Well, things are certainly looking brighter as solstice approaches, or maybe I'm just feeling better. I enjoyed the past week. I went to the Shambhala Center to see Jim Yensen speak on Monday night. As always, his class was funny and informative. And though my car had some problems, it didn't put a damper on my week. Two night ago I went to see Girls Only: The secret comedy life of girls, playing at the Denver Center for Performing Arts (I'll have a review later). Suffice it to say for now that my friend Madaleine and I laughed for two hours straight. It was a wonderful show. We decided that we want to bring all of our girlfriends to the show in mid-January. Also, this week I had a lot of work, which is nice, considering things are so slow these days with the freelance work. However, I think, perhaps, things are picking up (again, it could just be that I'm tired of feeling bad and just want something positive to focus on). Finally, to cap off my week, I had a massage today that alleviated most of the pain in my neck and back. I feel longer and lighter. Phew. Tension tamer. And tonight I'm going to another play, Swing, with my friend Amber, and then to the Boulder Theater, where I get to see my friend Frida play fiddle with Spring Creek... then to a party if I can stay up that late....
Here's a story I wrote a few years ago.
Published in Gripped Magazine April 2005.
What Women Want
By Lizzy Scully
“Rather than squeeze ourselves in the masculine systems, today’s outdoor women are carving their niche by their own design and in their own time.
--Mary Laurence Bevington, writer, educator.
When I started climbing a decade ago in the arid canyons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, all my partners were male except for one. Dave taught me how to place gear and Scott helped me bang pitons into incipient seams, but it was with Kris that I led my first 5.10 slab. We visited Little Cottonwood Canyon frequently staying out on the smooth, white granite until darkness kicked us off. We talked all day about boys, sex and love, and we climbed until the tips of our fingers bled.
That September she went off to school and I embarked on an extended, post college climbing trip. Years passed before I climbed with other women regularly. I immersed myself in the male climbing culture, enjoying myself thoroughly. I visited Joshua Tree, CA, and climbed with the first love of my life; I bouldered with 9 guys in Hueco Tanks, TX; and I visited the Valley. Yosemite National Park awed me not only because of the walls bigger than black Chicago skyscrapers, but also because of the half-naked men from all over the world who tromped about Camp 4. Wow! I thought. Gold mine.
But the novelty wore off. The day I climbed Sacherer Cracker, a 5.10a offwidth at the base of El Cap, I realized what I was missing. As Al and I coiled our ropes, a team of men approached, prepared to do the route. Without looking at me they began asking Al about what gear to use. And later that night my friend Mike exclaimed with surprise, “You did Sacherer Cracker! That’s hard.” Well, of course it was hard, I thought. At that moment I understood that although I swapped leads, sweated and stank right alongside them, men would always assume that I, the woman, was the follower.
It’s another millennium, and climbing demographics have changed. The fairer sex makes up 20 to 30% of mountaineers, hill walkers and climbers (according to anecdotal evidence I’ve obtained from numerous businesses and my own research), and no longer is it amazing to see women sending. Our climbing culture has shifted from a male-dominated one that prizes masculine traits such as power and prowess, to one where females claim their own space and create their own values.
But in what ways are they doing this? Why? And what do female climbers really want? I wondered, and so decided to ask dozens of women these and other questions. What follows is a slice of North American climbing herstory.
“Say you have a climber with the talent of Katie Brown. If she turned her attention to bouldering…who knows what she could do.”
--Alison Osius, senior editor Rock & Ice magazine
When Josune Bereziartu climbs, she moves like the computer-generated Kung-Fu fighters in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Precise, sinewy, flexible and fluid, she floats with identical ease over her un-taped woody or the steep limestone of Baltzola Cave near her home in the Basque Country of Spain. Bereziartu just sent her second 5.14d as well as nearly a dozen other 5.13s and 5.14s, including a 5.13d onsight, while on a climbing trip to Fugatoyama and Joyama, Japan. The day she did Dai Koyamada’s 5.14d Logical Progression, she says, “I felt this time as (if I was in) the best shape ever.”
Beth Rodden and Cicada Jenerik apparently felt similarly fit fall 2004. Rodden became the first woman to put up a 5.14b first ascent when she did The Optimist, Brogan Spire, north of Smith Rock State Park, Oregon. And ten-year-old Cicada Jenerik sent the V10 Low Rider, an extension of Cholos (V9), at the Happy Boulders, Bishop, California, after about a dozen tries. “I think it was at my limit. It was really hard,” she says. But how hard was it really for the 4.7’ youngster, who turns 11 this February? She did her first V9 just a month prior, sending Cholos.
Also in the past year North Face athlete Heidi Wirtz put up the first ascent Qui Lombo (IV 5.11+ A1) on San Rafael, one of big walls of Patagonia, Argentina. And along with Vera Schulte-Pelkum, she challenged female speed records on three Yosemite big walls, including the Nose, which they did in 12 hours 15 minutes.
“I always thought that somebody needed to break the women’s record on the Nose,” says Wirtz. “Some other women need to start speed climbing, so that there’s some friendly competition.”
Knowing that other women are out there climbing hard, committed alpine routes, making a first ascent, or exploring new areas breaks down mental barriers of women.
--Chris Boskoff, alpinist and Mountain Madness owner.
Wirtz, Rodden, Bereziartu and others lead by example, encouraging women to push past societal expectations that they be passive, nice and nurturing. As professional skier and mountaineer Alison Gannett says, “When a woman is striving after what she wants, she is conceived as bitchy, pushy, high strung, when the equal male counterpart doing the same thing is then considered highly successful.”
For Wendie White, sheclimbs, inc., national secretary and Rock Goddess Gazette editor, Bobbie Bensman, Lisa Rands, Steph Davis and especially Lynn Hill, inspired her to break these barriers and achieve more difficult goals. Hill, she says, “was a pioneer for women in climbing. She helped people understand that climbing is more of an equal sport than so many others—women can achieve the same goals as men.”
On the other hand, says Laura Snider, “there is a gap between some of the women superstars and the rest of the women’s climbing community” that needs to be addressed. “In the outdoor education world, we call it the myth of the superwoman,” she explains. “… People start saying ‘sure, Laura can do that, but she’s Laura. She doesn’t count.”
Maintaining a link up and down the ranks is key, she says. “We have to believe that there is a connection between ourselves and the superstars.”
Women push harder if they feel like they have a lot of support and encouragement from below. Learning from well-known women climbers is a big piece of that.
--Kim Reynolds, Chicks With Picks founder.
I met Heidi Wirtz nearly a decade ago. Sitting in the cafeteria in Yosemite, surrounded by damp, stinky climbers dudes, I listened to tales of this girl, high on Lurking Fear with a zipper-less sleeping bag and indecent rain gear. A frozen storm of sleet and cold settled over El Cap like a 1000-pound weight, and Heidi and her partner sat stuck on a partially sheltered ledge.
I introduced myself to her soon after she descended. We spent the next month road tripping together. Each morning she got up at 5a.m., ran a few miles, did yoga, made tea and then woke me up so she could spend the day doing as many 5.11s as possible before the sun set. I always knew she was a superwoman, even if she didn’t. These days, photos of her are slathered across the sides of busses, and she has speaking and teaching engagements around the country. By getting a glimpse into her life, beginner climbers see that aside from her fantastic abilities and high motivation, she’s really just a regular gal.
Women-focused classes, clinics, magazines, shops and events have cropped up out of nowhere in the last decade. Utilizing the skills or highlighting the accomplishments of people like Wirtz, they encourage more women to try the sport. Chicks with Picks, the Women’s Wilderness Institute, Alala, and Babes in the Backcountry give the superstars and other highly skilled women a chance to make a living and make a difference, while women’s magazines offer women role models and real world experiences that they can relate to.
The idea of women-only organizations irritates some men. “Why should I write for She Sends?” Mark Twight said to me once. “If women and men are supposed to be equal, why should there be a separate magazine for women?” He misses the point.
Women and men are not equal. As Steph Davis says, it’s ridiculous to compare women and men because they have “completely different strengths. It seems really arbitrary and really quite bizarre to decide that a certain thing requires a certain amount of effort or skill from everyone in the entire world, and then start deciding who is better for having done it in some certain way.”
Women accomplish their goals “with different experiences, logistics, problems and successes,” says writer and personal trainer Lindsay Yaw. “To compare is to set fire to another person’s waving flag so that you can erect your own, and I see no need to burn anyone’s flag.”
Women also have not had equal opportunities. “Boys have had, by culture or by natural inclination, way more opportunities and encouragement to get out and play with boys,” says guide Kim Czismazia. “Why not offer encouragement and opportunity for women to get out and play with the girls.” Women-only events and classes offer gals the chance to “relate with their bodies as physical tools or with the outdoors,” she adds.
Women communicate and learn differently as well. “There are lots of tips and tricks that women can pass onto each other as climbers,” says writer and guide Majka Burhardt. Adds, Babes founder Leslie Ross,“Of course there are no hard and fast rules, but from what I’ve noticed in my own learning style and the learning styles of many of the women who take our clinics, it’s not just enough to hear the info. They want to get their hands wet and check it out, sample, try out the new info presented.”
Women’s shops, magazines and outdoor industry organizations have also flourished in the last decade. Outdoor Divas shop owner, Kim Walker, started her women-only store in Boulder, Colorado, because “not having enough selections of women-specific equipment” bothered her. Providing an outlet for women and helping them get involved with a particular sport, she says, “validates the fact that women are out there and are just as active as men.”
I have been inspired by women’s accomplishments in climbing, writing and photographing, and speaking. I’m a little disappointed that there is not more written by women, for women, about women.
--Kitty Calhoun, alpinist.
Like Dandelion, a magazine for the general outdoorswoman, the woman-focused She Sends, promotes women getting after it. Each woman I spoke with for this article, with one exception, stated that while they enjoy reading about men, they gravitate toward articles by women and about women.
These ladies want to hear more about the “nitty gritty” of the climbing scene, “the pain, the tears, the organizational headches, the torn maps,” says Yaw. Adds freelance writer and new She Sends editor in chief Kasey Cordell, stories about female climbers draw her in more readily. “…it seems like so often they are battling much more than just the rock when they climb—sexism, balancing motherhood, etc,” she explains.
As more women share their stories, skills and experiences, the nature of the climbing community transforms. As science and nature writer Susan Tweit once said, “It’s like in biology, when women first started studying primates all of a sudden they were studying maternal behavior, and we learned stuff about gorillas and chimps and orangutans that we had never known before because men weren’t interested in maternal behavior so they didn’t study that.”
Bring back the Moon Lodges, give us all a three-day per month break when we have our periods. Up with women’s culture for its own sake. Celebrate who we are with what we have done, and forget the comparisons.
--Tami Knight, Canadian cartoonist.
So what do these cultural changes mean? According to guide, Angela Hawse, the changes mean “that women have gained a lot more confidence to get out there, get dirty, and use their hands and brains like never before,” This confidence has translated to women climbers creating their own niche complete with more female role models, more articles about chicks and a more pronounced female subculture.
Still, women differ with what they think the culture should be identified with. When it comes to issues such as competitiveness between women, feminism and sexism, chick climber opinions scatter like a spilled bag of multi-colored marbles.
Most women agree that the climbing community is far more egalitarian than general society. On the other hand, when it does crop up, reactions split down the board as to how to address it. “It exists as a microcosm of the greater society, which is undoubtedly sexist. To pretend it is not is absurd,” says Laura Snider, writer. Still, a few women prefer giving no credence to the issue. As climber Amy Gault says of letters to the editor on the issue, “Usually they get on my nerves.”
Others believe the subject of sexism warrants discussion. “It all has merit,” says climber and kayaker Allison Forbes. And adds Canadian climber Ednoi Bonn, letters to the editor are “a measuring stick. If women are writing these letters/articles, there’s a reason behind it.”
The subject of feminism is a sticky wicket.
--Kasey Cordell.
I sat at a creaky wooden table in the Stone Cup coffee shop facing two of my female staff members. As caffeine, sugar and adrenaline flushed my face, I listened as they suggested that my feminism might turn off readers and drive potential advertisers away from the magazine. I argued free speech until I realized that they mostly feared others would consider them in cahoots with their radical chief editor. We soon split amicably, and I decided to be as positive as possible in promoting women in my magazine and articles. I also resolved to discuss the facts as they are and never censor my writers or myself. It is not my job to ensure that the climbing community is comfortable with everything that I write. My responsibility as a journalist is to challenge people to consider and acknowledge alternative perspectives.
In the climbing community, the word feminism causes much consternation among women, and many want no part of it. “Overused ad nauseam,” says Vera Shulte-Pelkum. For Yaw it’s a “left-wing fringe moniker that alludes to equality by forcing the issue so far to the left of the pendulum that it can’t sustain and therefore swings back to the center.”
Other women see the word differently. For climber Roxanna Brock it means women “should have the same opportunities as men.” For Bonn it is “the acknowledgement that discrimination based on sex/gender exists.” And for Boskoff it means “women bonding together, encouraging others, being a roll model, creating more liberties for women to be individuals and opportunities for women to pursue their dreams.”
Why is it even important? Because, as Bonnie de Bruijn says, the word means different things to different people. “The danger is that people begin to lose interest in feminist issues due to a skewed belief that feminism is more interested in bitching about men and male behavior than promoting positive reformation of the female image,” she says.
Many female climbers disregard women’s issue because they don’t have time to think about them. Others don’t care because, having lived insulated lives they don’t question their access to education, money, confidence and success. There’s nothing wrong with women not engaging themselves with the issues, but for these women (and men) to say women’s issues don’t exist negates centuries of work done by feminists to bring equal representation and respect to both sexes. It also denies the hard facts. Women make $.76 to the dollar that men make, and women are still depicted unfairly in all media.
Brock cites the “offensive” blurr and Red Chili ads she’s seen recently. “Yuck,” she says. sheclimbs inc. secretary Wendie White agrees and adds that in the blurr ad, “Lisa Dumper has her jacket and shirt open so her bras is showing, and the other woman is leaning on her with her hand almost down Lisa’s pants. Tell me a man didn’t create that ad.” Ads like that degrade women and “make men think that women climbers shouldn’t be taken as seriously as men” (White).
Consider also the new National Geographic video, Women of K2, which “highlights a woman who is a model from Spain with no credentials,” rather than an accomplished woman mountaineer (Boskoff).
And consider that some stereotypes continually perpetuated by the mass media appear in relations between women climbers. “There is a behavioral codex among North American women, which makes being ‘nice’ to each other obligatory,” says Shulte-Pelkum, who adds that she supports friendly heckling.
While being nice isn’t a bad thing, denying women’s competitive nature is as unproductive. “Being nice to each other doesn’t necessarily restrict women from also being competitive.” Says Hawse. “It would be nice if there was a competitive niceness out there that encouraged lightness and humility rather than intensity and one-upsmanship.”
It is always assumed that my male partner is my boyfriend. If he is leading a pitch, and I am belaying, the assumption is that I could not lead it. If we climb a multi-pitch, the assumption is that he led the crux.”
--Laura Snider, journalist, outdoor educator.
Heidi and I sat under an overhanging cave staring at Obviously Four Believers (5.11a), the route we planned to climb on Spear Head, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. The crisp early morning air chilled our fingers, and we opted to wait for sunlight before starting the climb. As the smoggy eastern sky grew bright red, its light barely touched the top of the wall, we sat uncomfortably on our packs talking about our upcoming trip to Canada, boys, sex and love.
Within a two-hour period, three parties passed us, all male, all asking us in friendly voices, “Are you girls going to do the North Ridge (5.6)?” No, no and no, we replied three times as they headed to do Sykes Sickle (5.9+). Despite the cultural changes within the climbing, some things don’t seem to change, I mentioned to Heidi. She just shrugged, stood up and shouldered her pack. “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s go climb!”
Published in Gripped Magazine April 2005.
What Women Want
By Lizzy Scully
“Rather than squeeze ourselves in the masculine systems, today’s outdoor women are carving their niche by their own design and in their own time.
--Mary Laurence Bevington, writer, educator.
When I started climbing a decade ago in the arid canyons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, all my partners were male except for one. Dave taught me how to place gear and Scott helped me bang pitons into incipient seams, but it was with Kris that I led my first 5.10 slab. We visited Little Cottonwood Canyon frequently staying out on the smooth, white granite until darkness kicked us off. We talked all day about boys, sex and love, and we climbed until the tips of our fingers bled.
That September she went off to school and I embarked on an extended, post college climbing trip. Years passed before I climbed with other women regularly. I immersed myself in the male climbing culture, enjoying myself thoroughly. I visited Joshua Tree, CA, and climbed with the first love of my life; I bouldered with 9 guys in Hueco Tanks, TX; and I visited the Valley. Yosemite National Park awed me not only because of the walls bigger than black Chicago skyscrapers, but also because of the half-naked men from all over the world who tromped about Camp 4. Wow! I thought. Gold mine.
But the novelty wore off. The day I climbed Sacherer Cracker, a 5.10a offwidth at the base of El Cap, I realized what I was missing. As Al and I coiled our ropes, a team of men approached, prepared to do the route. Without looking at me they began asking Al about what gear to use. And later that night my friend Mike exclaimed with surprise, “You did Sacherer Cracker! That’s hard.” Well, of course it was hard, I thought. At that moment I understood that although I swapped leads, sweated and stank right alongside them, men would always assume that I, the woman, was the follower.
It’s another millennium, and climbing demographics have changed. The fairer sex makes up 20 to 30% of mountaineers, hill walkers and climbers (according to anecdotal evidence I’ve obtained from numerous businesses and my own research), and no longer is it amazing to see women sending. Our climbing culture has shifted from a male-dominated one that prizes masculine traits such as power and prowess, to one where females claim their own space and create their own values.
But in what ways are they doing this? Why? And what do female climbers really want? I wondered, and so decided to ask dozens of women these and other questions. What follows is a slice of North American climbing herstory.
“Say you have a climber with the talent of Katie Brown. If she turned her attention to bouldering…who knows what she could do.”
--Alison Osius, senior editor Rock & Ice magazine
When Josune Bereziartu climbs, she moves like the computer-generated Kung-Fu fighters in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Precise, sinewy, flexible and fluid, she floats with identical ease over her un-taped woody or the steep limestone of Baltzola Cave near her home in the Basque Country of Spain. Bereziartu just sent her second 5.14d as well as nearly a dozen other 5.13s and 5.14s, including a 5.13d onsight, while on a climbing trip to Fugatoyama and Joyama, Japan. The day she did Dai Koyamada’s 5.14d Logical Progression, she says, “I felt this time as (if I was in) the best shape ever.”
Beth Rodden and Cicada Jenerik apparently felt similarly fit fall 2004. Rodden became the first woman to put up a 5.14b first ascent when she did The Optimist, Brogan Spire, north of Smith Rock State Park, Oregon. And ten-year-old Cicada Jenerik sent the V10 Low Rider, an extension of Cholos (V9), at the Happy Boulders, Bishop, California, after about a dozen tries. “I think it was at my limit. It was really hard,” she says. But how hard was it really for the 4.7’ youngster, who turns 11 this February? She did her first V9 just a month prior, sending Cholos.
Also in the past year North Face athlete Heidi Wirtz put up the first ascent Qui Lombo (IV 5.11+ A1) on San Rafael, one of big walls of Patagonia, Argentina. And along with Vera Schulte-Pelkum, she challenged female speed records on three Yosemite big walls, including the Nose, which they did in 12 hours 15 minutes.
“I always thought that somebody needed to break the women’s record on the Nose,” says Wirtz. “Some other women need to start speed climbing, so that there’s some friendly competition.”
Knowing that other women are out there climbing hard, committed alpine routes, making a first ascent, or exploring new areas breaks down mental barriers of women.
--Chris Boskoff, alpinist and Mountain Madness owner.
Wirtz, Rodden, Bereziartu and others lead by example, encouraging women to push past societal expectations that they be passive, nice and nurturing. As professional skier and mountaineer Alison Gannett says, “When a woman is striving after what she wants, she is conceived as bitchy, pushy, high strung, when the equal male counterpart doing the same thing is then considered highly successful.”
For Wendie White, sheclimbs, inc., national secretary and Rock Goddess Gazette editor, Bobbie Bensman, Lisa Rands, Steph Davis and especially Lynn Hill, inspired her to break these barriers and achieve more difficult goals. Hill, she says, “was a pioneer for women in climbing. She helped people understand that climbing is more of an equal sport than so many others—women can achieve the same goals as men.”
On the other hand, says Laura Snider, “there is a gap between some of the women superstars and the rest of the women’s climbing community” that needs to be addressed. “In the outdoor education world, we call it the myth of the superwoman,” she explains. “… People start saying ‘sure, Laura can do that, but she’s Laura. She doesn’t count.”
Maintaining a link up and down the ranks is key, she says. “We have to believe that there is a connection between ourselves and the superstars.”
Women push harder if they feel like they have a lot of support and encouragement from below. Learning from well-known women climbers is a big piece of that.
--Kim Reynolds, Chicks With Picks founder.
I met Heidi Wirtz nearly a decade ago. Sitting in the cafeteria in Yosemite, surrounded by damp, stinky climbers dudes, I listened to tales of this girl, high on Lurking Fear with a zipper-less sleeping bag and indecent rain gear. A frozen storm of sleet and cold settled over El Cap like a 1000-pound weight, and Heidi and her partner sat stuck on a partially sheltered ledge.
I introduced myself to her soon after she descended. We spent the next month road tripping together. Each morning she got up at 5a.m., ran a few miles, did yoga, made tea and then woke me up so she could spend the day doing as many 5.11s as possible before the sun set. I always knew she was a superwoman, even if she didn’t. These days, photos of her are slathered across the sides of busses, and she has speaking and teaching engagements around the country. By getting a glimpse into her life, beginner climbers see that aside from her fantastic abilities and high motivation, she’s really just a regular gal.
Women-focused classes, clinics, magazines, shops and events have cropped up out of nowhere in the last decade. Utilizing the skills or highlighting the accomplishments of people like Wirtz, they encourage more women to try the sport. Chicks with Picks, the Women’s Wilderness Institute, Alala, and Babes in the Backcountry give the superstars and other highly skilled women a chance to make a living and make a difference, while women’s magazines offer women role models and real world experiences that they can relate to.
The idea of women-only organizations irritates some men. “Why should I write for She Sends?” Mark Twight said to me once. “If women and men are supposed to be equal, why should there be a separate magazine for women?” He misses the point.
Women and men are not equal. As Steph Davis says, it’s ridiculous to compare women and men because they have “completely different strengths. It seems really arbitrary and really quite bizarre to decide that a certain thing requires a certain amount of effort or skill from everyone in the entire world, and then start deciding who is better for having done it in some certain way.”
Women accomplish their goals “with different experiences, logistics, problems and successes,” says writer and personal trainer Lindsay Yaw. “To compare is to set fire to another person’s waving flag so that you can erect your own, and I see no need to burn anyone’s flag.”
Women also have not had equal opportunities. “Boys have had, by culture or by natural inclination, way more opportunities and encouragement to get out and play with boys,” says guide Kim Czismazia. “Why not offer encouragement and opportunity for women to get out and play with the girls.” Women-only events and classes offer gals the chance to “relate with their bodies as physical tools or with the outdoors,” she adds.
Women communicate and learn differently as well. “There are lots of tips and tricks that women can pass onto each other as climbers,” says writer and guide Majka Burhardt. Adds, Babes founder Leslie Ross,“Of course there are no hard and fast rules, but from what I’ve noticed in my own learning style and the learning styles of many of the women who take our clinics, it’s not just enough to hear the info. They want to get their hands wet and check it out, sample, try out the new info presented.”
Women’s shops, magazines and outdoor industry organizations have also flourished in the last decade. Outdoor Divas shop owner, Kim Walker, started her women-only store in Boulder, Colorado, because “not having enough selections of women-specific equipment” bothered her. Providing an outlet for women and helping them get involved with a particular sport, she says, “validates the fact that women are out there and are just as active as men.”
I have been inspired by women’s accomplishments in climbing, writing and photographing, and speaking. I’m a little disappointed that there is not more written by women, for women, about women.
--Kitty Calhoun, alpinist.
Like Dandelion, a magazine for the general outdoorswoman, the woman-focused She Sends, promotes women getting after it. Each woman I spoke with for this article, with one exception, stated that while they enjoy reading about men, they gravitate toward articles by women and about women.
These ladies want to hear more about the “nitty gritty” of the climbing scene, “the pain, the tears, the organizational headches, the torn maps,” says Yaw. Adds freelance writer and new She Sends editor in chief Kasey Cordell, stories about female climbers draw her in more readily. “…it seems like so often they are battling much more than just the rock when they climb—sexism, balancing motherhood, etc,” she explains.
As more women share their stories, skills and experiences, the nature of the climbing community transforms. As science and nature writer Susan Tweit once said, “It’s like in biology, when women first started studying primates all of a sudden they were studying maternal behavior, and we learned stuff about gorillas and chimps and orangutans that we had never known before because men weren’t interested in maternal behavior so they didn’t study that.”
Bring back the Moon Lodges, give us all a three-day per month break when we have our periods. Up with women’s culture for its own sake. Celebrate who we are with what we have done, and forget the comparisons.
--Tami Knight, Canadian cartoonist.
So what do these cultural changes mean? According to guide, Angela Hawse, the changes mean “that women have gained a lot more confidence to get out there, get dirty, and use their hands and brains like never before,” This confidence has translated to women climbers creating their own niche complete with more female role models, more articles about chicks and a more pronounced female subculture.
Still, women differ with what they think the culture should be identified with. When it comes to issues such as competitiveness between women, feminism and sexism, chick climber opinions scatter like a spilled bag of multi-colored marbles.
Most women agree that the climbing community is far more egalitarian than general society. On the other hand, when it does crop up, reactions split down the board as to how to address it. “It exists as a microcosm of the greater society, which is undoubtedly sexist. To pretend it is not is absurd,” says Laura Snider, writer. Still, a few women prefer giving no credence to the issue. As climber Amy Gault says of letters to the editor on the issue, “Usually they get on my nerves.”
Others believe the subject of sexism warrants discussion. “It all has merit,” says climber and kayaker Allison Forbes. And adds Canadian climber Ednoi Bonn, letters to the editor are “a measuring stick. If women are writing these letters/articles, there’s a reason behind it.”
The subject of feminism is a sticky wicket.
--Kasey Cordell.
I sat at a creaky wooden table in the Stone Cup coffee shop facing two of my female staff members. As caffeine, sugar and adrenaline flushed my face, I listened as they suggested that my feminism might turn off readers and drive potential advertisers away from the magazine. I argued free speech until I realized that they mostly feared others would consider them in cahoots with their radical chief editor. We soon split amicably, and I decided to be as positive as possible in promoting women in my magazine and articles. I also resolved to discuss the facts as they are and never censor my writers or myself. It is not my job to ensure that the climbing community is comfortable with everything that I write. My responsibility as a journalist is to challenge people to consider and acknowledge alternative perspectives.
In the climbing community, the word feminism causes much consternation among women, and many want no part of it. “Overused ad nauseam,” says Vera Shulte-Pelkum. For Yaw it’s a “left-wing fringe moniker that alludes to equality by forcing the issue so far to the left of the pendulum that it can’t sustain and therefore swings back to the center.”
Other women see the word differently. For climber Roxanna Brock it means women “should have the same opportunities as men.” For Bonn it is “the acknowledgement that discrimination based on sex/gender exists.” And for Boskoff it means “women bonding together, encouraging others, being a roll model, creating more liberties for women to be individuals and opportunities for women to pursue their dreams.”
Why is it even important? Because, as Bonnie de Bruijn says, the word means different things to different people. “The danger is that people begin to lose interest in feminist issues due to a skewed belief that feminism is more interested in bitching about men and male behavior than promoting positive reformation of the female image,” she says.
Many female climbers disregard women’s issue because they don’t have time to think about them. Others don’t care because, having lived insulated lives they don’t question their access to education, money, confidence and success. There’s nothing wrong with women not engaging themselves with the issues, but for these women (and men) to say women’s issues don’t exist negates centuries of work done by feminists to bring equal representation and respect to both sexes. It also denies the hard facts. Women make $.76 to the dollar that men make, and women are still depicted unfairly in all media.
Brock cites the “offensive” blurr and Red Chili ads she’s seen recently. “Yuck,” she says. sheclimbs inc. secretary Wendie White agrees and adds that in the blurr ad, “Lisa Dumper has her jacket and shirt open so her bras is showing, and the other woman is leaning on her with her hand almost down Lisa’s pants. Tell me a man didn’t create that ad.” Ads like that degrade women and “make men think that women climbers shouldn’t be taken as seriously as men” (White).
Consider also the new National Geographic video, Women of K2, which “highlights a woman who is a model from Spain with no credentials,” rather than an accomplished woman mountaineer (Boskoff).
And consider that some stereotypes continually perpetuated by the mass media appear in relations between women climbers. “There is a behavioral codex among North American women, which makes being ‘nice’ to each other obligatory,” says Shulte-Pelkum, who adds that she supports friendly heckling.
While being nice isn’t a bad thing, denying women’s competitive nature is as unproductive. “Being nice to each other doesn’t necessarily restrict women from also being competitive.” Says Hawse. “It would be nice if there was a competitive niceness out there that encouraged lightness and humility rather than intensity and one-upsmanship.”
It is always assumed that my male partner is my boyfriend. If he is leading a pitch, and I am belaying, the assumption is that I could not lead it. If we climb a multi-pitch, the assumption is that he led the crux.”
--Laura Snider, journalist, outdoor educator.
Heidi and I sat under an overhanging cave staring at Obviously Four Believers (5.11a), the route we planned to climb on Spear Head, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. The crisp early morning air chilled our fingers, and we opted to wait for sunlight before starting the climb. As the smoggy eastern sky grew bright red, its light barely touched the top of the wall, we sat uncomfortably on our packs talking about our upcoming trip to Canada, boys, sex and love.
Within a two-hour period, three parties passed us, all male, all asking us in friendly voices, “Are you girls going to do the North Ridge (5.6)?” No, no and no, we replied three times as they headed to do Sykes Sickle (5.9+). Despite the cultural changes within the climbing, some things don’t seem to change, I mentioned to Heidi. She just shrugged, stood up and shouldered her pack. “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s go climb!”
