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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Aug 28, 2015 - 11:00pm PT
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Awesome! Vitaliy said this thread was entertaining and I hadn't followed it until now. Too much to read it all but what I've scanned has helped me pass a few minutes.
It's funny when people talk about men compared to women and get all angry. Ability and tendencies towards nurturing, risk, "adventure" or whatever are biological/genetic and there's nothing wrong with that. Study human evolution and imagine how well groups would have survived and reproduced if the only ones able to create and feed infants were also the ones out hunting food and fighting off competing groups. Male and female bodies and brains are physiologically and functionally different. No need to get all emotional about it or assume that's a bad thing.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Aug 28, 2015 - 11:43pm PT
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^^^^ Fair enough.
But I was talking to both men and women, to assume otherwise make you totally sexist! Such a pig, jeez :)
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quartzmonzonite
climber
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Aug 29, 2015 - 12:04pm PT
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Yeah men do 99% of fas, but the second a women goes out to do it they free something badass like the nose. I think women are more built for climbing than men, very light, small fingers more flexible. Men for the most part feel obligated to prove their physical strength and thats why you see more men athletes. Saw Daniel woods climb a vert crimp line less than smooth and then this chick came up and did it effortlessly.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Aug 30, 2015 - 01:21pm PT
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Oh well if the wife of a cultural anthropologist thinks so then that must say something, I guess. Let's just say that it confirms what we already believe, if that's what we like to say.
Mostly I think that is what we like to say. With our massive intelligence, we convince ourselves that we've been spending 50 years doing double blind research in a gender neutral cultural environment, while really we've been convincing ourselves that what we believe is really true, really! How else could we convince ourselves to believe our advantagous beliefs (praise Jesus!) in order to create and perpetuate the (kind of, locally) advantageous cultural gender dimorphism that we create? Sure there's probably some intelligence in being able to convince ourselves to believe that, just maybe not the kind of intelligence that we think it is.
But you know, some of us are working on other advantageous beliefs. Go figure ... We like to do research on the relative intelligence of blacks vs whites too :-) We don't mind if, in your manliness, you need to call us names.
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overwatch
climber
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Aug 30, 2015 - 01:27pm PT
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I love this place, a lot of good writers and smart people. Nice post
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Aug 30, 2015 - 02:26pm PT
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A bit peripheral to the discussion - but why should I be different?
Someone is interviewing world class competitive Scrabble players. The topic is:
Why, if there are so many women involved in the game at a competitive level, have there been only 1 (?2) women who have won major events?
Best answer, from a world-ranked male competitor: "Probably because the women have lives outside of this sh#t."
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Aug 30, 2015 - 03:22pm PT
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Male
44 years climbing - still at it, not just talking.
About a dozen FAs, all very minor, one as a solo.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 30, 2015 - 03:38pm PT
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Warbler said -- "I know some pretty dim witted men ..."
Damn it, I knew it .... he's talkin about me again ..... lol
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Aug 30, 2015 - 04:11pm PT
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Your comment shows that women are in fact different than men, or certainly implies it from one second hand hearsay anecdote with no link to back it up.
The anecdote is from the book Word Freak.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 30, 2015 - 05:16pm PT
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Born to and raised by a guy who was stoked that his second kid was on the way and didn't care if I was a boy or a girl and he made damned sure I was given enough rope with which to hang myself.
I never gave a second's thought to whether or not girls were allowed to be adventurous; I just was. Granted, I ran with the Big Dogs way more than I played with the little girls
Hey eKat:
Do you think those two things are related? The way you were raised, and the way you turned out?
I had similar parents, and it never occurred to me that I wasn't supposed to just keep up with the boys; I thought "wimpy" women should just HTFU. As an adult I met many women whose parents and communities were very overtly biased, though, and I started to think that perhaps I was extremely lucky, and that the expectation put on me--that girls were supposed to be strong and good at math--was out of the ordinary.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Aug 30, 2015 - 05:43pm PT
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No, no offense taken at all.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 30, 2015 - 06:04pm PT
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There were just open doors and lots of cheering! This is a beautiful thing to give to your kid!
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab or In What Time Zone Am I?
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Aug 30, 2015 - 07:18pm PT
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Interesting discussion on the male/female thing.
I think a lot has to do with the culture and community in which you grew up.
Growing up in Western Pa in a hunting, fishing, (hunting) gun culture there was little daylight between what girls and boys did. Hunting and Fishing was a family activity primarily a hold over from the necessity of it to put food on the table. By the late 50s it mainly sport for most families with the added benefit of incredible fresh game and fowl to eat. Granted there were more boys than girls bagging kills but moms and daughters were taught field dressing as they would accompany the "hunt". My Dad taught me small game and fowl field dressing when I was 10. Large game (buck) dressing when I was 14. I fished from the time I was six and hunted from 12. My mom would have been there but she died when I was five. There were many girls doing the same. I bagged my first deer when I was 16 with my 30.06 but it was my first and last. Didn't have the heart for it. I still did small game and cleaned and dressed what my dad and brothers got. My fav pic of my Mom and some other female friends in oversize hunting jacket. Now I walk into a Cabelas and the women's camo section (for real gear, not fashion) takes a substantial floor space.
My high school had a robust archery and rifle team composed of about 40% girls. We won many state championships. It was because of rifle club I found out I needed glasses.
Most of what has been talked about here has been recreational activities where the disparity between boys and girls has typically been perceived as greater. Until Title XI in organized male vs female sports we were at a terrible disadvantage. Field Hockey and a strange game of basketball as well as track and field were available to us. Forget competitive swimming...couldn't get pool time because of the boys. So regardless of just go do it Title XI helped a lot.
We used to look at Califofnia as Beach Barbies ala Gidget and Annette. Hollywood versions were the only glimpse we had of California life. We were repelled at the same time fascinated by it. Were girls really that vapid?
So if you were brought up in a culture or community that focused on recreation activities rather than engaging in tough activities as a way of life and necessity I can how the sex difference was perceived. Bravo to those that over came it. After emigrating to Northern Cal in the mid 70s I was so glad to see Gidget was not the norm any more.
Susan
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viv.r.e
climber
a marmot hole
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Aug 31, 2015 - 06:11pm PT
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She agreed with my assessment that women by nature or genetics were less adventurous than men on the average
Fundamentally, this is the wrong question to discuss. I think it’s more important to think about distribution, not averages.
For sh!ts and giggles let’s pretend that the bell curve is the distribution of “climber spirit” instead of IQ. “Climber spirit” is the ability not only to put up with uncertainty, but to embrace it. It is resilience, being willing to fail and also probably having a high tolerance for pain/discomfort. Maybe it’s other things too (we’re talking about a very specific genre of climbing right now). Let’s now say that:
150 = free solos barefoot up the nose in 2 hrs 10 min before it was cool (shoes are aid)
0 = never leaves the house because they are afraid life might happen and kill them
The people who are doing adventure climbing are the people with 125 and above. This is the group we should be discussing. Rather than worrying about whether the average man or woman is more or less adventurous, it would be more informative to know what the spread is for women versus men.
There may be differences in this spread. Going a step further even if you knew both spreads perfectly (unlikely), then you still are left with wondering how much of that spread is genetics/nature or environment/nurture. I think we can agree that both contribute.
Now go back to seeing the curve as intelligence. Throwing random numbers out, let’s say intelligence is 70% genetics and 30% environment. That’s the difference between someone being normal and very bright, or normal and very dull. (Also for a refresher on the crappy history of IQ tests and eugenics, click here: http://crackingthelearningcode.com/bonus1.html or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy);
There is no doubt that the environment for women has changed. If Arlene Blum had been trying to raise money for the first American expedition to Annapurna these days she would have gotten a sponsor rather than having to sell the “a woman’s place is on top" t-shirts. This is pushing the spread out for women.
Both eKat’s and Cat T’s comments say something about the environments they grew up with—essentially lots of freedom to try, push and fail. My mom still has my boulder shoes from when I was 6, and she would let me wander around unsupervised in Indians Rocks, Berkeley. Same when we hiked in the Sierra.
I think gender isn’t a bad thing to discuss here, because there are more women climbing. This thread would look different if more women participated in it or if a similar topic (muhahahaha) took place in the TGR forum. Climbing probably has and will change in similar ways…but to say women are taming it…meh. Don’t buy it, never will.
Kids might be given less rope to hang themselves these days due to the rise of helicopter parents. Gym climbing is allowing a greater part of the spread to participate, which in turn is somehow changing the spread itself. The ease of being able to find uncertainty is changing due to the amount of information on routes that is available to all of us whether it’s through guidebooks or online trip reports (as was discussed way up thread by Ed, rgould and others).
-permanoob
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overwatch
climber
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Aug 31, 2015 - 06:20pm PT
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good post ,well written.
it would be pretty sketchy these days to let your 6 year old kid roam around by themselves
Edit:
Duh, your right, I don't know how old you are. When I was a kid you could get away with it.
We ran amok, neighborhood girls included. Sh#t still happened but not with the frequency seen today.
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viv.r.e
climber
a marmot hole
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Aug 31, 2015 - 06:22pm PT
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Trust me, it was sketchy then too. My parents got a lot of sh!t from people. They just didn't care.
Edit: +1 ekat, that's a better way to put it ^^^^^^^
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab or In What Time Zone Am I?
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"There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise." - W.E.B. Du Bois
Susan
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Turok
Trad climber
Colorado
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Hi Kev, Here is an interesting theory that I present somewhat "tongue in cheek" that may be applicable (from the perspective of gender) to a climbers williness toward risks in adventure/trad climbing (relative to gym climbing) and could also explain some of the gender gap previous studies have found in risk-seeking behaviors, emergency department visits and mortality.
Men are more likely than women to be admitted to an emergency department after accidental injuries or with a sport injury, and they are more likely to die in traffic accidents.
Men may be more likely to play riskier sports or have dangerous occupations, but they might also do more stupid things.
Men tend to take more risks than women do, and they also seem to be ahead of women in engaging in risky behavior that is extremely "idiotic," according to researchers who revealed in a new study that the majority of the receivers of a Darwin Award are men.
The researchers reviewed the stories of all nominees for the Darwin Award from 1995 to 2014, noting the gender of the winner.
To win a Darwin Award, the story of how the death happened must be verifiable, and the person must have been capable of sound judgment, while showing "an astonishing misapplication of common sense."
The researchers looked at 332 cases confirmed by the Darwin Awards Committee to be true incidents. There were 318 cases not involving mixed gender couples.
Of those, just 36 were women. The other 282 winners, or 88.7 percent, were men, the researchers found.
The findings support the researchers' theory that most women are more circumspect in their risk assesment than men and "a higher percentage of men than women are idiots, and idiots do stupid things."
Cheers!
KD
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Turok
Trad climber
Colorado
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Hi Kev,
I got such a kick out of your good natured repartee with Cat t. that I just had to add my 2 cents.
By the way, after climbing some real throat dryers with you and others in Eldorado and having climbed with Katherine Freer in the desert and numerous other women in various areas, I will offer this observation that I know you share. There are brilliant and bold climbers of both sexes scattered throughout the unskilled (from a trad climbing perspective) masses, that for reasons unknow to me, now embrace this somewhat perverse discipline called climbing. Regardless, the song remains the same. Ground-up trad climbing is as dangerous as it gets. Gravity is a junk yard dog at dusk, turn your back, make a mistake and it will bite the sh#t out of you. The transition from gym to trad is rife with danger regardless of your gender.
Always great to hear from you my friend!
KD
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