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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Poll Option Votes Graph
Yes they can, and they do. 1
1% 
No they can't, and they don't. 6
9% 
There is a gap in abilities. It may close one day. 5
7% 
Who cares? 55
82% 

 Page 2 of 5. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 80 | 81 to 81
Author
Women don't / can't boulder as hard as men.
tastybigmac
5-Feb-2012
6:23:27 PM
That is a stupid argument.
widewetandslippery
6-Feb-2012
9:25:03 AM
I don't think it is a stupid arguement or discussion. Climbing is a constantly evolving activity, lfestylr, sport however you define it. Cutting edge multi pitches md last century, hard natural routes of the 60s/ 70s, power route fad to enduro route fad. Bouldering with its gen y popuarity can change all the goal posts and who is capable of what.

Certainly females are not at the current cutting edge of bouldering at present but different appproaches and different definitions of what is bouldering will change. What is bouldering has certainly changed in my climbing time

jodestar
6-Feb-2012
10:01:46 AM
On 4/02/2012 rodw wrote:
>Maybe its an intelligence thing....they are smart enough to realize bouldering
>sucks before wasting to much effort on it.

:-) you're on to something!!
Wendy
6-Feb-2012
11:26:41 AM
I can only conclude that M9 and davidn have too much time on their hands.

I'm sure I've argued this before here somewhere, but sporting performances by men and women can't yet be separated from societal ideas for men and women. Yes, there is generally a massive gap in strength between the average man and woman, largely because any innate differences are massively enhanced by what it is that men and women do with their bodies.
The gap is much much smaller for elite athletes because both are focussed on training their bodies to maximum capacity. But even then, the early childrearing experiences of these people is likely to have been different. Boys are still more encouraged into physical play, which develops their physique and affects (look, Damo, the arrow affected the aardvark. the effect was eyepopping :)) their future capacity. Then later in childhood, images of what is "feminine" and desirable for girls to do affect their decisions on the levels of participation and degree to which they are prepared to diverge from the norm for their passion for whatever activity it is.
When girls in general are engaged in similar quantities of physical play from birth as well as encouraged to train and succeed in physical endeavours throughout their life, when it is not only ok, but liked and respected for girls to be strong, that gap will lessen even further.

As has been pointed out, in a sport as diverse as climbing, I would expect that to lead to negligible differences overall eventually. You also have to remember that the pool of female climbers amongst which one might find an amazing female climber is much smaller than the pool of male climbers. So it's statistically more likely that there will be more male climbers able to reach these levels as well.
Duncan
6-Feb-2012
11:39:11 AM
On 5/02/2012 widewetandslippery wrote:
>How's hueco and anymore info on leaded vs lite beer rehydration.

Hueco is RAD. I'm not sure what you're asking about in the second part of your sentence, but my beer rehydration beta is to just drink lots.
One Day Hero
6-Feb-2012
2:35:29 PM
On 5/02/2012 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>
>Post edit at 9.30pm;
>He is now down to 30 posts, so has obviously continued to delete his history
>on this website...
>~> Seems to me like a lot of work to go to for an outcome that is neither
>here nor there, due to internet cached histories!
>
davidn posts (a lot) from his public service office. I think he's been busted (or is in fear of being busted) by his boss, and is cleaning up the incriminating evidence. I can just imagine his boss trawling through the pile of bullshit dave posted on here, and calling him into the office.......

"look david, I don't know anything about rock climbing, but god you come across as a pussy!.........and what the fuch is with that chook house?"
One Day Hero
6-Feb-2012
4:58:14 PM
On 6/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>
>sporting performances
>by men and women can't yet be separated from societal ideas for men and
>women. Yes, there is generally a massive gap in strength between the average
>man and woman, largely because any innate differences are massively enhanced
>by what it is that men and women do with their bodies.
>The gap is much much smaller for elite athletes because both are focussed
>on training their bodies to maximum capacity. But even then, the early
>childrearing experiences of these people is likely to have been different.

Hmmm, I guess this is the "wymins studies" version of how the whole thing works.

Look, I'm kind of down on most professional spectator sport, I think sport is best when its done for ones own enjoyment. Hence absolute levels of performance don't really matter, you just participate at whatever level you're at. But saying that the gap between elite men and women is (or will be) "small" for most sports is a bit of a joke.

In any sport where power (real power, wattage, not "climbers idea of power") is a defining component, women don't even come close to men. You can look at sprinting and say "the top women are only 10% behind the top men", but translate that to a ball sport like soccer, afl, hockey, tennis etc. and the women will be 10% behind the guys getting to every ball......which means they'll almost never get the ball.....which means they'll get flogged.

I don't really see why that concept should present any problems, almost all guys deal with the same situation too. I don't have what it takes to be a top level athlete either. Thats ok, I'll just do stuff to whatever level I'm capable of, and enjoy it.
dmnz
6-Feb-2012
5:14:28 PM
On 6/02/2012 One Day Hero wrote:

>"look david, I don't know anything about rock climbing, but god you come
>across as a pussy!.........and what the fuch is with that chook house?"

"and what the fuch are you doing to those innocent boulders?!"
widewetandslippery
6-Feb-2012
5:48:27 PM
What he does to chooks
Wendy
7-Feb-2012
5:38:19 PM
I prefer the spelling "wimmyn's", thanks Damo :)

If you carefully reread my rabidradicalfeminist rave, you'll note I don't say women are close to men now. I'm saying that the actual level of difference is not measurable until girls and boy are encouraged to use and develop their physical strength in the same ways. When we have a generation or two or that, we can reach some more definitive conclusions, and I think they will be smaller still than the 10% current in elites. And that the level of that difference is quite strikingly different in trained athletes vs the general population. I think it's somewhere more around 40% for the average joe and jane compared to that 10%. But as the tendency of the world seems to be towards all people doing less and less physical activity, maybe we'll find out the actual difference by looking at the bottom end of the spectrum first. Are lazy fat men with desk jobs as weak as lazy fat women with desk jobs?

Miguel75
7-Feb-2012
5:54:36 PM
On 7/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>maybe we'll find out the actual difference by looking at the bottom end of the spectrum first. Are lazy >fat men with desk jobs as weak as lazy fat women with desk jobs?

If you need a crash test dummy I'm happy to play the lazy fat man....

As an aside, I do plenty of functional strength training at work though am finding very little of it helps my climbing. My pathetic grip strength remains pathetic... Aside from the hang board what can I do to develop a stone crushing Kung fu death grip?

shortman
7-Feb-2012
5:59:27 PM
On 7/02/2012 Miguel75 wrote:
>On 7/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>>maybe we'll find out the actual difference by looking at the bottom end
>of the spectrum first. Are lazy >fat men with desk jobs as weak as lazy
>fat women with desk jobs?
>
>If you need a crash test dummy I'm happy to play the lazy fat man....
>
>As an aside, I do plenty of functional strength training at work though
>am finding very little of it helps my climbing. My pathetic grip strength
>remains pathetic... Aside from the hang board what can I do to develop
>a stone crushing Kung fu death grip?

Breathe and believe.

Spend a few years on the tools. Strengthens and deadens.
One Day Hero
8-Feb-2012
12:15:05 AM
On 7/02/2012 Miguel75 wrote:
> My pathetic grip strength
>remains pathetic... Aside from the hang board what can I do to develop
>a stone crushing Kung fu death grip?

Sorry Miguel, its far too late for you, one of the downsides of your faith.
The rest of us heathen blokes did at least five years of intense and dedicated grip strength training through our mid teens.....if you don't do the hours in those formative years, you'll never catch up.

mmmmm, stone crushing kung fu death grip!
One Day Hero
8-Feb-2012
1:13:41 AM
On 7/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>
>I'm saying that the actual level of difference
>is not measurable until girls and boy are encouraged to use and develop
>their physical strength in the same ways. When we have a generation or
>two or that, we can reach some more definitive conclusions, and I think
>they will be smaller still than the 10% current in elites.

Yeah, I know, this is the bit I'm disagreeing with. What if girls don't want to obsess about sport as much as boys? What if they don't have as high levels of a hormone which drives them to compete agressively and be better than others just for the sake of being the best (rather than for a more nobel reason like enjoyment)? I think you're overestimating the impact of social conditioning and underestimating the effect of physiology.
Wendy
8-Feb-2012
8:00:00 AM
On 8/02/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 7/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>>
>>I'm saying that the actual level of difference
>>is not measurable until girls and boy are encouraged to use and develop
>>their physical strength in the same ways. When we have a generation
>or
>>two or that, we can reach some more definitive conclusions, and I think
>>they will be smaller still than the 10% current in elites.
>
>Yeah, I know, this is the bit I'm disagreeing with. What if girls don't
>want to obsess about sport as much as boys? What if they don't have as
>high levels of a hormone which drives them to compete agressively and be
>better than others just for the sake of being the best (rather than for
>a more nobel reason like enjoyment)? I think you're overestimating the
>impact of social conditioning and underestimating the effect of physiology.

Fûck, I forgot, we're all a slave to our hormones ... Girls aren't offered the same choices to obsess about sport, so how will we know until they do? Girls compete aggressively about other stuff that they are socialised to compete about. I don't think an absence of capacity to compete is the issue. I don't think we can say what is social conditioning and what is physiology until everyone's on a relatively level playing field, and i think we're still a reasonable way off a level playing field. It shîts me that people harp on about intrinsic, indisputable, unable to be overcome physiological differences between men and women when the extent of the actual differences are still blurred by the effects of our upbringing and social expectations. I've managed to build a lot of muscle and develop a reasonable amount of power in the last 22 years. But i bet I'd be a lot stronger still had I had the first 16 years of physical activity as well instead of being one of those sport avoiding girly sorts.
One Day Hero
8-Feb-2012
12:51:30 PM
On 8/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>
>Fûck, I forgot, we're all a slave to our hormones ...

No.....however, when athletes (male and female) get into doping to improve their sporting performance, they sure as hell don't dose up on estrogen. Have a look at all the womens olympic records, many of them are still held by eastern bloc nationals from the pre-testing era. And they got to that level of performance by taking masses of testosterone......which teenage boys get courtesy of nature.

>But i bet I'd be a
>lot stronger still had I had the first 16 years of physical activity as
>well instead of being one of those sport avoiding girly sorts.

Is society to blame for you not being into sport during your childhood? Or did you just not really like it/find other stuff you prefered to do?

The problem is, if you apply social pressure to be good at sport, then you also get the stigma of failure.........this works with most things. If you want to push the top talent to the highest level of their potential, those who don't show promise will be sidelined. I think you're confusing which system is best for producing elite athletes, and which is best for the general population.

So, if you want top female athletes to be closer to the men (I don't think it'll work anyway, owing to physiological differences), then put them into the pressure cooker which boys are subject to, and accept the nasty darwinian results. If you'd rather lift the middle and bottom end of the the bell curve (I think this is what should be done for boys sport as well), then forget about the olympics and all that shit, and try to encourage participation and teamwork instead of individual excellence.
One Day Hero
8-Feb-2012
12:58:17 PM
btw, none of this really applies as much to climbing as it does to 'more defined' sports. Once you have a specific set of rules, and people on a field/track next to each other, the number of different ways to be good is dramatically reduced

Eduardo Slabofvic
8-Feb-2012
2:46:31 PM
On 8/02/2012 Day One Hero wrote:
>compete aggressively

Have you ever met any women?
Wendy
8-Feb-2012
5:57:10 PM
On 8/02/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 8/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>>
>>Fûck, I forgot, we're all a slave to our hormones ...
>
>No.....however, when athletes (male and female) get into doping to improve
>their sporting performance, they sure as hell don't dose up on estrogen.
>Have a look at all the womens olympic records, many of them are still held
>by eastern bloc nationals from the pre-testing era. And they got to that
>level of performance by taking masses of testosterone......which teenage
>boys get courtesy of nature.

Said athletes have also been know to compete in very early pregnancy then have a termination because there's some period when women are stronger in there somewhere. I'm guessing it's not from testosterone.
>
>>But i bet I'd be a
>>lot stronger still had I had the first 16 years of physical activity
>as
>>well instead of being one of those sport avoiding girly sorts.
>
>Is society to blame for you not being into sport during your childhood?
>Or did you just not really like it/find other stuff you prefered to do?

Yup, I can blame society for many things! But seriously, yes, society has a lot to do with the lack of participation of young girls in physical activity. Not only is there a massive dearth of physically strong role models for young women, those images of femininity there are presented with are almost the opposite, and so far from the reality of most female bodies that girls end up extremely indisposed towards doing anything that would expose their body to public view and judgement (with the exception of the ways in which society suggests they adapt, decorate and flaunt them to attract men. Strangely enough, lycra shorts, swimming caps, muscles and grunting are not amongst those ways). I did a pretty good job of avoiding most of the clap trap the world throws at women, but I still caught some of it in my youth. I'm pretty damn sure girls aren't spending time preening, shopping, bitching, hooning in the back of cars, hanging out on street corners, malls and on the sidelines of their boyfriends' activities because it's heaps more fun then actually doing something.
>
>The problem is, if you apply social pressure to be good at sport, then
>you also get the stigma of failure.........this works with most things.
>If you want to push the top talent to the highest level of their potential,
>those who don't show promise will be sidelined. I think you're confusing
>which system is best for producing elite athletes, and which is best for
>the general population.
>
>So, if you want top female athletes to be closer to the men (I don't think
>it'll work anyway, owing to physiological differences), then put them into
>the pressure cooker which boys are subject to, and accept the nasty darwinian
>results. If you'd rather lift the middle and bottom end of the the bell
>curve (I think this is what should be done for boys sport as well), then
>forget about the olympics and all that shit, and try to encourage participation
>and teamwork instead of individual excellence.

hmm, i think i was just arguing for the encouragement of participation? That is, the participation of girls in physical play, activities and sport from birth? I think as a result, it will produce elite female athletes closer to the capacity of the female physique, but that would just be a sideline to having a bunch of stronger, healthier women as well.

Kinda obviously, in the nature/nurture debate, i come down firmly on the side of nurture. Think about it in terms of other things. A child's capacity for intelligence or emotional awareness is hugely influenced by how they are raised from the moment they pop out. If they are not stimulated, their brain doesn't develop properly, and even Einstein would have come out with the brain function of a donkey if he hadn't been raised appropriately. This is all well pre formal education. Similarly, if they aren't taught about their emotions, how to respond to them and manage them, they turn into either zombies or screaming rollercoasters. If no one teaches them empathy, they become psychopaths. Fûck, it even applies to basic physical stuff. If you don't play with a child at stages when their brain is most ready to develop coordination, or provide conditions in which they develop muscles and skills for movement, you get children who are physically developmentally delayed.

I'm not espousing a totally radical point on the basis of my political beliefs here. I'm basing it on a bunch of well documented stuff that I think is applicable, then add a firm belief that it's almost impossible to separate nature from nurture in our society, and I'd rather work with what we can control - that is nurture. Until we have something vaguely resembling egalitarian conditions of nurture, we can't really have a sensible debate about it. But in the meanwhile, I will sing the I Am Right Song :). Can we start another childish debate about matters of taste and opinion now?
One Day Hero
9-Feb-2012
12:54:53 AM
On 8/02/2012 Wendy wrote:
>
>Kinda obviously, in the nature/nurture debate, i come down firmly on the
>side of nurture. Think about it in terms of other things. A child's capacity
>for intelligence or emotional awareness is hugely influenced by how they
>are raised from the moment they pop out. If they are not stimulated, their
>brain doesn't develop properly, etc, etc

Yeah, I kinda worked out which side of that fence you were on.

Lets start you out easy on nurture-cult deprogramming......basketball! How are you ever going to be good at basketball? Not you and all the other women, but you and all the other shortarses? And don't mention the 2 midgets in the NBA. Yes, there's 2 midgets and 600 really, really tall people........thats my point. Now this invented game, whether by chance or by design, massively favours the tall. You could have had all the nurturing in the world, you could have been adopted at birth by Micheal Jordan, and he turned out to be a crazy sport dad, taught you to be the very very bestest you could be.......and you'd get pounded by some half-talented lazy amazon. Unless you're suggesting that some type of nurturing could have helped you be taller than 5 foot 3?

How about high jump? See many shortarses smashing that sport? Many waifs in shotput? Many swimmers who aren't brick shithouses? Flatwater kayakers who don't look like a can of Mr Muscle? Plus-size jockeys?

There's lots of sports where nature (height and weight) goes a hell of a long way. And, unless the greater average height and weight of men comes down to nurture as well......your argument is looking a little Jarlsbergy, no?

>.....and I'd rather work with
>what we can control - that is nurture. Until we have something vaguely
>resembling egalitarian conditions of nurture, we can't really have a sensible
>debate

Just because you can't control something doesn't mean its fine to ignore its existence! "Look, we can't control rivers but we can control water pipes......lets forget about levy banks and focus on making more reliable water pipes to prevent peoples garages from flooding"

And the other point is just as silly. "Can we discuss it yet?" "No! Its only 99.99% equal, if things aren't equal you can't have a discussion! How can you have a discussion if things aren't equal?"

> Can we start another childish debate about matters of taste and opinion
>now?

No, this horse is still twitching

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