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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Largo, excellent post.
As a gratefully married man of 37 years and a complete advocate for my 3 adult daughters, I appreciate you articulating that being human and male is OK.
How honorably you behave is the clincher.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Can't anyone take a joke? I'm damn glad that people don't post on every stupid thing that I say. Plenty of them, but not so bad as Trump's tweets. Now THOSE are offensive. He got away with murder on that Access Hollywood recording. I was a jock in high school, and we NEVER said anything that crazy. I mean, that even offended me, and I don't even have a pussy.
I wish that the days of tube socks and short shorts was in vogue again. They probably will, because that is just the weird way time and fashion repeats itself. OK. Maybe not the tube socks, but the NBA-long shorts are really kind of a hassle.
As for what women wear, and whether or not they infer a "slutty" label, well, that is just baloney. If I could figure out the sluts just from their clothes, I'd get laid for once.
Just kidding. We are celebrating 25 years of marriage in a few weeks.
BASE has a whole stack of women who do it, and it has always been that way. So women can be attracted to adrenaline sports just like a male. It does seem like more of the wingsuits are men, but certainly not only men.
I want the short shorts back. Women can check out your junk and then go giggle with each other about it...
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JLyons
Sport climber
Cali
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Bunch of guys that probably haven't seen the inside of a you-know-what in decades, arguing online about women...
Funny
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Posted up thread:
Do you remember when female teachers were paid less than male teachers? And the reasons for defending/justifying such?
"When"? Certainly not the case now. I taught at a public college where pay was strictly set on experience + education level. That's it. The junk in your shorts, no matter how short, had NOTHING to do with what you got paid. I'm sure that's what the poster was referring to. Now, in private uni's, I have no idea. I had mostly female department chairs. Most of them were great. The first chair--a dude--I worked under was a notorious pig towards women, but, thankfully, that dinosaur retired right after I started and then threw a stroke that left him gibbering. So there's Karma for you. I taught for almost thirty years, and that pay setup was always the same, so at least in public higher ed, the playing field has been pretty damn level in terms of pay. FWIW, none of my female colleagues wore "booty shorts." Oh, wait, I did see one colleague in the office after a run with something like those. Oh well. She looked great, and she went on to be one of the best dept. chairs we ever had. I miss her like a sister.
BAd
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Are you saying discussions have become a form of harassment ed?
I think I have been saying that perhaps Monahan's blog post (not on STForum) reflects her experience, and the experience of other women, and that to dismiss it because you don't like her "attitude" doesn't diminish those experiences.
As far as STForum goes, many women who posted here once no longer post here.
As far as "statistical anomaly," I'd offer the possibility that the historic record of women climbing achievement is no indication of the limit of achievement, so drawing conclusions regarding those limits from that record is dubious.
It is much more likely that that history had been determined by factors other than athletic performance, such as cultural and social factors. Women didn't achieve the right to vote until 1920, I don't think that has anything to do with the ability of women to execute their vote... except they weren't allowed to prior to the Nineteenth Amendment.
The number of women participating in all aspects of climbing is increasing, and as that happens a much better picture will emerge regarding any limits putatively attributed to biology. Certainly the best women climbers today far exceed the abilities of the men posting to this thread.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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It hardly matters what I want in terms of a "test" of you hypothesis, Warbler, but as I said up thread, if you have a combined competition both men and women would decide what the competition was, how it would be executed and both would participate in the judging, on an equal basis.
I would not expect you to make the US Olympic team, however.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Yous guys need to get a room, where gud beer is served. :-)
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Dang, who could argue with them?! Except maybe who gets to go first.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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aight The Warbler…
first apologies this took a while. and second apologies for the length.
there is a lot to parse though and i don’t think you are necessarily intending to be prick, so the least i can do is give you an honest response, and stop being a bit of a prick myself.
first as per you thinking i made ad hominem attacks. i reread what i wrote and i don’t think i did. i did attack your logic in a personal way, that could be perceived as an ad hominem, but that wasn’t my intent. my point was to attack your language using parallel logic.
but, i will say this: your use of heforshe is something i personally find offensive. i assume you are smart enough to understand why. don’t get me wrong, i prefer free speech and you are free to use it if you like, but you better know that you will receive a bit of vitriol back. but i’ll make you a deal: now that you know what pushed one of my buttons, if you want to have a debate that’s less personal, i’m all for it, and am going to proceed with that intent, as long as you show me the same respect in return.
as per your general line of questioning: no i have no issue, nor disagreement with your argument/statement that males typically have more testosterone and this, as a general rule, in most sporting endeavours, does lead to higher sporting performances when comparing the most elite males to the most elite females. to me that is just a statement of fact.
what i disagree with is twofold:
1. first is the language that you then proceed with: saying an "average male is better at y or different with regards to y than the average female" is not the same as saying "males are better at y or different with regards to y than females".
while it might seem like a minor knitpick, i’ll continue to argue that it is a throwback to a thousands of year old history that attempted to define the potentials of females [and males].
the first statement is, given suitable evidence, a fact, whereas the latter is at minimum a sloppy use of language, but in general is, as a rule, just straight up garden variety sexism.
because here is the difference, and i’ve even taken the time to draw graphs… hahaha.
when a person says that “males are better at y than females” or “males are different than females” they are stating that the top distribution [in the image below] exists. that is just a fact of language.
but the reality is that with regards to any real life ability the reality of the distribution is much more akin to the second graph [in the image below]. if you truly want to say that “the average male is better at y or different at y than the average female” then say that.
but, if you’re interested in speaking factually, don’t say “males are better or different or whatever than females”.
given the fattening of america, that’s not even true with regards to breast cup size anymore, let alone even those physical sporting abilities affected by testosterone. :)
2. the second issue i have is that you conclude that these average differences, in the case of climbing, are due to testosterone.
to be clear, in my opinion we have different competitions for the sexes in the olympics for two reasons: the first is that females and males [are by definition of the i.o.c. - hahaha] different due to testosterone production and receptivity.
the second issue is even where testosterone doesn’t play a role, there are historical wrongs to right and things like title IX and separate competitions allow females to pursue and be supported in exploring their potentials without some of the historical malarky.
i support separate competitions for both of these reasons.
and with regards to something like powerlifting i have no disagreement that - by the testosterone production and receptivity definition of what constitutes male and female - elite males will never be caught by elite females.
however this isn’t about power lifting, or swimming, or even tennis. this is about climbing.
i’m going to stick with sport climbing because it is nearest to the most objective.
here are a few, as far as i can tell, facts:
first 5.14a: gullich [1986]
first female 5.14a: hill [1990]
first 5.14d: gullich [1991]
first female 5.14d: bereziartu [2002]
first 5.15a: roughling or fernandes [1995 or 1998]
first female 5.15a: bereziartu or shiraishi or hayes [2005 or 2015 or 2017]
current state of the art:
male:
15c: ondra, sharma
15b: ondra, sharma, megos, roughling, fernandes, andrada, midtboe, pringle, ghisolfi, fuertes, kruder, schubert, amma [i'm sure there are a couple that i missed, but this is, as far as my googlefu can tell, the vast majority]
female:
15a: hayes
14d/15a: hayes, bereziartu, shiraishi
the short point: given women are climbing, during the last thirty years, the same difficulty as men about 4-10 years after and in the current moment there are maybe 15 or at max a couple dozen males who sport climb harder than the hardest females, to say that females are necessarily limited by testosterone production rather than cultural and structural friction is a hard question to answer. to be clear i'm not saying it's necessarily cultural/structural. on the other hand i think those, like yourself, that have concluded it's necessarily physiological aren't seeing that within a few short years, females are climbing just as hard. if it was purely physiological, i wouldn't expect the turn around to be quite so quick...
also: when a lot of the recent posters like to dismiss the female "outliers" they need to consider that ondra, megos, and sharma are therefore "outliers" as well...
the shorter point: climbing isn't powerlifting. or even tennis for that matter. the difference between male and female, at least sport climbing, is pretty razor thin, and there are only a couple dozen, male or female wunderkind climbers playing in some of the rarified air at the farthest edges of performance.
to argue that a female can not necessarily lead the charge, some day, is, from my perspective, to not understand the above two facts about specifically sport climbing.
finally: if you're bored you should google ines papert. in the early to mid aughts she won and placed high in a few ice climbing competitions agains both males and females, while generally dominating the female ones. and she is one of the greatest contemporary all round [with regards to ability on both technically difficult ice and rock] alpinists, regardless of gender. and she's a friggin' mom to boot.
anyway, time for this slacker, with no kids to boot, to get off the computer...
cheers dude. and best of luck with the ladies… :)
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F
climber
away from the ground
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I'm pretty sure that while this sausage party is hanging around arguing with each other about gender equality on the tacoweb, all the hot chicks in booty shorts are out climbing.... Maybe you sexy geniuses should go do some field research. Just sayin...
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Ok, Jimbo. How's about I "just say" that I had a great time this afternoon staring at my girlfriends sexy booty which was half covered in tight cloth while she was struggling on the stone in the sunshine. No other options presented themselves at the time (I was belaying). Could you define the moral equivilant of that? Am I sexist, or just sexy? Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I desperately seek validation from washed up Canadians.
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Matt's
climber
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nice post nahoo.
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Matt's
climber
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It hardly matters what I want in terms of a "test" of you hypothesis, Warbler, but as I said up thread, if you have a combined competition both men and women would decide what the competition was, how it would be executed and both would participate in the judging, on an equal basis.
I had never really thought about that before, Ed- it is absolutely true that the standards that we judge climbing by are arbitrary and tend to emphasize ideals that men have historically espoused (danger, physical strength,etc...)
You could imagine an alternate universe, in which climbing was judged like figure skating-- you would get a score based on some combination of technical difficulty and artistic execution. This is no less arbitrary than how people judge climbs these days...
best,
matt
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I like the alpine standards: did you send and/or survive?
Colour me simple.
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c wilmot
climber
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I think I have been saying that perhaps Monahan's blog post (not on STForum) reflects her experience, and the experience of other women, and that to dismiss it because you don't like her "attitude" doesn't diminish those experiences.
Plenty of folks feel that climate change is fake. Many of those people have had experiences trust reinforce this belief.
Tell me- if you dismiss those people because you don't like their "attitude" does that diminish their experience? Do you take them seriously?
And remember- how someone feels often has little to do with reality. Or at least the reality we ourselves have chosen to believe...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Plenty of folks feel that climate change is fake. Many of those people have had experiences trust reinforce this belief.
Tell me- if you dismiss those people because you don't like their "attitude" does that diminish their experience? Do you take them seriously?
If you are asking me, specifically, I have taken those folks seriously, often spending hours tracking down papers and performing analysis on those papers to see if the critical statements those papers are purported to make actually stand up to scrutiny. If that is a measure of seriousness then I take those folks very seriously.
I stopped taking them seriously when it was clear to me it didn't matter what I concluded from my effort, they didn't take me seriously.
I didn't dismiss them, they dismissed me.
However, the issue of responding to climate change critics should be regarding the scientific evidence that supports that issue. It is relatively straight forward (in my opinion) to address the issues from a scientific standpoint.
The issue of taking women seriously in climbing is quite different. Warbler's line of argument implies that women would be taken seriously when they achieve the same level of accomplishment at men. In his opinion that means when the "performance gap" is closed. We can argue that point, but the issue isn't one of "elite performance."
Wright's comment implied something quite different, that women cannot be taken seriously in climbing if they wear certain clothing, as if climbing performance somehow had to do with that. That is a judgement, and one having to do with one person (and he seems to have a group agreeing with him) which is leveled at another person (and she seems to have a group agreeing with her).
Warbler's contention is that serious women climbers will climb at the elite levels, it doesn't matter what the women wear, it just matters what they do. Implicit in that contention is how we define "elite levels" of climbing, and that definition can be subject to judgement, and biased. Who defines this? what do we think defines "extreme climbing"?
Climbing as an activity is a product of our culture, and subject to all the arbitrariness that you would expect from a group of humans engaged in the ritual. Who defines the ritual, the group permitted to perform the ritual, and the outcome of the ritual?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Event Horizon, 5.13 b/c, Indian Creek, FA Pamela Pack
no repeats
"It goes boys!"
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WBraun
climber
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When climbing enters the Olympics the stoopid main loon media will proclaim the gold medal winner the best climber in the world.
All the other climbers will then cry like gurls, and thus, equality has been served ..... :-)
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c wilmot
climber
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I stopped taking them seriously when it was clear to me it didn't matter what I concluded from my effort, they didn't take me seriously
This is how I feel about modern feminists
Especially when they say stuff such as this:
It is the fact that we live in a unnervingly stationary heteropatriarchy
It is important that in our everyday lives we strive to challenge imperial white supremacy
"Jokes like this come from a place of an American imperialist attitude where people assume that they can have an opinion on another culture’s practices."
Her whole premise is that men-specifically white men- are holding women back by being overtly sexist.
Or in her words :
Women are held to value judgments solely based on their sex appeal through the white, hetero, cis male gaze. .
It's a played out third wave feminist argument. Climbers just happen to be the new demographic being trolled with such hysterical nonsense
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sure, but the point is we're talking about the elite climbers, including Ms. Pack, who is to be included because of what she has done (both in the projects she chooses and the routes she puts up).
I think Pete and Tom were brilliant in their tour, and plucking Century Crack was the fantastic exclamation point that punctuated their trip. Certainly there are a few who might have done it, and Ms. Pack would certainly have been a candidate.
And if I recall, Pete and Tom didn't offer a grade change to the routes they did, which is the traditional way one critiques a climb's difficulty. If they hadn't been so well prepared and so successful we'd be calling them "limey wankers," I believe the "rando from Tennessee" also had trained rather extensively, to good effect.
I offered this as a counterargument to Warbler's contention that no women belonged in that category. We're talking about 5 or 6 climbers here.
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