If you honestly think that short people do not have a disadvantage and that we are whiners, I dare you to come to my local crag and see what the south has to offer. For those of us who come in at less than a staggering 5'4", it's either be shut down or learn to pull harder than any 6'0" person around.

I compleatly agree with you Lena. Every climb is a first to someone.

If you honestly think that short people do not have a disadvantage and that we are whiners, I dare you to come to my local crag and see what the south has to offer. For those of us who come in at less than a staggering 5'4", it's either be shut down or learn to pull harder than any 6'0" person around.

Do you think that there is a large group of tall and heavy climbers that need encouragement and want to keep a list of important breakthroughs that have been achieved by climbers who are not skinny monkeys? By all means, keep track of that, point it out to people, talk about it. If enough people pay attention to it, it will start getting noted by the general community, too.

Just because every climb is a first for someone doesn’t mean in needs to be recognized by popular media or assigned a meaning beyond what the person climbing gained from it.

Popular media recognizes what is important for the population. All that Rock and Ice article is saying is that noting first female ascents is important to a large portion of climbing population-- for reasons stated. Obviously not to everyone-- it is not important to you. So you can ignore it... but if someone says that it is important to them, you can't very well argue with it because it is not important to you. Different people-- different priorities.

You could argue just the same that it is not worthy of note to say that so and so was the second person to climb something, or the third one-- yet ascents of that nature are reported in the media, too. (E.g. Ondra repeats Action Directe). So why not 'so and so is the first female to climb this or that'?

There are many obsticles that many women have to overcome both physically and mentally. As a woman, I've had men offer to belay my partner because they didn't feel I was capable of doing it myself (happened last week), I've also had men offer to remove draws from a route I was working (again, directed toward my climbing partner, not me) thinking that I'd never make it to the top. How many men have had these questions asked to them? These are the reasons why many women have these huge mental barriers that need to be overcome.

I have the utmost respect for the women out there who have gone up against the male climbing machine.

I hope I don't sound like too big a jerk, but I thought it was a little whiney and self defeating.

She makes several good points, like different body types, heights, etc, suit different types of climbing. But I thought she had several complaints that were just that, complaints.

I also thought her comments about women putting up routes were kind of self defeating? She asserted that more women should put up routes, but then she interviews Lauren Lee who basically says 'it's too much work." If that's the generally attitude, there's really nothing to complain about. To be fair, she did talk to another female who was putting up routes, Misty Murphy. But she was silent as to how many routes she has put up herself.

Also, I think they need a new term for First Female Ascent (FFA). I believe the term FFA means First Free Ascent, back to when lines were aided and subsequently freed. Kind of confusing to have one climbing term meaning two different things.

Personally I and my female climbing partner find it a bit silly to have categories of FA's based on gender. Obviously someone’s height, weight, ape index, body shape, and finger size will effect how someone climbs a route. Just because you’re a different build than the FA doesn’t mean you should get a new First Accent of the route.

I find the idea of women being measured by male standards almost irrelevant.

If women as a group are being measured by male standards, it's only because we're allowing them to do that, if that makes any sense.

Never mind that you can't spell "asCent" correctly, first of all...but I digress.

The fact remains that physiologically and biomechanically (in terms of force generation esp from upper body, center of gravity, etc.), men are more like other men and women are more like other women than the two are like each other, regardless of height or weight, ape index, etc. (Plus, weight can be lost in relative proportion/distribution among people of the same gender, so it esp doesn't count as a point in your rebuttal.)

So, actually, gender really does matter in physical performance, esp. in performance of a body weight oriented sport.

Think about other body weight dependent sports: let's take gymnastics. Instead of measuring the women on the men's event parameters (and the men on the women's), they separate them based on gender-specific strengths and abilities to push the limits on different kinds of performance difficulties. If a woman could compete at rings at the same level as the best man in the world, would this not be noteworthy to us all?!?! Give me a break.

Colette's point is that women's accomplishments on rock routes envisioned by men, set by men, and almost always first climbed and rated by men, is therefore similarly noteworthy. And her call to action is for women in climbing to begin differentiating their own values of the sport, esp. in the physical sense of route quality and movement style in new lines developed w/out male influence guiding what it should be.

I have nothing against women climbing hard or inspiration that it creates. If a particular climb or climber inspires you, that’s great. I just don’t see the need to segregate climbing accomplishments by gender.

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I know that we each view FFA’s from a different perspective. You view the inspiration they provide, I see the segregation. I think both of us see the incredible climbs done by spectacular climbers.

To be honest I've never ran into sexism while climbing, and I'm glad for it! I suppose it has to do with where I live and the lower number of climbers that make up our climbing community.