- Location
- Basel, Switzerland
Höllenreich,
I've been mulling over whether to respond to this or not. Probably I shouldn't rise to the bait... but yes, your response has annoyed me.
I've been watching the development of the womens' comp at ITCC and other event here in Europe for the past 11 years. I was thinking back to Milwaukee in 2001, where Christine Engels won the first womens' event and how over the years this part of the TCC's has contributed so much and enriched the overall quality of the events with women like Kiah Martin, Wenda Li, Kathy Holzer, Melissa Levangie, Chrissy Spence, Anja Erni and many others.... what a loss it would have been for the climbing competitions to have never taken these people on board.
It's something that I can't get my head around about this industry is why there is such a strong male gender bias. Why this should be I can't understand. In training classes we do course after course to a y-chromosome only audience (as in guys only). The only answer I have to this is it's partly due to image. One way to shift perception of who can do this work is by being inclusive at public events like the TCC's.
What has also been encouraging is the high skill level demonstrated by female competitors at the comps. Womens' Masters' last year was - in my opinion - the best ever. These women could climb circles around the majority of the guys posting on forums like Treebuzz (... I'm electronically squinting in your direction here, Höllenreich).
I say, bring the women in where ever possible. In the end it'll be like in rock climbing with guys and girls climbing the same climbs during comps with little time between them, but this will take time. In the mean time let's not obstruct this process by being narrow minded about it
I've been mulling over whether to respond to this or not. Probably I shouldn't rise to the bait... but yes, your response has annoyed me.
I've been watching the development of the womens' comp at ITCC and other event here in Europe for the past 11 years. I was thinking back to Milwaukee in 2001, where Christine Engels won the first womens' event and how over the years this part of the TCC's has contributed so much and enriched the overall quality of the events with women like Kiah Martin, Wenda Li, Kathy Holzer, Melissa Levangie, Chrissy Spence, Anja Erni and many others.... what a loss it would have been for the climbing competitions to have never taken these people on board.
It's something that I can't get my head around about this industry is why there is such a strong male gender bias. Why this should be I can't understand. In training classes we do course after course to a y-chromosome only audience (as in guys only). The only answer I have to this is it's partly due to image. One way to shift perception of who can do this work is by being inclusive at public events like the TCC's.
What has also been encouraging is the high skill level demonstrated by female competitors at the comps. Womens' Masters' last year was - in my opinion - the best ever. These women could climb circles around the majority of the guys posting on forums like Treebuzz (... I'm electronically squinting in your direction here, Höllenreich).
I say, bring the women in where ever possible. In the end it'll be like in rock climbing with guys and girls climbing the same climbs during comps with little time between them, but this will take time. In the mean time let's not obstruct this process by being narrow minded about it
