There will ALWAYS be a woman climbing stonger than me.

does it matter?
Do I care??

I know one thing for sure.

There will ALWAYS be a woman climbing stonger than me.

does it matter?
Do I care??

We are all individuals, regardless of gender.

Been watching "Life of Brian," Alan? Heh heh.

I'm not!

JL

Not sure whether woman are better than men, but this gal climbs 5.13 off the couch.

Your neighbor?

Do you think female climbers are as good as males?

Not sure whether woman are better than men, but this gal climbs 5.13 off the couch.

[image]http://www.photographyblog.com/gallery/data/3058/1233drag_queen_at_mr_l_with_cig.jpg[/image]

Judging by your mood, you should either:
1. be careful that you clip the proper of your two cords into your pro.
or
2. Keep training hard, your higher than average levels of testosterone will allow you to become stronger than most men (see your recent posts in the Ladies Room).
or
3. lighten up, and get used to dealing with jackasses on the internet!

i've actually heard that females are inherently better...flexibility, balance, small fingers etc...males are only better when climbing harder, advanced routes come into play and muscle mass is super important. apparently. i have no experience with climbing harder, advanced routes.

Why are YOU trolling in the Ladies' Forum?

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the ladies room

Maybe the best climbers are men, simply because most climbers are men?

I also wonder why there always seems to be the need to compare one climber to another, or even ourselves to other people.

That is a good point.

I also wonder why there always seems to be the need to compare one climber to another, or even ourselves to other people. It just seems unhealthy, but everyone apparently does it.

Why are YOU trolling in the Ladies' Forum?

Males remove shirts when climbing=not fun to climb with.

It screams I climb for the image, the body, and I like to show myself off. Now I could be saying this because I am a scrawny white boy, or because I have a genuine dislike for most people.

I'll let you decide.

That said in my experience, women tend to be more humble, and low key. I respect that a lot. Except the ones thawt aren't. They are obnoxiously annoying.

Oh, you meant STONGER???? Who the hell cares?

This is a pretty simple empirical question depending on you define good. If good simply equals hard grades (which it doesn't, but let's play with that assumption since it's one of the few measuring sticks available)

Forgive my ignorance, but being pretty much a total newbie, what else defines good? I would've thought the harder the routes you can climb, the better you are...

My comment here does not really answer the OP, but I think it's worth posting:

I notice that about 1/3 of climbers are women, in general. So I wonder what are the reasons for this?

1. Testosterone. Also called the "Rooster Factor". Nothing to do with ability ("...are as good as...") but it motivates the guys.
2. The "upper body" thing, also called the "Gorilla Factor". This works for me. It feels good simply to reach up and grab a hold, and it feels better when I'm balanced from my hand-hold.
3. Adventure and challenge: I don't think there's any difference, as far as level of motivation, but maybe men prefer physical challenges, but women are broader or more rounded.
4. I think some girls climb because their boy-friends do, but guys don't follow their girl-friends to the cliffs.

If you measure and record "climbing ability" in the male and female populations, you'd probably find the same "bell curve" in each. (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Normal_distribution ). In other words, both genders are AS GOOD AS the other.

Finally we get back to the OP <phew>:

Maybe the best climbers are men, simply because most climbers are men?

and more importantly,,,,

why do you think people need to get used to dealing with internet jackasses????

Forgive my ignorance, but being pretty much a total newbie, what else defines good? I would've thought the harder the routes you can climb, the better you are...

See, that's exactly my point. I don't care if a post is the stupidest bloody thing you've ever seen; there's no need to be a bitch.

Mia, this is last thing I'm going to say on this: yes, my posts in the ladies forum were stupid. I'd just been divorced and wasn't ready to date, but the body is often out of sync with the mind, so I had sex on my mind all the damn time. I can admit the posts were stupid. And you know what? I don't care. There's no reason to descend on someone like a pack of bitchy pirhanas just because you can do it behind the safety of your computer screen. You want annoying? THAT's annoying.

I don't know why it gives people like you pleasure to be rude to strangers over the internet - maybe you're the kind of people who can never speak your mind in real life, so you go to the opposite extreme on the net, I don't know. You should give this some thought though the next time you're about to say something bitchy to someone who's made a post you deem stupid: you don't know if someone they love has just died and they're trying to take their mind off it by making silly posts, or they've gotten divorced, or lost their job, or any other hardship you can imagine. You don't know, so why say something that they could be taking much harder than you intended?

Honestly, take the advice or leave it. You can just say whatever you want. I'm done responding to you.

Can someone please explain to me how you could answer "yes" to the poll? How many women have climbed 14d? One. Men? a dozen?

I am not sexist, I just think it is okay to acknowledge that males and females are better at different things.

Can someone please explain to me how you could answer "yes" to the poll? How many women have climbed 14d? One. Men? a dozen?

The battle is fought in the head while climbing. The hell with this male vs female shit! We are all individuals, regardless of gender.

I... you absolutely need power to get you through routes in the 13b and up range.

I cannot believe that 2/3 0f the people who voted believe females are better than males...

I love this thread. Really. Keeping it honest; I like the body I have molded because of climbing, but when my shirt comes off, its because I sweat and it keeps me cool. To assume there is an ego determining whether or not my shirt comes off sounds ridiculous to me. I feel like it acknowledges certain broken subject-object relationships between men and women. Ones that can only be established by comparison and internalized negations, just like the OP poll does. I don't think anyone really needs to validate the question and/or answer. I wonder if there are any female sociologists/feminists out there that wanna get in here clear up some discussion issues and maybe 'man up' to some real facts that have already been mentioned.

Sorry Curt, at the time I wrote that 67% of the voters felt that way. More like 71% now.

Poll: Do you think female climbers are as good as males?

Oh ya, I'm not talking about outliers such as Sharma, Caldwell, Lauren, etc. Without some power in your climbing, your options are severely limited in the 12+ arena.
Come on, seriously, 13b and you cant pull a few campus moves. Did this Megan person aid these routes?

I think a lot of this discussion is a bit diluted/deluded by PC pleasantries. The question is a question of means (averages), not the ends of the distributions (elites). In other words, does the average female climber climb as good (defined by the OP as hard grades) as the average male climber. Most of the responses seem to dance around biological and sociological realities as well as ignore evidence that provides a simple concrete answer to the question as the OP has defined it.

I know one thing for sure.

There will ALWAYS be a woman climbing stonger than me.

does it matter?
Do I care??

...which illustrates that woman are as good as men. The fact that there may be more men climbing at elite levels is another matter, with possibly quite different explanations unrelated to ability or potential.

You obviously didn't get my point. To make it more obvious, apply the same rationale to 15a. No women climb 15a while some men do. Thus men are better than women climbers.

I'll throw this out there:

I (female), used to top out around 5.9 - I was having fun so I didn't see the need to try harder things. I climbed with a guy who was toping out around mid 5.10 at the same time. He climbed ugly as all hell. I climbed more gracefully at a lower grade. At the time I considered that he was a better climber.

Then I tried harder stuff. Now I can usually onsight or at least red point mid 5.10. So, i turned out to be a better climber than this guy. But I could very easily have not realized that potential if I didn't decide that pushing the grades would bring more enjoyment and make me a stronger climber.

So who's the better climber? Me a few years ago climbing pretty @ 5.9, or the dude who flailed his way up stuff a half grade harder?

Not a rhetorical question. I'm curious to hear thoughts.

Let's say for the sake of argument that women have exactly the same ability level as men do. Exactly the same potential.

Let's take that as our theory, and see if that matches the real world. Well, naturally, people will fall within a bell curve of ability. . . .

Please note that on the far right side, where the number of climbers in each set drop to zero, the male curve extends further right (higher max climbing difficulty) than does the female, though both are similar..

Okay, now this does not *prove* our original premise, that women have exactly the same potential, exactly the same inherant ability.

What it does show, though, is that the fact that a few men climb harder than the best women does *not* prove that men inherently climb harder.

Because there is an excellent model that explains why a few men would climb harder, it makes *more* sense that women and men are on an equal footing.

However the only way to really determine that for sure would be to take a random sampling, with the same sample size, and then compare those.

GO

I dont care what anybody says about technique, you absolutely need power to get you through routes in the 13b and up range.

How many cliches can be put into a single thread? This one is amazing - just about every post has 2 or 3.

Where does it ask if women are better at climbing than men?

I'll throw this out there:

I (female), used to top out around 5.9 - I was having fun so I didn't see the need to try harder things. I climbed with a guy who was toping out around mid 5.10 at the same time. He climbed ugly as all hell. I climbed more gracefully at a lower grade. At the time I considered that he was a better climber.

Then I tried harder stuff. Now I can usually onsight or at least red point mid 5.10. So, i turned out to be a better climber than this guy. But I could very easily have not realized that potential if I didn't decide that pushing the grades would bring more enjoyment and make me a stronger climber.

So who's the better climber? Me a few years ago climbing pretty @ 5.9, or the dude who flailed his way up stuff a half grade harder?

Not a rhetorical question. I'm curious to hear thoughts.

A lot of stuff that makes a lot of sense.

... The problem with your observational data Clausti...is that it is completely subjective and based only on your experience.

I have witnessed many first time female climbers and many beginning female climbers at gyms who are terrible. Many are afraid of climbing...even in the gym.

but I think that the statement in bold stands, with the note that the final qualifier is an if statement.

Now, a good question might be why are there not as many female FAers at a really high level?

Let's take that as our theory, and see if that matches the real world. Well, naturally, people will fall within a bell curve of ability. Most people will be in the middle, while there will be a few outliers on either side. The more the participants, the larger the bell curve.

Since perhaps twice the number of men as women climb, it might look something like this:


Please note that on the far right side, where the number of climbers in each set drop to zero, the male curve extends further right (higher max climbing difficulty) than does the female, though both are similar.

and blue eyed people are better climbers as well

Maybe one of the choices should be whether or not women have superior reading skills to men?

Curt

I hear left handed, and blue eyed people are better climbers as well