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UK Women Who've Recently Climbed >= 8a (Read 108987 times)

Steve Crowe

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Silvia reports on her blog in 2009 that she has just completed her second F8b.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2009/11/silvia_fitzpatrick_climbs_another_f8b-50288

Duma

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It's a good list.

Praise from the master!  :bow: Remus you should be proud!

Kingy

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I'm pretty certain FB did Statement at LPT but am much less sure about NG, probably best not to take my failing memory as gospel.

Im certain Fliss Butler did Statement of Youth cos I read about it in On the Edge years ago. So the question mark could be removed from the list.

remus

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Bumped Silvia up to 8b. Added the years column and filled in details I could find, lots missing at 8a+ and below though. Got rid of the question mark for Fliss Butler on SoY.

https://github.com/bourbonspecial/UKWomen8a/blob/master/table.md

Duma

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This article has a pic of Ruth on Zeke dated 1995. Weirdly can't find anything online about Leah doing Revelations, though I remember it (and the thread on here  :worms:)

Steve Crowe

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It was reported in Climber Magazine that Karin and I both climbed Mundo Feliz 8b+ last autumn.

https://climber.co.uk/news/latest-news/karin-magog-and-steve-crowe-redpoint-mundo-felix-f8b.html

Probes

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Tania and Gill have both done traverse of the gods 8b+.  :worms:

Ru

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This thread seems a little patronising...

dunnyg

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Seems a bit of a weird thread in general...

remus

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This thread seems a little patronising...

Quote from: dunnyg
Seems a bit of a weird thread in general...

Interestingly I was chatting about it with my girlfriend last night and she expressed a similar sentiment. It's certainly not meant to be patronising, so it's a shame if it comes across like that. Personally I think it's well cool that there are so many women in the UK who are climbing hard, and it's particularly cool that there are loads of names on there who I haven't heard of before. Really makes you appreciate the depth and diversity of climbing. To me it also offers a pretty interesting historical perspective (e.g. it took <5 years to go from 8a to 8b, then 14 years to go from 8b to 8b+ and then another 5 years to go to 8c.)

reeve

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I thought it seemed more celebratory than patronizing personally (speaking as a male). Yeah it's a bit weird with the only contributors (as far as I can see on the past few pages at least) being males, but I think that is representative of UKB as a whole, rather than just this thread. Given that there is 'Males who have climbed >8b+' thread I think it would be even weirder to studiously avoid any thread or discussion about female UK sport standards.

joel182

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This thread seems a little patronising...

Quote from: dunnyg
Seems a bit of a weird thread in general...

Interestingly I was chatting about it with my girlfriend last night and she expressed a similar sentiment. It's certainly not meant to be patronising, so it's a shame if it comes across like that.

I'm quite surprised and think it's a shame too! Listing climbers achievements seems to be a UKB hobby with threads for men sport climbing and bouldering, women bouldering, trad climbing and old folks.

Drew

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I thought it was just that there are certain things which are worth recording for historical relevance a la Elizabeth Hawley.

tomtom

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The thread does not resonate with me personally. (Had a conversation with someone at the crag about this earlier this week and both of us were uncomfortable with it to some degree).

I’m going to be devils advocate and try to provoke a few thoughts - so do you think it would be fine to have a thread titled “disabled people who’ve recently climbed >=7a”?

reeve

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The thread does not resonate with me personally. (Had a conversation with someone at the crag about this earlier this week and both of us were uncomfortable with it to some degree).

I’m going to be devils advocate and try to provoke a few thoughts - so do you think it would be fine to have a thread titled “disabled people who’ve recently climbed >=7a”?


If people were interested then yes I genuinely would be. I think it's only patronizing if you see the 'other-group' as inferior in some way, which in both cases I do not. Counter-hypothetical question: should males stop posting news about female ascents on the significant repeats thread? Because a quick glance makes that look like it's been only males posting for the last four pages (as far as I went back, and caveat that I might have mis-guessed someone's gender) but that regularly reports female repeats.

Obviously this board is very male dominated. It would be nice if there was a more representative balance of the genders. I don't think that treating the genders differently is likely to achieve that (i.e. by only having threads about male significant repeats or lists of male ascents).
I should perhaps add that earlier in the week when it first occurred to me that the thread became active again I began feeling some discomfort with the idea of a load of blokes talking about ascents by females, but really, on reflection, it is purely congratulatory. The only real chat has been about how strong women's standards are in the UK. It's a long way from DFBWGC - but then also a good sign that we can have a conversation about if it may unwittingly come across as patronizing.

joel182

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The thread does not resonate with me personally. (Had a conversation with someone at the crag about this earlier this week and both of us were uncomfortable with it to some degree).

I’m going to be devils advocate and try to provoke a few thoughts - so do you think it would be fine to have a thread titled “disabled people who’ve recently climbed >=7a”?

What do you think the problem would be with having a thread listing notable climbing achievements of people with disabilities?

tomtom

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The thread does not resonate with me personally. (Had a conversation with someone at the crag about this earlier this week and both of us were uncomfortable with it to some degree).

I’m going to be devils advocate and try to provoke a few thoughts - so do you think it would be fine to have a thread titled “disabled people who’ve recently climbed >=7a”?

What do you think the problem would be with having a thread listing notable climbing achievements of people with disabilities?

None. But it’s not that - it’s a list of people who’ve climbed above an arbritarty grade.

The grade is the problem - I think.

r-man

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What reeve said. I can't see how this is patronising. I also can't see how this is any different from any discussion of female records in any sports. Would you object if someone made a list of the fastest uk female sprinters?

Is the issue that it's mostly blokes talking about women? Yes, it's a male dominated forum, but it seems to me a sign of a healthy society that guys are just as excited about and interested in women's sporting records as they are men's. Several sports have some way to go in this regard, but I'm glad if (as it seems from this thread) climbing isn't one of them.


bigironhorse

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I find it pretty hard to see how this thread could be viewed negatively. I think the grade threshold is bit odd as whilst climbing 8a is a big personal achievement its not really the cutting edge of uk womens sport climbing.

tomtom

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What reeve said. I can't see how this is patronising. I also can't see how this is any different from any discussion of female records in any sports. Would you object if someone made a list of the fastest uk female sprinters?

But the list isn’t the best women climbers - it’s a list of those climbing above a grade.

In sprinting - they may list the fastest men and fastest women in the world etc...but They don’t say “women who can run under 11 seconds are...”

joel182

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What reeve said. I can't see how this is patronising. I also can't see how this is any different from any discussion of female records in any sports. Would you object if someone made a list of the fastest uk female sprinters?

But the list isn’t the best women climbers - it’s a list of those climbing above a grade.

In sprinting - they may list the fastest men and fastest women in the world etc...but They don’t say “women who can run under 11 seconds are...”

Listing people who perform to a certain standard seems to be a pretty common thing though - there are lists of Aussie men who've run sub 4 min miles, snooker players who've made a maximum break, and indeed of men who've run 100m under 10s.

petejh

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If women contributed to ukb threads about categorising female climbing achievements then men wouldn't have to and it would stop accusations of patronage. But they don't (contribute). So in their absence, 'men who like to categorise', i.e. most men, can either: ignore categorising female achievements and risk being accused of being part of the ignorant patriarchy; or categorise female achievements and risk accusations of being patronising.
'You can please some of the people' etc.

It's almost if as some people don't appreciate being categorised! Either as 'DFWGC' or 'good at climbing'.

I think 8a is meaningless though if it's supposed to be some decent standard of rock climbing that we're pigeonholing people into. 8b would be more like it.

r-man

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But the list isn’t the best women climbers - it’s a list of those climbing above a grade.

In sprinting - they may list the fastest men and fastest women in the world etc...but They don’t say “women who can run under 11 seconds are...”

I think in the running world they also make a point of recording who has run fastest this year, regardless of how close it is to the record. But anyway...

This list is someone's attempt to figure out how many women are operating in the 8's. It seems to be an honest question about the depth of talent in uk women's climbing, even if 8a seems a (patronisingly?) low bar to some. But I know plenty of people who see 8a as a huge achievement. Perhaps those who think this list is patronising are not thinking about the other perspective?

Maybe 8a turned out to be the wrong cut off, but unless you visit hard sport crags or hang out with lots of good sport climbers, how would you know? People operate in very different climbing bubbles, in what is after all a niche sport. This list provides an answer to a question. It looked to me like honest curiosity. I'm a little sad that it looks different to others.


Springchicken

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Another update for you. Dal climbed Stolen 8b last summer.

 

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