Cedar Wrights Faux Pas

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zip

Trad climber

pacific beach, ca

Jul 12, 2017 - 03:46pm PT

I like climbing with female climbers cuz they are better than me, and can drag me up hard stuff.
Well,,,that's not totally true.
Right now, pretty much everyone is better than me.
Carry on.

StahlBro

Trad climber

San Diego, CA

Jul 12, 2017 - 04:34pm PT

It is human nature to form an initial opinion of someone based on their appearance. Everyone does it, whether they acknowledge it or not. No one is completely objective. Knowing your own biases is key to moving past the superficial, and gettting to know someone for who they really are. This takes an investment in time and selflessness.

Some people have an irresistible urge to rank everything in a strict hierarchical fashion based on quantitative criteria, because it is easier. I think you need consider the unique artistry that each person brings, and revel in their individual accomplishments, rather than worrying about judging one superior the other.

I try to learn something from everyone. My ego constantly trips me up, but I keep trying.

donini

Trad climber

Ouray, Colorado

Jul 12, 2017 - 05:37pm PT

Climb like a girl...use your feet, stupid!

Follow a girl...you'll need a really tight rope if she puts up a green camalot crack.

Act like a girl...don't embarrass yourself by getting drunk and falling in the campfire.

GDavis

Social climber

SOL CAL

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2017 - 07:46pm PT

I like climbing with female climbers cuz they are better than me

Well yeah, everybody is better than you.

Or is that an objective take on a subjective fact?

Some of us feel the need to 'defend' out of personal desires/needs/feelings. You can't say that about XYZ so I will speak for them in their stead. This is a tricky thing to do as you are a proxy for unwilling and unknowing participants, so I like to stick to facts.

Facts: Wins, competitions, stats, percentages, weights, results.

Fuzzywuzzy nonsense: Anecdotes, straw men, feelings.

It may not matter that men are better tennis players than women when paired up, it may be apples and oranges to say heavyweight fighters are besting (verbage matters here, besting != better than) smaller fighters. In fact, in the cosmic sense, the world can move about oblivious to these truths. But they are truths nonetheless, and whether you choose to focus on them and they make you happy or shy from them and they make you sad it just don't matter. Shrug it off like the real adults and stop wondering if King Kong can body slam The Hulk. It ain't happenin and it don't matter no how.

The hulk would crush King Kong tho, for real.

GDavis

Social climber

SOL CAL

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 12, 2017 - 07:48pm PT

Act like a girl...don't embarrass yourself by getting drunk and falling in the campfire.

Act like a *good person* you mean, but I get ya. Pandering is awesome.

SusanA

Sport climber

Bay Area

Jul 12, 2017 - 09:38pm PT

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 12, 2017 - 10:27pm PT

on today's NYTimes OpEd page
Real Men Might Get Made Fun Of

Bad Climber

Trad climber

The Lawless Border Regions

Jul 13, 2017 - 06:03am PT

Thanks, Ed. A MUCH better piece than the one that started this thread.

BAd

c wilmot

climber

Jul 13, 2017 - 09:37am PT

Ed-that article might as well be titled : dont judge me while I am judging you

It's yet another example of a feminist who finds discussions as a form of harrasment

Ps- Ellen Pao as a victim ? She lost in court.... it would be nice if the author based her opinions on factual realities rather than imagined injustices

Perhaps then She might be taken seriously

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Jul 13, 2017 - 09:58am PT

Facts: Wins, competitions, stats, percentages, weights, results.

Fuzzywuzzy nonsense: Anecdotes, straw men, feelings.

------

Issues, especially ones as explosive as those expressed on this thread, are derived from human interactions and encounters, after which people think about them and draw conclusions. Those encounters themselves are best related by anecdotes and through feelings, thoughts and experiences expressed accordingly because that is the boiling pot from which the broth emerged and the "facts" were drawn accordingly.

To posit the ground-level stuff as nonsense is to lose the personal drivers that get people fired up in the first place. Yes, there is a need to step back and objectify what is happening on the ground floor, but it's misguided, IMO, to consider the abstract interpretations of the boiling stew more genuine and real than the stew itself.

As Sycorax pointed out, the scathing blog attack by the woman - well, that was a shoddy piece of writing because her conclusions did not necessarily follow from her arguments, to mention just one blunder. Point is, objectifying WHAT is going on is a key component in learning anything, but often people take this stance to limit their own vulnerability per the issue, while pot-shotting the issue from afar citing "facts," real or imagined.

What is really going on with booty shorts and all the fallout is the age-old dynamic of the mating ritual - spoken or unspoken - that always goes on, at some level, between men and women who are young, fit, and (fill in the blank). To try and exclusively attribute this dynamic to an aging white, straight, privileged, male demographic is a ludicrous simplification. Likewise, to infer that the mere presence of hormones vouchsafes and certified rape culture, is a criminal exaggeration.

The main and unspoken beef is that men are perceived as having the mandate, or the power to determine the rules of engagement, that it is first and foremost about their needs, the fulfillment of which is a woman's primary roll. A power struggle, in other words.

Good luck sorting that one out, or trying to change it with "facts."

Burnin' Oil

Trad climber

Jul 13, 2017 - 10:47am PT

As an admittedly shallow thinker, my conclusion on the issue is that people sure talk a lot.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Jul 13, 2017 - 11:23am PT

We talk because we find the issue interesting.

"Facts are not drawn from feelings or thoughts. From experiences? Sometimes, but not from the feelings drawn from that experience, but by the truth which might be uncovered by the experience."

The way you have it, the truth is some stand-alone commodity that exists outside of experience, like a Platonic form or a Jungian archetype. The way I see it, experience is the source of the truth, rather than the truth informing and giving rise to the experience. That is, experience gives rise to the truth, which is derived FROM the experience.

blahblah

Gym climber

Boulder

Jul 13, 2017 - 12:08pm PT

Fact : cismales are sexually attracted to females.

I would say that's more of a "tautology" than a "fact."

rbord

Boulder climber

atlanta

Jul 13, 2017 - 01:22pm PT

Hey RBord? ... What gives man?

It's the thing that seems to have the biggest effect on my thinking (as I'd say Largo understands about people). That's the way it is for me. Acknowledging the things that affect our beliefs about the differences between people (male versus female, or analogously, black versus white) is exactly what was being discussed in this thread.

But you don't see a connection to this conversation, and instead see this as being about my need for attention? OK, if that's what you see, then that's what you see. For me, given the development of my superb social skills, attention doesn't seem to me to be at the top of my list :-) But humans are complicated - maybe I'm wrong.

But also IMHO, a lot of people have other things that affect what they see. And then the result of those things and their effect on our thinking is that people find themselves thinking that a black 5 year old girl is less innocent and less in need of protection than a white 5 year old girl, even though those white 5 year old girls have 13 times the wealth.

I'd like to better understand what it is that's affecting their thinking, because I expect that it affects mine too, in ways that I don't notice, and in ways that work against my daughter's (and blacks' and women's) best interests. I wouldn't mind if those other people became able to notice it about themselves, too.

But like all of us, when we look at our beliefs, we think that they're facts. I think as jstan once enlightened me, what (use) is a belief if you don't believe it's true?

What seems to me to be my personal stake is that I want my daughter (a female, and black, like the 5 year old black girls in the study I referenced) to be treated fairly. And we seem to have a lot of underlying beliefs about females and blacks that undermine that.

Before Alex free soloed El Cap, no-one had a strong enough belief to even try. But then he came along, standing on the beliefs of the climbers that came before him, the Bachars and Crofts and Potters, and he believed he could. And he did.

So what now will we choose to believe about women? Some will choose to see that a man free soloed El Cap. That's ok. It's a slow process.

A woman climbed 5.15. Men couldn't do that until 2001. If we're not too fussed about comparing like competitors, it looks like 2017 women are beating 2000 men in the climbing game. What changed? Our beliefs.

I wonder how that works out in a factual math way? How many hours of women climbing did it take for a woman to finally climb 5.15 versus how many hours of men climbing did it take for a man to finally climb 5.15, to develop the belief that they could climb 5.15? I expect those numbers are embarrassingly slanted in women's favor.

How do women compare to men in the income game? 80 cents to the dollar. I expect that's an artifact of our beliefs too.

Best to you.

nah000

climber

now/here

Jul 13, 2017 - 06:15pm PT

i'm not sure if there is a point to contributing to this thread anymore as it seems to have run its course... but damn...

i just can't seem to quit you TW... hahaha.

to continue to attempt to aid you with some of your "facts":

[not a] Fact - men are naturally stronger than women
actual fact: the average man is physically stronger than the average woman.

[A TW assumed to be] Feminist feeling - women are just as strong as men
actual fact: a few women are physically stronger than almost all men.

[a mostly, but still not completely, correct] Fact - the top male climbers perform at a higher level than women across the climbing spectrum
actual fact: in the present the top male climbers perform at a slightly higher level than the top women climbers across almost all of the climbing spectrum

[another TW manufactured red herring of a] Feminist feeling - women could perform as well as men if they had not been oppressed by men forever
actual fact: no one knows how well women collectively might perform as climbers if they were to holistically grow up without any of the sexist and categorical assumptions and baggage that has been hung around their necks for thousands of years.

[an again, close but still not quite completely correct TW attempt at stating a] Fact - men are sexually attracted to women
actual fact: heterosexual and bisexual men are sexually attracted to some women.

[another according to TW and then absolutely stated] Feminist feeling - men treat women as sex objects
actual fact: most women have experienced being treated as sex objects by some men.

the devil is always in the details.

at the rate you're going, you're def going to go to your grave confused as to why there are some pissed off females who are annoyed with those like you who bate [by stating relatively irrelevant facts such as "the most elite dozen or so male athletes in most climbing disciplines climb slightly harder than the most elite female athletes in the same disciplines"] and then switch [to sexist and category based language by stating bull shIt like: "men are better athletes than women"; "women should just be thankful for the things they are good at"; and/or some variation of the mistaken categorical thinking that follows]

categories while interesting and useful when creating policy, or mass produced clothes, or some such gross systemic efficiency, are useless, and ultimately damaging to those who don't fit the categories, when dealing one on one with an individual.