First Female Ascents, continued....

I recently came across an article that compliments my previous blog, “First Female Ascents” and brings up another issue that women face in the male dominated world of rock climbing; problem downgrades after the FFA. Women have a hard enough time getting the recognition they deserve for being the first female to complete a rock climb, only to then have it downgraded because “a girl did it”.
There is a large, international, online database, 8a.nu, where climbers have an account (much like Facebook) and log in and post their ascents. Some people use this database as just a logbook to record what they have done, but many more use this as a scorecard, raking themselves against everyone else in the world by ratings. Ratings are a huge deal for climbers who are trying to push their limits and gain recognition for their accomplishments. So when people see that a female has done a hard climb, such as 5.14a, they go out and try it because many have the mentality that “if a girl did it then I’m sure I can do it”. This causes more ascents of the climb, and many times, eventually gets downgraded to a 5.13d. People who write the guidebooks see that particular climb had had more ascents than another 14a in the area and assume that it must be easier, but really its just more popular now. How disheartening for the woman who accomplished a 5.14 ascent, something that only few have done, and then have some guy say that is a lower grade just because she and a few others did it. Unfortunately this is the case for many boulder problems and sport routes that have had female ascents.
The article “Sex Cells” discusses this topic and touches on the fact that women have very different bodies than men do. We have very different strengths and weaknesses than they do. Climbs are usually established and graded by men with a particular way of doing it that caters to a man’s strengths. Usually women have very different ways of doing the moves because of our different strengths, and it seems like some men feel very chided by that, and downgrade it.
Climbing ratings are very subjective, and usually size dependent, and as it stands, women are the scapegoats for this subjectivity since they are generally smaller (in stature and finger/hand size) enabling then to utilize smaller holds, or preventing them from reaching the next. So maybe more females should start establishing routes that only we can do. That’s an idea…