Women
Women Reaching
New Heights
Photo: British female climbers (Fran
Brown, Molly Thompson-Smith,
Shauna Coxsey) by Alex Messenger
/ BMC
It’s known that climbing is a
male dominated sport. It always has
been, and typically men are built to
be better at sports anyway. However,
this can put female climbers at a
disadvantage, meaning there is less
training and advice out there for women
alone. Men climb differently to women
and have different strengths, for instance,
they usually have more power. Often you
find men with massive muscled arms just
powering their way up a wall, hardly even
relying on their feet, whereas women are
expected to be elegant and graceful. But
who says there has to be such a divide
between male and female in climbing?
Surely, women can be just as inspired by
male climbers as female ones. Besides, if
a girl climbs like man, is this a bad thing?
And vice versa, who cares if a man is a
bit ‘girly’ when he climbs? As long you
enjoy climbing, that’s all that matters.
But to some women, the amount
of men at climbing walls or crags can
p11
234
seem quite intimidating, making them
feel outnumbered in the sport. It seems
women have grown to worry too much
about confidence and being judged;
this is mostly what is stopping them to
take part in sports as much. However,
recently there has been more of a push
towards encouraging women to get
involved in more sports. With projects
such as the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign and
The Women’s Climbing Symposium, the
number of women taking up climbing is
on the up. A lot of women worry about
their appearance while taking part in
sports – that’s fairly normal – but why
should they have to? And maybe some
women will always get stick for what
they look like. For example, American
climber Sierra Blair-Coyle was criticised
after saying she considered herself both
a model and an athlete. It’s known that
Sierra does like to climb in hot pants, but
who says she can’t look good and be a
kickass climber? After all, no one gives
David Beckham any grief for playing
football as well as having his own line of
underwear, but how is that any different?
Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’
campaign is a brilliant project which
launched last year, aiming to encourage
more women to take up sports - not just
climbing - and improve their confidence.
After 75% of females aged 14 - 40 said
they wished they took part in more
exercise, people are made to wonder:
what’s stopping them? ‘This Girl Can’ has
made it their mission to close the gap
between males and females in sports,
and show that size, ability and experience
don’t need to be the most important
factors. Besides, in climbing technique
is much more valuable than strength.
No matter how ridiculous you look, no
matter how red in the face or lacking in
skills you are, this campaign encourages
women of all shapes and sizes to get
up and give it a go. The BMC support
the ‘This Girl Can: Climb’ campaign, as
well as ‘This Girl Can: Walk’ and ‘This