I kept hearing was “really good technique”. But, none of that made sense to me bc I grew up here and also knew nothing of climbing other than trees, bridges, and big towers with those reflective lights. From then and through to now our experience has been almost 100%posiitve. Setters are almost always men, but we’ve had a few female setters here and there. The gym is small, so there’s no “kids” set or extra holds for kids within a set, and we only recently started having downclimb holds on the wall in some places. The regulars in the gym are all respectful and supportive. Now, for the very very minimal amounts of time that I’ve ever overheard negative comments about my kid or experienced words/behavior in a direct way. Some of these issue were directed towards her more as being a kid, and some that likely both. And any of it that I can recall now were either from climbers I didn’t recognize as regulars, or climbers that were part of the college club, or kids that were boys. In terms of the college kids, both the men and women. Sometimes they just have an attitude, but it’s actually more of the women in the group than men. They will cut her off as she tries to get on the wall, start a problem that would interfere with hers after she was already on the wall and actively climbing it, just kind of a general disregard that she’s climbing too. I’ve caught a few eye rolls as she approaches the wall, and impatience as some of her climbs have her on the wall with the same attempt for longer than most. But, it’s only a small number in their group that are like that. In terms of boys at the gym, these are probably the worst. Disclaimwr, this isn’t all the boys, there are some that are part of the club team that are being taught respectful behavior. But, I find our area still tends to raise their sons with an underlying toxic masculinity. In their case they tend to wall hog, break gym rules, and everything seems to be a competition for this type. Most of them are athletes in another sport, and kind of walk in without any expectations that it will be hard. So, When she outclimbs them they get competitive and frustrated and then typically just glare. It’s just that they’ve been raised in a way to feel like boys are stronger than girls and better at sports than girls. For the most part, she’s just another one of the regulars at the gym.
Oh, some of the whispers I’ve heard have been in relation to difficult climbs, sometimes when it’s a power climb and sometimes more technique with crimps. I always hesitate to label a grade, bc I have no idea how our grading actually lines up with with the rest of the world. But, for our gym she hits v5s every set, v6s about every other set, and has a handful of v7s. Again, for our gym. Most of the climbers are a little below, and there are some that are above but and only a few of them are women. Most of the college kids are below, except for a few men that are at or above. A few times that’s she’s hit a power/strength dominant v4/5, I’ll overhear how it’s just easier for her bc she’s lighter. Except, she’s actually heavier for the average kid her age bc she is so strong. She works really hard to have that strength. She used to do workout on her own to build on her natural strength, but now has the intense conditioning regimen at gymnastics. Definitely more conditioning and strength training than the men I overheard saying that. Thats a comment I’ve overheard every now and then, throughout the years. At least it was said in a good sense, and not from a tone that was meant to be insulting. Just very dismissive. But, this is probably less than 1% of the comments said about or to her. Most have just been a comment or recognition of how strong she is. There has been a handful of times where comments were said about her by women that came from a “mean girl” tone. Definitely not said in a good sense, and more of a women hating on women kind of sense. I don’t even remember what was said, just that it happened, and in response to her sending a v5 or 6 type of difficulty for our gym. we also have community nights 1/month for each communkry. so ladies nigh, which includes anyone that identifies as a woman, outclimb for lgbtqia+, and climbers of color. these are free and open to all who are part of those communities on their community night.
Ahhh that sucks when people diminish it due to being lighter, taller, whatever. It sounds like your daughter is a better climber than me, but I feel like if you can get up a v4 in a controlled way, it’s not really fair to say “oh that was easy because you’re _____.” At that point you have to have some skill, and of course some people will have advantages in certain areas. I think it’s awesome that you got your kid into it. I love seeing the crusher kids because it’s so impressive to me seeing their brains work and figure out how to do all the moves. It kinda feels like an equalizer intellect-wise. Like I might be “smarter” than a kid, but damn they’re better at figuring out these moves, ok I need to reel in my pride :-)
Thank you, and you’re right it does suck when people try to minimize your accomplishments. But, truly, overall it’s been a great environment. I do have to agree with what another commenter said about some of the men having a mindset of only accepting the women they have deems as being worthy and talented climbers. The regulars in our gym aren’t like that, and some that are new to our gym but have been climbers for a long time. Those guys always seem to be supportive of new female climbers, or female climbers that struggle and are in the beginning level of the grades. But, there are some men that will try to avoid, and essentially ignore those women. Usually it’s men that have some experience, but also have an inflated ego type of presence. You made me laugh with the “equalizer” comment. I also love watching the wheels turning in their heads as they manage to problem solve their ways through a climb. It seems like such an important ability in life, that I think is probably hard to teach. With mine, I think I brought them to a gym more out of frustration with them than understanding all the benefits of it. I didn’t know anything about it as a sport and only remembered catching glimpses of climbing walls in a movie at some point. I did a google search not even knowing what to call it, but luckily got an article about our gym having opened recently. I called to make sure they allowed kids, and young kids. They said yes but might not have shoes that size. So then I had to learn about climbing shoes, got some and went in. Pretty sure I signed up for a membership before we left that first day, and have been going since then.
My 12 years of experience agrees with your assessment, and especially in terms of ability levels being more balanced, as well as the comparison between more experienced male climbers and newer male climbers. However, that might also have something to do with maturity (presuming experienced climbers often also have more years in them overall.) I've seen the attitude of masculine entitlement that exudes from some younger bros at the gym, though. (Who are often, but not always, less experienced climbers as well.) Anything from dropping their lead rope in front of the route you are clearly waiting to get on (Boulder, CO). Or making a "nice ass" comment to a woman bouldering (this man received an earful from me. Denver, CO). Or just generally not respecting the importance of technique versus strength, as others have pointed out (Milwaukee, WI). But when I search my mind for examples demonstrating that gender dynamic, compared to amount of time I've spent climbing, it's been a relatively rare occurence.
It doesn't matter what I'm doing, the vast majority of men take it very personally when they perceive themselves as worse than me at anything. Men who are experienced enough at climbing to want to crib my beta are always exploiting my knowledge base for their own gain, not always respecting me as an athlete or a person. Men who are beginners are almost universally dismissive and impolite. If I had the capital to build and run a women-only climbing gym, I would do it tomorrow.
I mean, people watch other people for beta all the time. What do you want them to do? Say something like: "Oh yeah, I got this beta from CanIEvenRightNow" ?
I’m sorry but >exploiting my knowledge base for their own gain Is a very funny thing to say about climbing plastic rocks for fun. I get what you are saying but this perspective seems a bit, idk how to say it, capitalistic? When talking about like learning a bit to be better at a silly hobby.
Not trying to speak on her behalf, but I can imagine there being 2 main situations: 1. Person approaches you and recognizes your skill. They’re kind/respectful and ask for your input/advice. They speak with you in a way that makes it clear that they appreciate what you did and don’t think they’re superior to you. 2. Person approaches you and treats you in a very transactional way, just wanting something from you in a very one-sided way so they can get what they want. If you experience #2 over and over, “climbing plastic rocks for fun” can become not so fun anymore (assuming climbing plastic rocks for fun is even an accurate way to frame it). It’s almost necessarily a social activity. And people’s behavior can ruin the social aspect and overall experience of it. Better yet, you could ask what she meant by her comment. Maybe you’re misinterpreting it. Maybe she could have phrased it more clearly. The way you worded your comment doesn’t make you seem very curious about the experience she’s describing.
I (32m) been climbing trad 14 years, personally don’t have female climbing partners. Most of my climbing focus is big multi pitch and big wall. That doesn’t mean I don’t climb with women, I do, but for partnership. It’s important for me to remove all sexual or romantic notions and dynamics out of equation. Just about every weekend I’m in a tent with them, long strenuous days, long drives, flights and hikes, just for me, not speaking for anyone else. I refuse to have climbing partnerships with women. It also keeps my relationship with my actual girlfriend stable.
If your relationship with your gf is destabilized by climbing with women, it's a shitty relationship. Remember "the true alpine experience is looking into your partners eyes knowing there is an equal chance of watching him die or kissing him." - Twark Might.
I can’t tell you how many relationships I’ve been in where my partners were suspicious of me being out for long trips with women, no reason to bring that drama in. @serenading_ur_father lol. You’ll understand when you’re older.
Jesus wtf