[spidermonkey09]

I'd be willing to bet that 7C is either already too low a bar, or will be very soon though. I think it should be 8A personally. Is the men's one 8B? I wonder if there's much difference in the women's numbers for 8A and for 7C+?

Edit: no diss to Elle as that looks like a great problem, I'm just musing here!

[remus]

Yeah the men's list is 8B and above. There's a lot more people on the men's list than the women's so unless there's loads of people missing from the women's list, or ascents at that grade are deemed un-noteworthy enough the no one knows about them, then I think it makes sense to keep it at 7C.

https://climbing-history.org/list/3/strong-british-male-boulderers

https://climbing-history.org/list/4/strong-british-female-boulderers

[Bradders]

I'd be willing to bet that 7C is either already too low a bar, or will be very soon though. I think it should be 8A personally. Is the men's one 8B? I wonder if there's much difference in the women's numbers for 8A and for 7C+?

Edit: no diss to Elle as that looks like a great problem, I'm just musing here!

I had the same question, but as Remus says even at 7C for women there are 92 on the list, versus 157 men at 8B! So still a remarkable disparity.

If you raised it to 8A there'd only be 36 women on the list, which hilariously is not far off the number of men who've done Keen Roof 

57 women for 7C+ and above.

There are 60 UK men who've done an 8B+!

[Blintflint]

8A isnt eactly cutting edge

[petejh]

Yeah the men's list is 8B and above. There's a lot more people on the men's list than the women's so unless there's loads of people missing from the women's list, or ascents at that grade are deemed un-noteworthy enough the no one knows about them, then I think it makes sense to keep it at 7C.

Stats people, let me know if I've got this wrong but by my amateur statistics brain...

If you create 2 separate groups for your reporting (men group, women group), and those group sizes are unequal. Then reporting an equal number for each group of people who are deemed to have met a benchmark of 'significant' performance - in an activity where the number of participants in those two groups is unequal by a significant ratio - would result in the benchmark for 'significance' being significantly less difficult to achieve in the smaller group then in the larger group. Wouldn't it?

I don't know the number of women versus men participating in outdoor bouldering - my unqualified wavy finger in the air guess made within roughly 15 seconds of thinking about it is that men might outnumber women by 3:1 in outdoors bouldering? That could be wildly off - I'm guessing here without much too much thought put into it.

Say it is 3:1. In any activity where 'significance' is based on difficulty, and difficulty is by proxy represented by grade, then you would expect that ratio to be reflected in proportionally fewer people achieving the 'significant' benchmark grade from the group with fewer numbers compared to the group with greater numbers. If you make the numbers meeting 'significant' equal between unequal group sizes, then you've effectively made the benchmark easier by moving it to the left on the distribution bell-curve. Which may or may not be be what you want to achieve.

Final thought: If the benchmark for significance is less representative of difficulty in one group than another - because the standard was lowered to promote equal numbers despite unequally-sized groups  - then wouldn't that potentially risk diluting the significance of  'significance', also potentially risk lowering expectations in the smaller group? 

[joel182]

.

[wasbeen]

It can be slim pickings at the top for woman boulderers. Hard boulders have a tendency to require significant burl. So often woman are picking from a reduced subset.

There are also instances where woman have climbed very hard specific boulders when they are young and their power to weight is close to maximal (and they have small fingers) e.g. Ashima and Bertone. But have found it harder to reproduce those levels as they get older, despite their all round climbing improving. I think it is fair to say that all 7Cs are not equal between genders.
Which I guess is partly a function of the vast majority of FAs been done by men and graded for a certain height and burl. So progression is enviitably lumpier and more frustrating for women.

Personally, I think the 7C is a good cut-off for now. You look at the names that have achieved it and it seems to be a good predictor of route and comp strength.

[remus]

Yeah the men's list is 8B and above. There's a lot more people on the men's list than the women's so unless there's loads of people missing from the women's list, or ascents at that grade are deemed un-noteworthy enough the no one knows about them, then I think it makes sense to keep it at 7C.

Stats people, let me know if I've got this wrong but by my amateur statistics brain...

If you create 2 separate groups for your reporting (men group, women group), and those group sizes are unequal. Then reporting an equal number for each group of people who are deemed to have met a benchmark of 'significant' performance - in an activity where the number of participants in those two groups is unequal by a significant ratio - would result in the benchmark for 'significance' being significantly less difficult to achieve in the smaller group then in the larger group. Wouldn't it?

I don't know the number of women versus men participating in outdoor bouldering - my unqualified wavy finger in the air guess made within roughly 15 seconds of thinking about it is that men might outnumber women by 3:1 in outdoors bouldering? That could be wildly off - I'm guessing here without much too much thought put into it.

Say it is 3:1. In any activity where 'significance' is based on difficulty, and difficulty is by proxy represented by grade, then you would expect that ratio to be reflected in proportionally fewer people achieving the 'significant' benchmark grade from the group with fewer numbers compared to the group with greater numbers. If you make the numbers meeting 'significant' equal between unequal group sizes, then you've effectively made the benchmark easier by moving it to the left on the distribution bell-curve. Which may or may not be be what you want to achieve.

Final thought: If the benchmark for significance is less representative of difficulty in one group than another - because the standard was lowered to promote equal numbers despite unequally-sized groups  - then wouldn't that potentially risk diluting the significance of  'significance', also potentially risk lowering expectations in the smaller group?

In a nutshell you're right about the small group vs big group aspect. However, for me, the lists are more about 'who are the top 100 or so people in this group' and the grade boundaries are just a quick and easy way of adjusting the group size so it's around the 100 mark. Obviously you also get a lot of ascents that people would consider significant (in the big numbers sense) in there as a consequence of this, so if that's what you're interested in then you can just look at the top of the list.

[Bradders]

8A isnt eactly cutting edge

Well for men no, it isn't. But for UK women it clearly is, since in the decades long history of bouldering only 36 UK women have managed one 8A or more. That sounds cutting edge to me! With 7C clearly still being significant.

Interesting thought from Pete, get what you're saying. But as Remus says I just see it more as an attempt to document who the top people are.

[petejh]

In a nutshell you're right about the small group vs big group aspect. However, for me, the lists are more about 'who are the top 100 or so people in this group' and the grade boundaries are just a quick and easy way of adjusting the group size so it's around the 100 mark. Obviously you also get a lot of ascents that people would consider significant (in the big numbers sense) in there as a consequence of this, so if that's what you're interested in then you can just look at the top of the list.

I can see why you might want to list the 'top 100 people'. However it only makes sense if you know the context to put it in, by knowing roughly the number of people participating. A 'top 100 people' in a group of 500 people would have a very different meaning compared to a 'top 100 people' in a group of 10,000 people. Big fish in small ponds versus big fish in oceans.

Bradders - the top people in one group aren't the same as the top people in the larger group though. I'm not saying this is good/bad or right/wrong. It just is by definition not the same process of distinguishing competence.

[remus]

I can see why you might want to list the 'top 100 people'. However it only makes sense if you know the context to put it in, by knowing roughly the number of people participating. A 'top 100 people' in a group of 500 people would have a very different meaning compared to a 'top 100 people' in a group of 10,000 people. Big fish in small ponds versus big fish in oceans.

I think the pool of female climbers is big enough that the top ~100 is a small, elite chunk of the group. That's what Im interested in.

[petejh]

How big do you estimate are the pools of UK male and female (outdoors) boulderers?

[remus]

Finger in the wind, I'd guess tens of thousands. For women I'd guess low (i.e. ~10,000) and men at maybe 2-3x times that.

To be clear Im not arguing with you, I agree with your point. #100 on the women's list is going to be a lower percentile of the population than #100 on the men's list.

[petejh]

Cool cool. Yep not arguing - I was asking in a spirit of curiosity as I’ve never thought about this before until I noticed your comment that you were setting the ‘significance’ level based loosely around having the numbers on the list equal between groups.

[Bradders]

You're absolutely right Pete. Though if you want to make it more statistically meaningful / overcomplicated I think we're going to need to see a compelling argument as to why that's important

Better to just keep it simple if you ask me.

[metal arms]

Perfect opportunity for someone to corner the market with a significanceGrader spreadsheet.  Sorry, I mean "tool to help climbers better understand the significance of their ascent in the context of national and globalbouldering grades."

[SA Chris]

Better to just keep it simple if you ask me.

This

[ferret]

A simple way would be to say the top standard for both UK and the world is 3 grades lower for women compared to men.
Making the women's cut off for this thread 3 grades less than the men's would currently be 7c+.

[Bradders]

Why 3 and not 4 though?

Current top world men's grade is 9A. Current top world women's grade is 8C (just). So actually it should be 2?

Can we not just leave it as is since it's working pretty well in capturing the current top 100 women in the UK? 

[ferret]

Having it correlate to the difference between uk men and women seemed simple but took into account Pete's point about participation rates.
Please feel free to dismiss as stupid and ignore, it's only a set of arbitrary rules to a thread on a forum after all

[Bonjoy]

Good updates, added those in, thanks both.

https://climbing-history.org/list/4/strong-british-female-boulderers

Jessica Sakura Ward has bouldered 7C - Taylor Made at Dinas Rock- she is an 11 year old GB youth mini wad! Also a European champion!

Video of her online

She recently did Fat Cats Roof + Taylor Made link-up, 7C+ on UKC, not bad at 12.

[Wellsy]

Jesus Christ, that's wildly impressive. Well done to her!

[remus]

Waddage! I've added that ascent for her.

[yetix]

Esther Foster has done Impropa Opera SS today which I believe means she needs bumping up.

I think Nat from the Hangar Liverpool has done rockatrocity at 7c last year, couldn't see her on the list. Can't recall her surname though of the top of my head.

[remus]

Good knowledge as per, thanks. Can't seem to work out who Nat is but I'll keep an eye out and add her in if any more details become available.