UKH

Climbing coach and writer Ari Schneider explores gender bias in climbing media and reveals the results of a small study he conducted into bias in online articles.

I decided to read and analyse 80 news articles, twenty each, from four climbing media sources. Two sources were American, one Canadian, and one British. I was curious to see if there were any noticeable patterns in the adjectives used to describe professional climbers' appearances or well-beings. Perhaps a certain gender would receive significantly more positive or negative descriptors, which would exhibit evidence of gender bias in the climbing media.

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In reply to UKC Articles:

On the methodology:

"I kept tallies of every subjective description of a climber's appearance or wellbeing and marked the mentioned climber's gender and whether the description was generally positive, negative, or neutral."

That process is prone to bias. That is, the author's preconceptions and attitudes (and the author has a lot of those, as judged from the piece) affecting whether they score a mention as "positive" or "negative".      The way to prevent that is for someone else to de-sex the mention, so that the person scoring it does not know which sex is refers to.    

For example: "examples of negative comments are, ...  "Her fingers were bloody from crimping the razorblade holds." ".     It's not obvious to me that that's a "negative" comment, it seems more a factual one that could be scored neutral.  Or it could be scored positive in showing the commitment of the climber.   

(One could say that countering the stereotype that women climbers should look "feminine" and "girly", by instead emphasizing grit and determination, would be positive?  If I wrote: "as she topped out on her onsight of London Wall, her nail polish was still pristine, her hair immaculate", would one score that positive or negative?) 

"There were a total of 131 descriptive references to male climbers and 100 descriptive references to female climbers. Of the references to male climbers, 41 of them were positive, 63 were negative, and 21 were neutral. Of the references to female climbers, 29 were positive, 61 were negative, and 10 were neutral."

Hmm, no attempt at saying whether these differences are statistically significant?    Even if they are, without more rigour and blinding in the scoring process, I don't think we can conclude anything from the study as presented. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

Awwww, this is going to be good....

Interesting article though. There are always limits to the application of this sort of survey, but it has still given us some interesting data and food for thought.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Yeah, but, but, but.  There are a whole range of factors that lead to the relatively rare phenomenon of someone becoming routinely referred to by their first name.  For example, the fact that there was already a well-known "Clinton", namely Bill, to distinguish her from.  In the same way, a certain President was called "W"  to distinguish him from his father. 

Then there is "Boris", who like "Hillary" gets referred to by his first name.  Again, there is a whole lot of history behind that.  To suggest that the main cause is "gender bias" is simplistic and pretty clearly wrong. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Yeah, minefield

Could very easily be interpreted as belittling/negative if applied to a woman - as impyling that a woman can, or should, only exhibit qualities like "grace", "elegance" but not, say, power or burl. When my son & I went to bouldering world cups a few years ago we used to talk about Shauna going into "machine mode" when the chips were down, and we meant it entirely positively.

I appreciate what the author is trying to do but, like you, I think his definition of what counts as "positive" or negative" us far too much based on unexamined / unexplained assumptions.

"Initially, in my head, I had just wanted to coil my own rope in my preferred style—a butterfly coil with a mountaineer's finish. Ask any of my climbing partners, I am picky when it comes to the way in which my rope is coiled, so I prefer to do it myself. But what I had actually done was send an implicit message to my friend that she wasn't skilled enough to coil a rope well. I immediately apologised for my act of sexism, and admitted that I should've let her coil it, because at the end of the day, it makes very little difference if I load the rope into my truck in a butterfly or a backpack coil."

Weird one. You say yourself that you are picky about coiling your rope which leads me to think you would have done the same if your climbing partner was male and therefore the act wasn't sexist. You made it about sex by ignoring your preferences because your partner was female.

In reply to Greywall:

Yeah, this isn’t sexism at all, just an example of being picky enough about how your rope is coiled to want to do it yourself.

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

As pointed out above, this actual study has given us some poor quality data which is inherently subject to bias as noted by Coel Hellier above. This data is then only interrogated to a very basic level. There is indeed scope and a strong rationale to do this sort of study well, but this is not that.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Just to add:

In the current Democrat race, Bernie Sanders is quite often referred to as "Bernie" or "The Bern", whereas Elizabeth Warren is pretty much always referred to as "Warren".   So, no, referring to Clinton as "Hillary" was not simply "gender bias".

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Yes, sex blinding the comments where possible (hard if the comment mentions e.g. uncomfy sports bras or frozen beards) and having them scored by a third person not familiar with the conversation from which an isolated comment is taken would be the absolute minimum.

Anyway, even assuming perfect scoring methodology, a quick 2x3 chi square test gives chi square = 3.256 and p=0.196, confirming the immediate impression from a quick look at the numbers.

In other words, differences like this are expected to crop up by chance in 1 in 5 surveys with that sample size.

Nevertheless I would say that the article is correct and that sexism is as rife in climbing journalism as in any other walk of life.

Not particularly surprising, given that climbers represent a reasonably random cross section of society (at least more so than, say, polo players), but the data from the article do not even show that.

Seriously, it is not that hard.

CB

In reply to ianstevens:

These are the best type of climbing partners. Oh you want to coil the rope yourself? Fill your boots sunshine. 

In reply to snoop6060:

Sunshine!? Oh jesus did you just assume they are a "bright" person. What if they are actually deeply melancholic. By implying they are like sunshine you may have sent them into a downward spiral of introspection. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Since I cannot reply to my own comment, here is another reply to the comment I replied to before.

Of course giving p-values for the data presented is a bit of a piss take.

My pet peeve, though, is articles, mainly from the humanities, faking scientific credibilty by e.g. presenting numerical data based on a weak underlying methodology and calling it a "media study" or some such.

Not as bad as the recent "autoethnography" thing, but why even go there ? Would it not be better to highlight and criticize individual sexist comments in detail, and forget about the quantitation?

After all, sexism in climbing journalism is clearly something that should be dealt with, but the fact that such sexism exists is a bit too obvious and expected to require quantitative proof.

However, if you choose to make that rather pointless effort, better get it right.

CB

edit: my own comment, of course, and now I can reply....

In reply to cb294:

As great as 'sex blinding' sounds, is discounting the gender of the subject of the comment in this case appropriate? I understand that it helps to reduce the author's bias. However, in the case of gender issues, the female (or male) is necessarily part of what we're examining. Femininity, along with its historical context and associations cannot be removed without changing the meaning of the comments. For example:

"His muscles bulged as he reached the hold" "Her muscles bulged as she reached the hold". The 'male' comment could be taken as positive and the 'female' as negative due to traditional body images. If we remove the gender of the subject from our examination then this distinction falls away.

As well as this specific point I think there is also a general point to be made here. Removing gender in order to seek equality between men and women is reductive and denies the associations of each gender. It also seeks to equivocate the two genders by neutralising them in a way that is not consistent with reality - there simply are differences between men and women. What we should strive for is not to neutralise each gender in order to treat them equally, but respect their differences by giving each gender equal consideration. Equality of treatment quickly falls in to absurdity. For example, it would be crazy to treat men and women equally by giving them both the right to an abortion - men can't have abortions! However, we can equally consider the sexual health of both men and women, recognise their differences, and offer appropriate treatment from that consideration.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

The Clinton vs Hillary thing isn't a useful data point because in US politics 'Clinton' could mean either candidate Hillary Clinton or former president Bill Clinton.   Maybe they are calling her 'Hillary' because they've been calling her husband 'Clinton'.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Tennis is a good one in this regard. I'm fairly sure that when I was a kid it was mainly Gentlemen, surnames, Ladies, first names. Newcombe, Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Edberg, Lendl, Courier vs Chrissie, Billie Jean, Tracy, Martina, Monica, Jana, Mary Joe. Around the time of Goran, Greg and Tim, maybe even Pete and Andre, it started to even out. Have I got that right?  

In reply to Theo Moore:

I agree, but if you want to quantitatively detect sexism in the comments with such a crude scoring method you will have to do some form of blinding, otherwise you are just recording your own prejudices and interpretations.

As I said, sticking with your gut feeling of whether there is a bias is fine with me, just don't pretend to be using quantitative methodology.

I also agree with the remainder of your comment.

CB

In reply to Theo Moore:

This is exactly why having them scored by one author with huge ideological commitments means the numbers produced are pretty meaningless.  The scoring will mainly reflect the author's ideological commitments.

In reply to Theo Moore:

Yes, agreed.  But then we cannot simply assert that any difference in descriptions of men versus women is necessarily a "bias" and "discrimination", as the author of the article assumes. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

I can't believe this baloney has been published, start to finish it was drivel!  no doubt I could go out with a different but equally valid set of criteria and find a different  80 articles that suggests the climbing media is strongly biased against men.   Ari obviously has his agenda and he's gone out to try and back it up any way he can.   It is a shame articles like this get published, because all it will do is make people less attentive to genuine examples of sexism in climbing.

In reply to UKC Articles:

That's the longest introduction to a study I've read in a long time (partly because it has a lot of what should be in the Discussion and a smattering of Materials and Methods), but you seem to have missed out the important bit - where are the data?

In reply to Coel Hellier:  

Absolutely.  I would infer from the comments that the crimps were really nasty.  I don't think a it's positive or negative comment about the ability or performance of the climber, let alone being gendered in any way.

In reply to felt:

There could well be sexism but there are also basic journalistic factors: you're going to prefer names that 'sound good' and you can't have the same name for two people.     Maybe there were some common male first names shared by multiple players.

In reply to UKC Articles:

So there are more 'negative' comments about females, but the vast majority of comments about female appearances are coming from the female writers?

So the female writers are prejudiced against female climbers? Was that the point? 

It's doesn't seem to me that you have even proven the point you set out to. However the biggest problem is that you had a point to prove in the first place, seeking out data to validate your opinions rather than basing your opinions on data.  

In reply to UKC Articles:

I find this rather hilarious when the top most visible female role models in climbing make a movie called "Pretty Strong". Why do you need to be pretty to be strong? Why do they need to title a climbing movie to a beauty attribute? I might have got all this wrong and if so please do correct me, but associating the two concept just perpetuates the gender stereotype

In reply to UKC Articles:

I think the tide is beginning to turn on this annoying on-line obsession with 'gender bias' (and associated clap-trap).

Judging by the largely negative response to this article, I suspect people want to be left to get on with their lives without being accused of the latest fill-in-as-applicable-ism.

In reply to THE.WALRUS:

Actually, no.

The negative responses where about how the 'study' was done (i.e., poorly), not about the merits (or otherwise) of the original question. Don't conflate the two.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

It's surely simply to do with which name is more interesting or unique. In jazz if we talk about Miles everyone knows who we're talking about, but Coltrane is never going to be referred to as 'John'.

In reply to THE.WALRUS:

I presume you're a man. I think all the other negative comments (and quite possibly all the comments) on the thread come from men. So maybe it's men who want be left to get on with business as usual.

In reply to TobyA:

What negative comments? 

In reply to TobyA:

All the positive comments came from men too.

And there were no positive women's comment.

So... ?

In reply to Marek:

I was responding to Walrus's point that "people" are tired of being told about gender bias.

In reply to TobyA:

Quite rightly. I just expected a more incisive response from you , Toby!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi everyone. I'm the author of this piece. Just want to respond to a few of the comments here.

To be clear, this was never intended to be a rigorous academic study. The data I included were simply meant to paint one part of a bigger picture. I think the word "Study" used in the article title was unintentionally misleading. To the person who said, "That's the longest intro to a study I've seen..." please understand that this is a story with some research included, not a research paper with a story attached. I apologize for not making that more clear.

And to those who are diving into the gender bias study I cited about Hillary Clinton, I would encourage you to read the full original paper, which is cited in a footnote for your convenience, as it touches on many of the potential issues you've brought up with their assumptions.

Thank you for reading this piece and engaging in discourse.

In reply to TobyA:

Ahem, you have just undermined Walrus' lofty status by removing prefix 'The', possibly also reduction to lower case ... 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

His first name is Alexander.

In reply to Marek:

Well I do find it both a shame and sad that there aren't any women (apologies if some of the above comments are from women and I missed that) commenting on this.

I think Prof Hellier and Prof (?) cb294 denouncing it as being "scientifically invalid" or whatever helps with that. I don't think that's what Ari was really going for, after all it's a "think piece" on a popular climbing website, not in a peer-reviewed academic journal. But when people are saying the article is rubbish, invalid, all about the writer's agenda, or whatever; even if like cb294 they are happy to acknowledge that the climbing media does seem to use stereotyped gender roles, I can see why casual readers might just think "well I'm not getting involved in that debate".

Over the years there have been a number of cases of female UKC regulars basically giving up joining in the discussion because they felt at best harangued and at worst bullied, in discussions around gender and the sport. Some of them I reckon have been real losses to discussion here.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Thanks for being here to answer questions Ari!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Perhaps I live in a different bubble but the opening remarks about doing a girls knot or taking the rope off her at the top of a pitch isn't the world I live in. Maybe because I've climbed with my wife for a long time on an equal footing I view her different to a person climbing with female friends. I just can't relate to any of this material and I doubt any of the male climbers I know would either. On the topic of doing up knots, my wife will sometimes tie me in if I'm looking at the guidebook at the base of a crag or pull the gear out of the bag if I'm busy coiling the rope. We don't have to invite each other to do anything and no offense is taken if a job is done on behalf of the other.

The section about positive and negative descriptions I thought was way off. For instance, "Her fingers were bloody from crimping the razorblade holds." I would say that is descriptive and confirms a climbers grit if they are willing to push to the point of drawing blood. Not sure how that is negative? Knee jerk, triggered offense might be a more accurate explanation.

Got to be honest, these repeated topics on gender and sexuality are making my visits here quite sporadic as of late. Whilst that isn't going to make a slightest bit of difference to UKC, I wonder how many others are getting bored of this whole subject as well? That said, the discussion is lively so what do I know?

In reply to TobyA:

Isn't it rather sexist to presume that women would be less interested in the actual validity of the study?

In reply to TobyA:

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the fact that there some 'gender issues' in climbing (as in all of life), but my point was that poor articles like the one above (sorry Ari) do nothing to help the cause of addressing those issues. They just make it look like the people who say there is a problem actually have no good data and no good research to back up their positions. Sometimes bad data/research/journalism (whatever) is worse than no data/research/journalism at all.

I know this is not a scientific journal, but then the author does his cause a disservice - unintentionally perhaps - by presenting something which looks like an attempt at a 'paper' with a poor attempt at massaging some data to fit an opinion rather than just an open and honest opinion piece. If it had been the latter, then following discussion most likely would have much more 'on topic' - for better or worse.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Hi Ari,

But the point is that, to be valid at all (not just valid in a "rigorous academic" sense) you need to present far more information about the scoring.

To see that, let's take Theo Moore's example from up-thread:

So suppose a writer treated men and women pretty much equally, writing remarks like "his/her muscles bulged as she/he reached the hold", with equal frequency.  

Then, as Theo suggests, a scorer scores the male comments positively and the female comments negatively -- owing to the scorer's perception of stereotypes. 

That scorer could then conclude: "See, that writer is hugely biased, all their remarks about men are positive and all their remarks about women are negative!". 

But the truth of the matter would surely be that scorer -- not the writer -- was the one imposing a bias.  

In reply to Coel Hellier:

As far as I can see, with a couple of assumptions when it's not immediately clear the gender of contributors above, we don't know whether women are interested in the validity or not of the study because none have commented. I hope some do, but I can understand why they might not want to.

Are you willing to consider whether your combative and exhaustive posting style might have _anything_ to do with that? If I remember correctly a few years ago you were involved in a thread where towards the end one longtime female UKC contributor (possibly the wildlife biologists on Arran?) basically gave up, again if I remember, saying something like she had had enough of men telling her she didn't understand what she had experienced properly. As far as I know she hasn't contributed to UKC since. Ring a bell? It seemed really sad at the time.

In reply to TobyA:

Well no, since you ask, that doesn't ring a bell  (though you're welcome to give a link or something to refresh people's memory). 

In reply to UKC Articles:

"Two examples of negative comments are, "He looked unhappy with his performance on that route," and, "Her fingers were bloody from crimping the razorblade holds.""

Given that it is completely beyond me how anyone could construe these comments, particularly without any context, to be negative, I can only conclude that the "study" is nonsense. A pity, because it is clearly an issue worthy of attention.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Christ, not more of this

In reply to mysterion:

Not just me then.... Even my wife hates this material.

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

Same here, but that's not to do with gender - seems a bit weird to do that with anyone without at least saying something in explanation.

In reply to TobyA:

Nice comment.My wife and 2 daughters always speak about this. Spot on 10/10.Cuts right to the heart of the issue.

In reply to UKC Articles:

What a disaster of an article. UKC - what are you doing publishing nonsense like this?

How to get a false positive in your study:

1 Use biased methods

2 Don't statsitcally test

3 Don't use blinding, do use only one outcome assesor

4 Use a small sample

5 Don't have a clear hypothesis (If women had been described as more attarctive you could writie a similar article)

6 Already be convinced that there is an effect before you start the study

7 Don't publish in a proper journal just put it straight out to the public

Nice one UKC, quality scientific content.

In reply to mwatson:

Also:

6 and a half) Ignore the fact that the (dubious) stats you've collected suggest that, if there is indeed any bias, then it's not actually very strong. 

In reply to Ari Schneider:

It's pretty clear that this isn't a realy study, but the whole idea of using numbers to back up what you feel is deeply unscientific. You should use a dissinterested view of the evidence to tell you if you are right or wrong. You should care about the quality of the work and any bias becuase you should be willing to accept the outcome even if it dissagrees with your preconceptions. This is what science is, this is what you have done wrong.

You don't care about the quality of the study becuase you know what you know and it's not going to change: you see it all the time in your everyday life, you change your actions based on it. You are implicitly admitting that the outcome of this study is not important to your view, and if you don't think it is important why should I?

In reply to TobyA:

I find this attitude rather sexist. My main climbing partner before we both moved to new jobs was female and several steps up the academic food chain from me! She also climbed quite a bit harder than me, unless I could drag her onto some horrible offwidth. Also, good luck with haranguing or bullying her!

My point is different, though: If you don't want to be criticized on scientific terms then best avoid using scientific terminology like "study" or "data", and in particular, do not try to draw conclusions from quantitative data without checking whether they do indeed support your argument.

IMO making a half arsed attempt at employing scientific methodology is much worse than sticking to gut feeling and writing an opinion piece (which, as I have argued above, would have been entirely appropriate here). It only detracts from the issue at hand, and opens the point you want to bring across to criticism.

CB

In reply to TobyA:

Combative seems a rather loaded word. I would describe  Coel's style in this thread as analytical and incisive. Should this sort of posting be discouraged in a discussion forum?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Here you go: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/equality_and_diversity_agenda-6...

In reply to Trossachs:

Thanks, yes I do remember that thread.  But note that the comment you point to was only the 4th in the thread, after only one comment by me (and that entirely reasonable in tone and content). 

That's rather different from Toby's suggestion of someone giving up deep into a long thread in which they'd been repeatedly harangued. 

So the objection seems to be to raising the topic at all.  But, the "equality and diversity" agenda is one that is being demanded of universities and similar institutions.  So it's entirely reasonable to discuss it!  Indeed, surely we should be discussing such issues? 

So, to answer Toby's question, no I don't see that it can fairly be described as creating a hostile environment.   If you want hostile environment on UKC, try looking at the politics and Brexit threads. 

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Hi Ari,

good to see you joining the discussion!

Lazily copying from my reply to TobyA, my point is that If you don't want to be criticized on scientific terms then best avoid using scientific terminology like "study" or "data", and in particular, do not try to draw conclusions from quantitative data without checking whether they do indeed support your argument.

IMO making a half arsed attempt at employing scientific methodology is much worse than sticking to gut feeling and writing an opinion piece. It only detracts from the issue at hand, and opens the point you want to bring across to criticism.

As you will have gathered, I am a scientist, and this is an issue that greatly annoys me. I am sure it is not intended that way, but it comes across as a bit dishonest, passing your work off as something it is not (same as when the marketing departments of banks or insurances describe their services as "products", presumably to sound more serious and trustworthy).

Anyway, I am broadly sympathetic with the point you make, but what would have been wrong with citing a few examples of blatant sexism in the climbing media, and reminding people that this is something we should avoid?

Once you start describing your methodology, be prepared to have it criticized. Some of your examples are not particularly convincing, e.g. both getting bloody fingers and being unhappy with one's performance are, to me, signs of determination and (healthy) perfectionism.

CB

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Oh come on. Look a bit deeper, why don't you?

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it."

"Will you be retiring to your safe space?"

"Nice flounce."

Just because you don't think UKC isn't a hostile environment for some people, doesn't mean it isn't. To be honest I think the poster concerned is well out of it, but her well-informed, passionate and intelligent posts are missed.

In reply to Trossachs:

None of those comments were by me.   (And Toby's question was specifically about my posting.)   And those comments were not the cause of the flounce since they were posted after it.  

Well I think that UKC *is* a hostile environment for some people (see my comment that you replied to).   But I don't think it's fair to maintain that disagreeing in a reasonable way amounts to being "hostile".  

Too many people these days try to control and shut down the fair discussion of issues by asserting that disagreeing with them amounts to "violence" against them.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Dear dear does anyone ever critique this issue in french - before you ever put a word into a phrase heads hands and mouthes are female but arms feet and biceps are male. Eggs and sperm are both male !

In reply to Coel Hellier:

No, but I don't think it was just your starting post on that thread, or indeed just yourposts on all the threads, that led to Snoweider leaving like that. And I'm pretty certain you get that.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

And I wasn't being entirely serious, but I think the point stands.  As others have said, don't mix up your opinions with the appearance of supporting data, without being willing to defend the examples you are citing.  It's a great example of confirmation bias, you are interpreting the comments as supporting your thesis but several of them are laughable.

This is not to say that you might not have a point.  I'm assuming you are US-based, and my general experience is that casual sexism is somewhat more common in the US, at least as seen from a European point of view.  

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Could you get your statements (de-gendered where possible) onto survey monkey (or similar) then we can all fill it in and you might come up with some interesting data about the difference in perception of positivity between the different genders?

It might be interesting to do this on a forum without a lot of overlap with UKC too (although I couldn't suggest one that *won't* have a few UKCers on it)

In reply to TobyA:

To be honest, I'm really not aware of the wider context to that incident.  I may not have read the relevant threads. 

In reply to colin8ll:

I feel an article on Gender articles on UKC coming on. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

So Ari seems to have retreated into his Twitter bubble, saying that criticism is merely "angry male egos" and  including such woke-speak as "#CrushThePatriarchy".

That's the problem with the woke, they are so sure of their ideology that they simply don't accept the concept of disagreement and discussion, and as a result they are hopelessly bad at defending their ideas with actual argument and evidence. Instead, any dissent just gets dismissed as "anger" and "hate".

In reply to TobyA:

Read your comment again, and I very much got the wrong end of the stick, so please ignore the irrelevant opening bit of my previous reply.

The thread linked to in a later post indeed was a bad example of sexist mobbing that would indeed make people feel bullied or harangued.

However, the context here is different, as the criticism is levelled at the (male) author of an article, not at other commentators.

At least from my POV this criticism is not so much about the message, towards which I am rather sympathetic, but towards the unfortunate trend of misappropriating scientific terminology and playing at using scientific methodology for all kinds of non science related topics.

And yes, you can do proper quantitative psychology or social science research, but if you don't then please do not claim you do.

CB

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Although I note you choose not to mention the tweet where he says that some women and non-binary people have appreciated the article, but are not comfortable engaging in the male dominated and aggressive comments section. That's us here that they're talking about.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Well of course that's a possibility. I do wonder if you should give a bit "autoethnography" a go sometime. I'm sure it would be challenging, but rewarding things often are! 

In reply to TobyA:

Well yeah, but you see, cynical old me has a sneaking suspicion that, in the mouth of the sort of person who tags Tweets with "#CrushThePatriarchy", that such a claim is just more woke boilerplate.  

I'm wholly open to even-tempered discussion of such issues on the evidence, but too often such claims just seem to be an attempt to disallow contrary opinions.   So I don't simply take them at face value -- sorry. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

Doesn't seem like a waste of time to me. 

Not at all.

In reply to UKC Articles:

deleted

In reply to Coel Hellier:

You mean you think Ari lied and it's just made up? Have you wondered why it still seems like not a single woman has contributed to this thread?

In reply to TobyA:

There’s only about 5 different contributors to this thread, so potentially because there are much more men than women on this forum.

Have you noticed that nobody from Italy seems to have commented yet?

In reply to Dave 88:

No, but if the article was about how Italians are depicted in the climbing media, I would be surprised at that also.

In reply to TobyA:

With the apparent small number of Italians on here, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a similar outcome.

UKC has a fair pedigree of entire lengthy debates taking place without any sight of an affected party!

In reply to TobyA:

I don't know and wouldn't like to say.  But nor do I simply take woke-trope assertions at face value.   (Just as an aside the relevant tweet has been deleted.)

Because they've got more sense?  Anyway, there are a lot of threads on UKC on a range of topics that are male dominated.  But I don't think there is anything in this thread that is particularly hostile to women.  

You could say that it is hostile to Ari and to poorly-done "research", but then the OP was fairly critical of a slew of people (climbing writers; men in general) while presenting little to justify that criticism.  It is thus fair to be critical of the piece in return.  

By the way, I'm amused by the rather negative write-up about William Bosi's ascent of a 9b by Natalie Berry, with that close-up of his bloodied fingers!

(Just in case there is any doubt, that last sentence is tongue-in-cheek, and not an actual criticism of Natalie's journalism, which is generally excellent.)

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Yes, when I saw that I wondered whether it was a humorous allusion to this thread.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I'm a woman. Not Italian though (sorry). I thought the article had an interesting premise but was ultimately lacking any kind of rigour (sorry, Ari). My first reaction if someone just took a rope I was coiling out of my hands wouldn't be that they were sexist, merely that they were lacking in basic manners. Mr Gritstone is also picky about his ropes but he would at least have the decency to ask if I'd mind coiling it in a specific way, rather than just grabbing it.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that this could (NOTE: "could", not "IS") actually be interpreted as mansplaining the patriarchy. Women face gender bias? Must be because we're not written about in a positive way. Must be because we're not getting lots of lovely positive descriptions of female climbers in the media that run our lives. Isn't that premise just a little bit basic? (And consequently this kind of article, much like the autoethnowaffle one, really does inclusivity and female representation no favours).

Yes, of course negative media coverage isn't going to forward the female agenda any, but the patriarchal structures are far more complex than that. It's things like women feeling awkward in exercise clothing or not liking getting sweaty as a result of however many decades of cultural conditioning telling them they're failures for having more body fat than Kate Moss or looking anything other than pristine in public so they don't go down the wall and get in to climbing in the first place. It's about inherited and subtly reinforced perceptions that climbing requires high physical strength to even get started, let alone be any good at. It's about women playing auxillary roles in high profile climbing media like Free Solo or North Face (or being non-existent in Touching the Void) and there being no other female-centric films available to counteract the narratives they display. (No, of course you're not going to put anyone other than Alex Honnold in the centre of Free Solo but no-one seems to be making films about awesome women climbing). It's about press coverage of Alison Hargreaves focusing on her marriage controversies and potential domestic abuse, rather than the fact that she made some incredible achievements. It's feeling concerned about potentially developing biceps or shoulder muscles and them being commented on, having seen the negative press that Madonna got. (It's feeling concerned about your body being commented on full stop, now I think about it, because apparently one's physicality is somehow linked to one's validity as a human being). It's about limited (OK, non-existent) toilet facilities at a crag being a deal breaker, or at best really difficult to handle, when you have period pain, blood all over your knickers and you need to change a tampon (and that's before you get into the physical effects of menstruation on your climbing). It's about there being a lack of representation of role models at an attainable level; I can watch in awe as Emma Twyford crushes E9 and Shauna Coxey goes to the Olympics--and don't get me wrong, that's bloody brilliant--but I'm never going to be in that league. Where are the women climbing E5? Where are the women who aren't Olympians but who are doing really bold and interesting projects on their own? It's about articles like this that make broad subjective statements but don't actually survey a wide range of women for their opinions on female representation in the media. Here's a transgressive idea for you: how about you ask some women how they interpret female representation? Or what they think a positive representation would look like? Or what perceptions stop them getting better at climbing?

Yes, the language in articles matters but there is so much more to the structures that disenfranchise us than comments about our bloodied fingernails, and in failing to recognise that you're doing both women and men--cis, trans, non-binary and otherwise--a massive disservice.

In reply to UKC Articles:

To the comments fixating on the bloody fingers example... Just want to point out that in my reading, I interpreted comments on injury of any kind, whether regarding male or female climbers, to be negative. Can't think of any instance where someone was told they look really good with an injury. It's subtle, it's subjective, but I tried my best to keep consistent standards. My hope is that this article functions as a think piece that inspires further research.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

I can't imagine why.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Fixed that for you.

In reply to Gritstone Widow:

I'd rather assumed that he was no longer with us.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

I think this is the root of the problem with the article.  I think most people would see the bloody fingers comment as an entirely positive symbol of effort and commitment.  However, even accepting your own interpretation, if it applies to both male and female climbers, in what way is that sexist?  Surely you are not suggesting that women are fragile flowers who need to be shielded from such images?

I don't think anyone has questioned the underlying premise that sexism exists in climbing, as it does in wider society, it's just that most of the examples you put forward don't seem to be evidence of that.

In reply to TobyA:

Have you considered that women aren't contributing  because they have other/better things to do with their time.  Perhaps it is your viewpoint, that woman are not contributing because they are too afraid of the heated debate, that is the only real example of sexism we have seen.

In reply to climbercool:

I've never said "afraid". That's your interpretation.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Maybe you're the one with a fixation about how people look, but if you are reaching for a cliche for how someone injured in a climbing context might be perceived, how about 'heroic'?

In reply to jon:

Yes, I was wondering whether he hadn't been picky enough!

In reply to jon:

I would like a helpful ghost who haunts my gear cabinet, coils my ropes, greases my boots, sharpens my crampons, and sorts out the generall mess ...

CB

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Something good can normally be found anywhere. This article could e.g. be used as an example of how not to do research.

Clearly, an opinion piece on a climbing website does not need to fulfil the same standards as a scientific publication, but you chose to go down that way, e.g. by describing you scoring methodology and underpinning your conclusions with quantitative data (which as I pointed out above do not offer that support).

In order to be thought provoking and to inspire research into the issue at hand that would not have be necessary. Since you are still here BTL (which I appreciate) I would like to ask you directly why you chose to couch your article in scientific terms, when it clearly is at best playing at scientific methodology.

Again, I do not disagree agree with your premise that climbing journalism can sometimes suffer from sexist cliches, and that we as a communitiy should be better sensitzed to such issues, but IMO there are better ways to go about this.

CB

In reply to cb294:

Yes, how about an article actually referencing passages from articles or clips from fims which might be considered to display gender bias or sexist cliches. This would provide a basis for discussion of the actual issue and could prove very illuminating. Though some cases would be obviously clear cut, as someone said, it is a complete minefield out there. Would, for example, a film which showed a woman painting her battered finger nails after a hard day at the crag be seen as empowering or demeaning (or something else)? Personally I havn't a clue! 

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

You let your wife go on UKC?

In reply to Gritstone Widow:

Yes! Finally someone talking sense. 

(Who gave the thumbs down? What's to dislike?)

Side note: There are a small number of good films out there that fit the bill... have you seen 'Push it' for example? Or anything by Jen Randall for that matter.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I think the majority of the criticism on this thread has been around the use of scientific language without employing scientific methods to produce meaningful data. Regardless of the ensuing discussion from the author, I agree, that is a valid criticism. 

You point to a more worrying trend, as illustrated on Twitter:

'A lot of men have angry things to say to me today.' I don't think this helps the author or the discussion at all and only serves to entrench people and, well, make people angry!

In reply to UKC Articles:

I predict this thread will be pretty instructive in about 6 months time when the annual 'Why should there be a women's specific Trad festival?'  comes around again.

I don't think the article is helpful, but I'd hope we would all recognise that the emotions someone feels about climbing are real and personal; Gritstone Widow has given plenty of good examples from a female perspective.   

A quick scan of the top 40 posters confirms what we already know: the majority of UKC contributions are by men, and probably more so on the climbing and technical gear threads.  Whilst instances of overt sexism on the forum are, thankfully, very rare, I do think there is reluctance to consider the validity of someone else's feelings and experience. 

'Problem? I don't see a problem.'

In reply to Gritstone Widow:

The ones I know and climb with are just out there quietly doing their thing, getting on with climbing hard, which I find very respectable. One in particular, despite opportunities, is reluctant to publicise herself, which I find deeply refreshing given the current culture of social media etc. Whilst on the one hand it's a shame that their climbing isn't known about to serve as inspiration for other women, I have a lot of respect for those who just want to enjoy climbing, rather than get it all mixed up with sponsorship and filming.

On the subject of inspiration I found Beth Rodden's comments on her recent podcast with Hazel (curious climbers) quite interesting. 

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Just to be clear: so writers remarking that a female climber "looks really good" are a positive thing, and if writers don't do that when talking about women, but instead stick to climbing-relevant things such as physicality and commitment, then they have a sexist bias?

Are you absolutely sure you have this the right way round? 

In reply to Robert Durran:

When she's not in her cage.

Good job she doesn't check my comments on here, she'd absolutely flatten me! In seriousness she doesn't understand why I bother with the forums. Just in case she see's this, "Love you darling".

In reply to Howard J:

No Howard, the comment is not sexist. I never said that.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Hahaha! No, that's not what I said at all. lol

In reply to scot1:

if you are not "trans" you must be "cis" - terminology 'borrowed' from chemistry.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Ari, what is cis gender? Is that the same as heterosexual? Is it a new term and why the need for it? Thanks

In reply to scot1:

It's a label dreamt up by people that have assigned themselves a myriad of labels and therefore think that all people need a new label despite the fact that it's not really needed and those people don't actually want to labelled 'Cis Gender'. 

In reply to FactorXXX:

So my pal who identifies as an otter but was born as a human is out of luck? Similarly Men with the appropriate tackle who identify as females are similarly deluded?

In reply to Doug:

Thought it was Latin- same side/ not crossing, as opposed to trans- crossing?

In reply to scot1:

People can identify as they want as far as I'm concerned, it's their life, so let them do what they want as long as it doesn't impact on anyone else with regards to allocating Prison spaces, etc.
However, doesn't it come across as bit hypocritical, that those same people are trying to insist that a new label is to be used by the vast majority who are quite happy with currently being identified as Male or Female?

In reply to toad:

yes, but its been used to describe molecular structures for a long time so I assume (maybe wrongly) that the usage was copied for gender

In reply to Doug:

I think of it as a posh (Latin) way of saying "normal".

In reply to UKC Articles:

So female climbers get criticised more negatively than male climbers and the majority of that criticism comes from women. Have I read this right? 

In reply to scot1:

Cis means a person whose personal gender identity corresponds with their birth sex — not transgender and not non-binary. It is not the same as heterosexual. Sexual orientation is different than gender identity. Cis is an important term because trans men and cis men are both men. So if I just said "men," then I would have to be talking about trans men too.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Close but not quite. "Female writers are more likely to comment on another female's appearance." But I did not say that the female writers were necessarily the more critical ones. As noted, male climbers were described critically by male writers too. The important point here was that "humans are [probably] inclined to compare themselves to others who are similar to them." I think this calls for a push to bring more female and non-binary voices into the climbing media to create a more diverse image of what climbers look like.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Why not just keep the traditional Male/Men, etc. description to identify the vast majority of the Male population and then use differentiators such as Trans, etc. to identify people that wish to be so identified?
 

In reply to Ari Schneider:

No, non of that matters. This is climbing, not humans rights. I don't believe any of this stuff has anything to do with climbing. What does a climber look like? Me? You? What should that voice sound like? Who cares???

In reply to Ari Schneider:

My god you're almost as boring as the faux science UKC article. I've got to say bring back Jack Geldard much better editor than the current woke crowd. 

Btw I am a big supporter of women in climbing and my best partner is my fiancee, I trust her ability more than any man I know. I also agree with Gritstone Widdows points. There's serious issues there and women are often lectured by instructors, including by other members of the sisterhood, trying to show off when they wouldn't pass comment on a man's belay. It's just the article is vapid and unedifying. 

In reply to Ari Schneider:

It would be interesting to know why people have "disliked" this post. Because they don't think the term is important (or even necessary)? Or because they don't think that trans men are men? Or because they disagree with the definition?

In reply to Robert Durran:

I think it's because someone has invented a term for which you could have just substituted the word 'normal'.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

In which case I presume they would be happy to refer to trans men as "abnormal"?

In reply to Michael Gordon:

There are very few situations where it would actually be necessary to make the distinction by adding "cis" to men.  The reason the woke do it continually is:

To them, "cis" men are at the pinnacle of the privilege hierarchy, and are guilty of systematically oppressing others. Therefore then need to be continually apologising for themselves, issuing mea-culpas, and self-censoring.  (The woke equivalent of "Forgive me Father for I have sinned".)

"Trans" men are, however, at the opposite of the privilege hierarchy, indeed they are at the top of the victim-hood pyramid.    They are the oppressed, not the oppressors.

Therefore, to the woke, for a topic like this, they are too different for them to refer to both together.  If they were to simply say "men" then that implies one of:

1) They are lumping trans men in with the sins and privilege of "cis" men, which won't do.  Or:

2) They are overlooking trans men entirely (thus "erasing" or "marginalising" them, which is a heinous sin to the woke).  Or:

3) They are implying that "trans" men are not actually men, which to the woke is a sin of worse-than-Hitler proportions.  (Though perhaps not quite as bad as suggesting that trans women are not actually women.)

So, rather than do any of the above, they continually talk about "cis" people. Ditto the need to mention "non-binary" continually.  It's basically virtue signalling, signalling that they are up with woke ideology and are not "erasing" any "marginalised" groups. 

This terminology is way more prevalent in the US (though increasingly so in the UK), which is why Ari is an exemplar. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi all, it seems this thread has moved from constructive criticism of the author's research methods in to negativity directed at Ari, labelling people as 'woke' and using that concept to bash them, and dictating the gender terms of transgender people whilst mocking their right to be recognised.

Please consider how your posts affect other people. How must it feel to go from criticism of your article to people mocking you for 'retreating in to your Twitter bubble'? I imagine if it was directed at me, I would feel I was being personally attacked. Personal attacks against contributing authors is categorically not the kind of thing we want to happen on UKC. Why would an author want to contribute their articles to our site if they feel they are going to be personally attacked? As a team, UKC aims to publish articles on a diverse range of topics from a diverse range of authors and to have a diverse audience. 

Using the label 'woke' to categorise a group of people is facetious. Like labelling people 'remoaners' or 'leavers' it creates a risible and easily attackable stereotype which quickly obscures the variety of the group, whether that's their views, intentions, beliefs or identities. It may make things easy when you want to say 'woke people believe x so they're wrong and so-and-so is woke so he is wrong', but it creates an us vs. them attitude which is off-putting and unconvincing rather than providing constructive criticism and fostering the friendly but challenging space that the forums would ideally be.

Finally, although terms such as 'cis', 'binary' etc. may be relatively new to some of us - me included - they are evidently very important and well defined terms to lots of people. For a group of online forum posters (and I don't think it's a stretch to assume that most of the posters on this thread are heterosexual white men, but correct me if I'm wrong) to then tell a group of people who have historically been persecuted because of their gender that their own labels are not only wrong but their desire and rationale to have them is somehow invalid, is deeply offensive and misguided.

We wish for UKC to be an open and diverse space both in terms of our publications and our forums. Some discussion on the forums recently (and I say some, the vast majority of it is brilliant) has intentionally or unintentionally created an atmosphere that is unwelcoming to commenters and authors with non-mainstream views. We have always worked to keep good relationships with our users and to moderate the forums in a fair and constructive way, so it would be great if we could deal with this issue in the same way: please keep the discussion civil and think about how your posts may affect others, regardless of how you yourself feel about them.

In reply to Theo Moore:

Hi Theo,  since much of this seems aimed at me, let me respond.

The label "woke" is one chosen by the woke for themselves.  And if people write articles filled with woke boilerplate and use hashtags such as "#CrushThePatriarchy" then it's a fair enough label. 

The original article contains a lot of condemnation of others (men in general, climbers, climbing writers), accusing them of systematic sexism and oppression (including "aggression", and an "iceberg" of "violent acts and persistent harassment") while actually providing very little to substantiate those claims.     (Are the claims fair, or are they just woke boilerplate? That's not really explored in the article; it's just assumed.)

Nothing that I've said either mocks trans people, their right to be recognised, or to identify as they wish.  The comment was about the term "cis".    Accepting people identifying as "trans" is one thing (and I'm entirely fine with it), but the woke expectation that everyone else should identify as "cis" is an entirely different kettle of fish.   Identifying as one wishes is one thing; dictating to others how *they* use identification labels is very different. 

My comment could be taken as mocking woke ideology (yes, guilty m'lud).  That's different from mocking trans people.  Many trans people do not agree with the woke activists. 

That comment was in response to tweets (one now deleted), that dismissed fair-criticism here as just being "angry men", and stated "don't @ me" (= "I don't want to engage"), and quoted approval from his twitter followers.     Isn't that fairly described as "retreating in to his Twitter bubble"? 

OK, so he's now engaged here further. But still, he's not engaged with the basic criticism of his scoring.  At the very least he should have asked 2 or 3 other people (including at least one woman) to give independent scores for the items, which would have given some basis for assessing how valid the scoring was.  

I presume you are aware how ubiquitous such terms are on many of the forums here?    As for stereotyping and labeling, again look at the original article for plenty of that.  

In reply to Michael Gordon:

In most contexts it is not necessary to differentiate between non-trans men and trans men, but in some contexts (such as discussing diversity in climbing) it obviously is. So some term is needed for non-trans men. If you are happy with "normal", then you need to ask yourself whether you would be happy using "normal" instead of "straight" for non-gay men or "normal" instead of "white" for non-black men. If you would be comfortable doing so then you would need to be prepared to defend such language. If not, then you need to be prepared to defend using "normal" for non-trans men but not for non-gay or non-black men and this would mean arguing that trans men are abnormal in a way that gay and black men are not. 

Note: I have used the word "you" in this post non specifically - not in any way directed personally at Michael.

In reply to Theo Moore:

At the risk of going off topic, I don't see how you can compare the two terms. "Remoaner" is clearly a derogatory and negative term, while "leaver" is simply factual. If you want an equivalent for "leaver" it is the factual "remainer".  An equivalent for "remoaner" would have to be "gammon" or some other insulting term.

To criticise the methodology of a study and express disagreement is fair enough, but the 'woke-bashing' and joking about minority groups is not on.

I perhaps put too much emphasis on his study in the title and standfirst, in what is largely a think-piece calling for inclusivity. Ari put a lot of time into researching climbing media, and as far as I know, it's been over ten years since climbing media has been analysed in a similar fashion. Ari is not claiming his research to be an academic study, but he put time into looking at a problem which is backed up by previous research and included examples of how female climbers are represented in the media (Matilda's body criticism, mentions of age etc.) I think his attempt was commendable, is similar in method to an existing study I'll write about below, and the outcome goes against what we might expect; that bias is not always projected from one gender onto another, but onto our own gender too (and potentially more so, as Ari suggests). I think his ultimate point that being able to recognise people similar to us - in gender identity, race, disability - in outdoor media and be fairly represented is important. It's hardly radical. Ari mentions how ideas of hypermasculinity have personally affected him - once again, the patriarchy is not only damaging to women and other minority groups, but to cis men too.

I respect the views of the female posters in the thread who list arguably more pressing issues faced by women in the outdoor community, but it's important to acknowledge the more subtle ways in which society treats people differently, too. Sexism is not always explicit and recognisable; it is very often ambient and can go unnoticed. We are all guilty of implicit bias. I have to try hard to stop myself from writing about women in clichéd, potentially damaging ways because the way women are written about has been so engrained in me over the years. When I talk or write about myself, I have to avoid falling into the trap of fitting into the popular narrative about how women (sportswomen in particular) should portray themselves. We've published numerous articles about female body image, social media abuse and female participation on UKC, so I think it's unfair to criticise this article for focusing on one (little-explored) topic amongst our other content. The way we talk and write about particular groups of people is important, because it shapes how they perceive themselves and whether they feel welcome in a particular space, or society in general. It's easy to pass it off as insignificant if you're not a member of one of these groups, or if it doesn't affect you personally. If the women commenting in this thread would like to contribute an article on women's representation/barriers to participation then please do get in touch. 

Social science is a difficult balance, somewhere in-between the rigours of science and the complex nuance of the humanities. It's difficult to quantify and results can have little practical applied value. I understand that it's difficult to take Ari's results at face value and that to some degree his own biases will play a role in the research. On the other hand, accounts of personal experience of sexism or marginalisation are all too often dismissed.

I found an academic study on Climbing magazine from 1991-2004, written in 2010. It's heartening to read it and realise that we've come a long way - some of the remarks on female climbers really are awful - but there are nonetheless still examples today of women's appearance/age/relationships/personal life being incorporated into profiles and news reports, or being infantilised, or being confronted on social media by followers criticising body shape, or telling female athletes to keep quiet on political issues (sometimes male athletes too, in this regard). The researcher writes about the hermeneutic method and how this takes into account the social context in which the articles were written, to look for meaning beyond factual information: 'The researcher and her/his own experience and pre-knowledge brings a sensitivity to the material or phenomenon being studied, enabling that person to detect meanings and bring understanding to a deeper level.' This study doesn't seem to take into account the author's gender, probably because the majority of editors (if not all of them) were male at the time. https://www.academia.edu/1508490/Climbing_High_or_Falling_Flat_Representati...

A 2013 MA dissertation, with more emphasis on how women perceive climbing media, found that 'Over thirty two per cent of respondents admit that their lack of interest in niche media is due to the lack of fair female representation.' This supports Ari's point about visibility being important and that by representing minorities well, we can increase participation in climbing and likely the industry as a whole. https://www.academia.edu/5651891/Climbing_Women_and_Niche_Media._Beyond_Alt...

It's also important to not only consider the numbers when it comes to female representation in climbing media, but also the ways in which women are represented. Some commenters remark on there being lots of photos of female climbers in a wall/magazine therefore representation must be healthy, but the most important question is how are women being represented, as athletes or commodities? I wrote about this 'sex sells' conundrum in the social media abuse piece a while back (https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/climbers_against_dck_pics_-_at...). It's great that some commenters here have wives/girlfriends who are climbers and who feel unaffected in climbing as a woman, but it pays to be open to other women's experiences, too. 

I think discussing these issues, being conscious of how we talk about and to one another and encouraging contributions from a variety of contributors is a positive step. Poking fun at marginalised groups because you don't understand why they wish to identify themselves in a particular way is disrespectful, and as Theo says, we won't tolerate it in our forums. We won't stop publishing diverse content because it irritates some people.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

Hi Natalie,  why is "woke bashing" not on?   "Woke" ideology is a particular way of thinking about issues that is getting increasingly prevalent, so why is analysing and criticising such an idea-system not allowed?

Why is it in any worse than, say, analysing and criticising pro-Brexit arguments or pro-Remain arguments? 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

It might well have been a hashtag added to twitter posts by newly politicised people around the metoo movement and the black lives matter moment a few years ago, but neither political feminism, LGBTQ activisim, or the civil rights movement is new.

Now, much like "PC" 25 years ago, it seems to be used almost solely by people like you who are criticizing political movements you don't agree with. I don't think I've seen anyone here on UKC ever claim they are "woke", it's you and a few others who apply it liberally as a label to diverse views of others that you disagree with. I would say its become much like "alt-right" in that it's far more used by its opponents than it is used by the proponents of those ideas.

"Woke boilerplate" seems to be your new favourite phrase - are questioning the authenticity of peoples beliefs? Is it "boilerplate" because they don't really believe it, they are just "virtue signalling"? You were quite happy to suggest Ari was making things up earlier on in this thread - is questioning the motives of those you disagree with, or at least the authenticity of their beliefs, not just more of this?  That seems to be an attempt at "erasing" others views by saying they have no validity.

In reply to Natalie Berry (and Theo Moore):

To start with I absolutely agree with the aim of reducing accidental or implicit, structural sexism in our climbing community, and find attempts to raise awareness of this issue in principle commendable.

Writing what you call a "think piece calling for inclusivity" would therefore be fine by me (as I have also stated several times above).

However, this should been done properly. You claim that "Ari put a lot of time into researching climbing media", but the article gives absolutely no evidence of that. What it clearly shows instead that he was happy to discuss "methodology" and the basis of his scoring system, and gave quantitative data. To me this clearly looks like an attempt to appropriate for his piece an aura of scientific credibility that it simply does not deserve. Calling the article a "study" if it was not intended as one, as you claim afterwards, goes in the same direction. To me this is an intellectually dishonest sleight of hand.

I dispute that this can be excused because "Social science is a difficult balance, somewhere in-between the rigours of science and the complex nuance of the humanities". Not at all, social science if done properly is even more hard core quantitative than at least my flavour of biology. Precisely because social sciences deal with lots of complexity and ambiguity (rather than some unambiguous cell count or fluorescence intensity measurement), extra care must be taken to avoid any bias in the data collection and interpretation. Not doing so invalidates your conclusions right away.

Unfortunately, especially at the interface of social or political activism and social sciences there is an increasing trend to put your ethical, religious or political convictions first, and cherry pick the supporting evidence later. getting caught doing so does the message you want to bring across absolutely no favour.

Also I cannot see why discussing the issue of sexism or discimination against minorities requires continuosly using politically charged "woke" terms. To me this instead feels like extremely annoying virtue signalling, indicating that I, as a member of the "mainstream", must recognize and use some minority in group code (e.g. for "woke", originally African American), otherwise I am a sexist transphobe (which I am definitely not) member of the patriarchy that needs a bit of crushing.

Also, the charge against the author of "retreating into his twitter shell" is entirely justified. I got zero response from him concerning my criticism of his methodology or numbers.

As an aside, speaking of twitter, this obsession with "woke" language seems to me to go hand in hand with inventing new hash tags by the hour, and passing off getting one of these to trend on twitter as political activism. What a load of ...

CB

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I don't mean 'bashing' the ideology, but the people who hold the beliefs, by belittling Ari in saying he's 'boring' simply because he explained what cis meant. It's dismissive and in turn hurtful to the transgender who see their identity being ridiculed by others. The mockery of trans people is what I was getting at, in a round-about way, and is what is most concerning in this thread.

I'm not only talking about comments in the forum, but also some on social media who reacted with vomit emojis, 'give us a break', 'utter bullsh*t' without any proper engagement and othering 'the woke' etc., people who see discussions of gender and immediately dismiss differing experiences and viewpoints. People with 'woke' beliefs may have coined it to describe themselves, but the tone and the way it's used against people because of their beliefs is not always pleasant. The same has happened with 'millennial,' 'boomer' and 'snowflake', 'social justice warrior' etc. It becomes a pejorative term, especially when paired with -trope, -boilerplate, etc. I don't think these terms are especially helpful, I think it's best to engage in discussion.

In reply to TobyA:

No, they definitely believe it!   Woke-dom is akin to a religious cult  (sorry, is that woke-bashing?)    A Catholic might recite parts of Catholic liturgy because that's what they are taught to do.  They believe various stuff about theology, regardless of the evidence for it.  "Woke boilerplate" is similar to Catholic liturgy.  They are taught to think like that so that's what they say (regardless of the evidence).  But they do believe it!   And they are entirely sincere in their "virtue signalling".  (Which doesn't stop it being virtue signalling.)

In reply to UKC Articles:

Thank you Theo and Natalie for your very well thought out responses. I endorse everything they just said.

Additionally, while I wanted to avoid going down the rabbit hole of defending my education, Natalie brought up an important point — this methodology is used in various studies within the humanities, including a number of papers I had to submit for my University degree in Political Science. I understand why STEM experts might wince, but like it or not, this is what us social science folx do to better understand patterns of human nature.

Also, Coel, "Don't @ me" is a Twitter meme. I meant it sarcastically. I hope I have demonstrated here that I am open to appropriate discourse. That being said, I will not be responding to any of the anti-trans comments or personal attacks above. Those are really not okay.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

Fair enough, I'm only aware of what's on this forum.

I don't think anyone has mocked trans people, but I may have missed it.  (If it's on twitter then ok.)

OK, fair enough.  But the same could be said about a lot of how the woke phrase things.  To take an example from the OP:

"When a cis woman, transgender man or woman, or non-binary person is belittled because of their skill level or appearance, it is more than a singular act of aggression. It's a piece of a huge puzzle that has been cut out by repeated discrimination against all of the non-cis-male genders. Unfortunately, this discrimination is only the tip of the iceberg on top of a history of violent acts and persistent harassment disproportionately committed against people of non-cis-male genders by their male counterparts."

Try substituting in "blacks" or "Jews" or "Asians" in there instead of "cis males", and it clarifies why this sort of blanket condemnation in fairly strident terms is just unhelpful -- even if there is some degree of truth underlying it! 

The woke see themselves as offering a necessary critique of "the patriarchy" and society in general.  But they really dislike people then critiquing their own idea system. They seem to think: "We're the good guys, so we should not be the ones being criticised". 

Paragraphs like the one just quoted are good for signalling ones virtue to others of the same ilk, but are not good for talking to a wider audience. 

I agree, we should engage with discussion. So, for example, we should look at actual examples of sexism in climbing literature and discuss them. One problem with the OP is that it actually does little of that, preferring instead to present "boilerplate".

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Hi Ari,

OK, but are you maintaining that your study is what social-science people do at university level or not?

I have no objection to the underlying methodology -- studies along these lines are indeed fine and necessary to understand human nature.   But:

(1) The scoring system is both unclear and dubious.  It's just not obvious on what basis things should be scored negative or positive.   As part of that:

(2) Instead of all the scoring being done by one person, there should have been perhaps 5 scorers, both male and female, in order to both clarify how the scoring system is being interpreted by different people, and to test for consistency. 

(3) As suggested above, de-sexing the comments before scoring them would have been a worthwhile "blinding" to investigate.  

With proper attention to those points, yes it could have been a worthwhile study. 

So is "retreating into a Twitter bubble"! 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Regarding the methods: I maintain the statement in the article, "This isn't an original method for analysing gender bias." But also, as I have recognized in my comments above, I maintain this was not a rigorous study (nor did I intend for it to be), it was very small scale and left much room for improvement.

Thanks for your feedback.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I don't think I've seen anyone poking fun at marginalised groups or mocking trans people.  The criticism has been of the language used, and the implied attack it contains on those in the mainstream.  Which is a pity, because it distracts from the message of the piece, which I think most commentators actually agree with.

It wasn't really necessary to introduce these terms in the first place.  In his article Ari says, 

"Due to underrepresentation, there were no mentions of nonbinary or transgender climbers. Thus, the data outlined here will only mention cis males and females."

Under-representation, or simply lack of identification? Of course there were no mentions of nonbinary or transgender climbers.  Why would a general climbing article mention a climber's sexual orientation or gender identity, or even ask the question?  Unless it was a piece specifically about LGBTQ+ involvement in climbing, it would be both intrusive and irrelevant.  Unless a writer has independent knowledge of the personal lives of the climbers involved and allows it to influence what they write, all that a reader can determine from a piece of journalism is whether the subject is male or female - it is presumptuous to assume they are all "cis".  In reality, the comparison was actually between just males and females, and there was no need to bring the term "cis" at all.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

PanRon hacked your account.

In reply to Ari Schneider:

Hi Ari

Could you list the articles and the score for each please?

That way film who want to can easily read a couple and see if they broadly agree.

What's missing at the moment are any clear references.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Alright Jon! You've been so quiet over the last couple of weeks I was starting to worry you had fallen off one of those knarly, lichen covered Lakes E4s!

In reply to Theo Moore:

That's all very good and in principle I doubt too many would disagree on the point of abusive posts. It has to be noted that the pattern of gender material coming from the front pages has led to some engaging discussion, some quite angry as much of the opinion published seems to be representing the left leaning, woke point of view. In view of the UKC policy of giving space to all views, would you allow an opposing point of view on the front page, articulating a reaction to the perceived social injustice towards some groups as an illusion?

Personally I don't like any of this material, regardless of which side of the debate you fall on. I feel you're giving a platform to a divisive topic that is tearing people apart, rather than bringing it together, much the same as we're seeing in the media & society. Climbing is a very inclusive community and although you've managed to get a debate buzzing around this topic, I'm not sure in the long term it's doing us any good. Sure, it's good for the heart rate to get racing a bit when the debates rage over belay devices but this?

I used to check here every day to see what was going on in the world of climbing and the forums were great too. I decided after some time to block all the non climbing areas of the forums as Brexit and all that other stuff was dominating the boards and here we are thrashing it out again as somebody has glued this toxic debate to something that is so pure and genderless, the climbing of rock. I think this is a sad state. You have some fantastic writers and reviewers on UKC but where are we going with all this stuff?

In reply to TobyA:

On a trip, but still can't tear myself away...

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

I'm confused. From Ari's explanation, I thought 'cis' meant those who were not LBGT, i.e. the majority. So how does objecting to a term which no-one has heard of amount to mocking a group which the term does not even describe?

In reply to Robert Durran:

Hi Robert, I knew that was coming and yes, because of that, 'normal' would be problematic even if the opposite was not deliberately implied. Even if it would be accurate from a statistical point of view.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

I'm confused. There's open mockery of trans people upthread (a couple of comments) and several people can't spot it. 

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

But the danger of saying that, is basically we are saying "I'm happy with things are now, I don't want to hear anything that challenges that view."

Is it? It might be easy to think that if we don't actually hear anyone who says differently. Maybe it is, and all is rosy. But then why do articles like this one, or perhaps even more alarmingly the dick pick article from last year, get written?

In reply to TobyA:

You're quite right that it's good to have your view of the world challenged and perhaps I'm interpreting these articles as an attack rather than an alternative view to one I hold. I find the hyper-sensitivity of some of these groups a bit exhausting though. There does seem to be a fringe culture of reactionary offense and exposure of micro aggressions that I find alien. Perhaps the circles I move in, male and female are all comfortable in their corners of the world.

On the second point, I'd hope it's a very small minority of men who feel the need to send pics of their bits to women. That was grim.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

What comments are those?

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

I like how these articles manage to effortlessly flush out the neanderthals in the crowd.

From UKC's side, it's just an occasional show of strength to remind us mortals of their omnipotence and general God-like powers by putting articles such a this, clearly titled "Gender Bias in Climbing Media" and have people that 'hates these articles', and are fed up with getting these things 'rammed down their throats", lose control of their bodies and horrifiedly, see their hands reach for the mouse.

In a rising panic they get to watch the cursor navigating towards the title, inch by inch, slowly but surely, pixel by pixel, unable to control their own motions guiding it there. Powerless to stop it, accompanied by loud shrieks and helpless screams, for the UKC gods like to taunt us mortals and permit the use of vocal cords for dramatic effect, you see your finger clicking the mouse button. Click. The cursor clicking the title link in reponse. Click. The progress bar starts its inexorable voyage, one with a destination you never wanted to meet. But there's no going back now. There was never going back.

The shrills stop and you enter a stage of paecefullness that isn't peaceful, you feel calm but calm is not how you feel, drops of sweat are running down your body for you are hot, but you are shivering. You are not panicking any more, or are you? Is this how acceptance feels? Is this the lying on your deathbed? The last night in the crevasse, with Boney M ringing in your head? The emotionless stare of the cow with the nail gun gently propped between the eyes?

Before you find your answer your attention is sharply brought back  to your screen. The page has loaded, and your eyes, like gears working seamlessly on a Swiss watch, are beginning to focus on the first paragraph.

"Climbing coach and writer Ari Schneider explores gender bias in climbing media (...)"

And there it is. Realisation hits you like a freight train. The gears are now in front of you, but they are changing, morphing, you recognise the nail gun. "Gender bias". You envy the cow. You wish for emotionless but only have dread. Fright of what is to come raises within you. Your eyes now alive, so very alive, move along the text and the words mercilessly come, one after another. "Sexism". "Discrimination". Each word like a punch in the gut. You know he's only warming up, yet you keep reading. You can't help it. The UKC Gods are too strong. You are now completely in their clutches.

And just like in an avalanche, all hell breaks loose. "cis", "transgender", "NON-BINARY".  These ones hurt. Like a knife through the guts. You feel your scalp being peeled back. and yet you keep reading. You fight it with all your might but that isn't enough. Was it ever? Word by word you feel your very soul being destroyed. Chunks of it flying off with each offending word. Words with teeth. Biting deep. You hear the cow mooing. High pitched, primal, feral. It's the wolves, she's being eaten by the wolves, and she's not emotionless anymore.

Drenched in sweat and shaking uncontrollably you keep reading. Mere pain but a plesant memory in comparison. You curse the UKC gods and the UKC Gods only laugh. You ask for forgiveness and the UKC Gods only laugh. You ask for mercy and the UKC Gods only laugh. That laugh only Gods possess.

You keep reading; your body is not yours anymore; you keep reading; it's somebody else's puppet. You keep reading. Paragraph, after paragraph ,you fight, you read, you fight, and then you stop fighting. Silence.

The UKC Gods have done it again. You have reached the end of the article, and you have been released.

You rejoice in your freedom and your first thought is to wonder where the Gods have gone. What do they do when not playing their games with mortals? Do they twit pics of cats? Get stoned and design Platypi? Put pots of bolts under the rainbow for Gary Gibson to find? Enough of this. Don't think of the UKC Gods. Enjoy your freedom. Have a shower and a beer. But no, the UKC Gods always have the last laugh, for unbeknownst to you while you drifted in your thoughts you have browsed to a diferent page. You read the first paragraph. "Reply to - ARTICLE: Gender Bias in Climbing Media". Oh but the UKC Gods are cruel...

TL,DR: If you don't like these articles don't read them you donut. Nobody forces you to.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

So not really any different from bouldering videos then......

In reply to FactorXXX:

Scot1 outright, and to a slightly lesser extent, you. 

Why do I think your comment is mockery? Because you dismiss trans people as "dreaming up labels" (there's a big proportion of trans people who you're totally misrepresenting because they hate the multitude of labels) and ascribe motives to them that are utterly patronising, and which you know aren't correct. 

I think that the hardship of being labelled "cis", only in rare contexts where it's contrasted with "trans" (to avoid loaded terms like "normal"), is one that you can respectfully be expected to bear without excessive whingeing. 

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

You say" Personally I don't like any of this material, regardless of which side of the debate you fall on. I feel you're giving a platform to a divisive topic that is tearing people apart, rather than bringing it together, much the same as we're seeing in the media & society"

Hear bloody hear. This is a climbing website and not a gender status re-education forum. Give it a rest please dear UKC article commissioning people. If your readership/audience has a particular set of characteristics then go with the flow. Don't push unwanted views about gender status down their throats.UKC didn't, as far as I know. take a stance on Brexit.It doesn't have a stance  on which political party UKC readers/viewers should support or which religion they should adopt. 

So please stop pushing a particular view of how gender should be regarded. It may be of vital interest to some but, I think, to the vast majority of UKC participants it is irrelevant - and annoying to have it presented for our edification and then doubly annoying for opponents of the presented views and the ways they are presented to be criticised.

I repeat - give it a rest and let's get back to climbing.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I assumed that he was taking the piss and not going out of his way to mock.  Suppose it depends how you view it and how careful you expect people to be when discussing such things.  If you used such terminology in a politics thread it would be totally ignored.
As for my comment, it might have been a bit flippant (see comment below for context), but do you really think such a comment is damaging and worthy of being labelled mockery?  Would you prefer that such comments aren't made on UKC? 

We might actually be both agreeing here as my gut feeling is that most of the labels are 'dreamt up' by a small minority and that the vast majority of trans people see them as being superfluous. I also think that such moves are actually damaging to trans acceptance as it just gives an easy target for people to dismiss all trans people as being too demanding and dare I say it, acting like drama queens, etc. 

If the Cis label is confined to the narrow margins of discussing trans rights, etc. then fine as it makes things like representing statistics that much easier.
However, there is a definite move by some to try and make it normal usage and that is what I and others object to.
I suspect that there is a faction of trans rights people pushing such stuff and unfortunately, they're the ones that get listened to/reported most often. 

 

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Except it did. Alan as the the owner and CEO of UKC, just like an editor of paper, explained what and why he thought the UK should remain in the EU.

Or alternatively, "how I see the world is the right way. Do not threaten that."  I was going to add a "please" in there, but actually you are ordering UKC to conform to what you think climbing and climbing writing should be, so it's not really polite is it?

Do you have any idea just how entitled posts likes yours appear? Who else do you bark orders at and does it work often?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Because it's criticizing a religion.  The religion of UKC editors, apparently...  

In reply to Thrudge:

It's an American's opinion about American sexual dysfunction.
Why it has been posted on an English climbing website, beats me.

Poor.

In reply to Taylor's Landlord:

You can't say that!  Burn the witch!  Burn the witch!! 

In reply to Taylor's Landlord:

As is, seemingly, your grasp of the geography of the UK.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Surely then anyone who states what they believe in a public forum is virtue signalling? Your posts are virtue signally for your conservative political views are they not? I got told  that I'm a classic "centrist dad", so my post must be virtue signalling to other centrist dads presumably.

In reply to TobyA:

Ho ho ho!

"I see gender bias almost every time I go to the crag."

That was the killer for me.  Lets be honest now, who goes out climbing etc and encounters that?

It's just all looking for something to get offended about, attention seeking drivel.

I could bore you senseless with tales of encounters with women in the outdoors, but what's the point, you occupy the moral high horse.  It's all dull, dull, dull old hat.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Wouldn't quite go that far but ok. Entertaining post though, half way through reading it my palms began to sweat, and my heart started racing. You managed to get a physiological reaction for at least a few seconds. BRB watching some lol cat vids to calm down so I can articulate a balanced reply.

In reply to FactorXXX:

"Identifying as an otter /attack helicopter / etc" is simply repeating a tired cliché that's used to mock the very existence of trans people by bigots everywhere. It's exactly like "faggot", "paki" etc and in my opinion has no place on UKC. I think Theo and Natalie did precisely the right thing by saying so in a perfectly calm and measured way. 

Defending it as "just taking the piss" looks like you want to take sides to make sure you don't look like one of those awful "virtue signalling" "woke" people who should be ridiculed (alongside trans people, in this case). Your choice. 

Tbf I wouldn't have labelled it "mockery" without the context of Scot1's post. But my comments stand. If it is on UKC it deserves a response. 

Yes, I think the number of terms makes for an easy target. But surely you've got to be a prick in the first place to aim at that tatget at all? 

I'm entirely unmoved either way by the term "cis" and can't see how it would be used in any different way to "straight" - a term that's accepted without objection. I don't understand the threat being posed - I think a minority of people use it (unnecessarily?) to remind their audience that trans people exist. I don't understand how that's bad for anyone.

In reply to TobyA:

Well said.

we all know it’s a Sheffield website 😂

In reply to TobyA:

No, simply saying something one believes is not enough to be virtue signalling, it's about why it is said.

The issue of cis/trans and non-binary is pretty irrelevant to the original article, since there are no quotes pertaining to it, no analysis about it.   Thus, the decision to include a dozen mentions of cis, trans and non-binary is virtue signalling -- it's done for the reasons explained in my post up-thread, not because it is directly relevant to the article.

My views are pretty much centrist rather than conservative.  Of course many on the left are unaware where the centre-ground actually is, which is why they continually get baffled by the outcomes of votes (and then start trying to explain it through conspiracy theories involving Russkies).

In reply to Taylor's Landlord:

Well, you didn't seem to have noticed the name of the website you are using, so it wouldn't surprise me if you are pretty oblivious to incidents of sexism and the like around you.

Tinkety tonk old fruit, and down with the Nazis. I'm off up Kinder.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Thank you. A perfect example of virtue signalling once again. A near perfect illustration. Have a gold star.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I wonder whether the reaction to this article is simply the old problem of the barrier of a common language?   The article contains questionable research and conclusions presented in a quasi-academic style which appears to give it more authority than it maybe deserves. Maybe Americans like that style of writing, but to cynical Brits he is lining himself up for a kicking, especially when so many of his examples and assumptions are open to challenge.

Ari set out to write an article to explore whether there is gender-bias in the climbing media.  That's a fair question. There seems to be little doubt that women face barriers getting into climbing, or at least different barriers from men, although the current news article about the Women's Climbing Network suggests that at least some of these barriers are self-imposed.  So there is scope for an article exploring whether the climbing media treats men and women differently.

Unfortunately the article is flawed in a number of ways, which have already been discussed.  Although Natalie has taken responsibility for the headline calling it a "study", she can hardly be blamed when that is how the article is presented.  Although Ari has said he didn't intend it to be a rigorous academic study, that is how it comes across. As well as using quasi-academic language and methodology, it also uses politically-correct terminology despite this being irrelevant to the matter under discussion (whereas it might be appropriate in an article exploring diversity more widely) and which (perhaps wrongly) may be interpreted as indicating a mind-set which is already biased in a particular direction. 

His conclusion is that we need more female writers to allow the female voice to be heard. That would seem to be a good thing (but note Gritstone Widow's comment about "mansplaining the patriarchy"). Of course greater diversity in climbing journalism, and not just in the sex/gender/race/class etc sense, is to be welcomed.  Unfortunately his conclusion is slightly undermined by his own figures which show that out of the writers who could be identified, 45% were women (25 against 30 male writers), which is considerably higher than the estimate of around 20% or so for women participating in climbing.  Not only are women actually over-represented in his study, but they appear to be more critical of women than the men (at least on Ari's interpretation of what are negative comments, which has been challenged).

In one of his replies on the forum, Ari says he hopes this will lead to further research. I hope he is right, because I'm sorry to say that, whilst applauding his intentions, I think he has missed the mark with this one.

In the meantime, as noted in the other article I mentioned, women are getting on with doing something about overcoming barriers themselves.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I thought straight meant heterosexual?

In reply to Howard J:

Well put.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

I presume they meant in the sense of non-trans similarly to straight meaning non-gay.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Stephen Pinker calls it the 'Left Pole'.  Just as when you stand at the North Pole every direction away from you is South, so when you stand at the Left Pole any position other than yours is Right.  Usually far right.

In reply to TobyA:

Because if you don't constantly perceive an avalanche of sexism, it's not because there isn't an avalanche of sexism, it's because you've failed to see it.  

In reply to Thrudge:

Yes! You've got it! Well done! 

Now of course it might not be a full avalanche for all people, all of the time. Maybe more of those swishing little powder avalanches that you get on cold windy days. Enough to make you wish you had put your hood up, but not enough to actually scare you. Just one of those things that you come to expect when out in the winter hills. The days are great when you don't get showered by them, but unfortunately rare.

In reply to TobyA:

You're welcome. Sometimes it's just too tempting to make fun of the left.

Dear Labour Activist, would you prefer to:

1) Elect a moderate, centre-left leader who appeals to the voters and then win the next election, or:

2) Signal your virtue by voting for the furthest-left, least-electable candidate, and then get stuffed at the next election?

Reply:  Oooh Jeremy Corbyn!   See how far left I am? See how virtuous I am! (anything less would get them un-followed on social media).

The problem with the Left is that they don't do pragmatism, they do purity spirals. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:do you understand Toby's point?

I suspect not

In reply to TobyA:

Just interested Toby, do you think that the climbing media are actually prone to prevalent sexist bias these days? 

I'll confess to just possibly being less a touch more oblivious about such things than others, so perhaps you could help us out with some actual examples?  Note that Ari's article gives no actual and substantive examples of this. 

As for gender bias at the crag, I can't think of anything I've personally seen (though note the above confession).

In reply to wbo2:

You're welcome to spell it out for us.  

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

I agree. All this identity politics stuff is divisive, pretty much by definition. It would be nice if there was something left that didn’t have to become a heated debate about gender. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Told you. Inconsistent capitalisation 'n'all.

If you look with your eyes, you'll find that THE LEFT don't actually conform to any of the caricatures you say they do. Which means you have a simplistic view of politics, otherwise known as being full of shit. 

Cis/trans/non-binary etc. refers to gender. Straight, gay etc. refers to sexuality. Two. Different things. 

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

Hey Nat - hope you are well.

Just a thought ... why not try comments off on the opinion pieces for 6 months?  

Can't imagine it would do any harm to traffic.  Less hate fires to put out.  

In reply to StuPoo2:

That's right - because disagreement is 'hate'.  Critique is 'hate'.  Questioning is 'hate'.  And the 'hate' is a 'fire', a bush fire threatening to rage out of control and consume us all.

I'd like to call this foolish, but that would be unjustifiably optimistic.  Let's call it by its proper name - religious zealotry.

In reply to iccle_bully:

Sorry I obviously wasn't clear. Robert clarified above. 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

So you don't think that -- for some Labour activists at least -- picking Jeremy Corbyn as leader was more about signalling how left-wing they are, rather than about winning elections?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Does it matter? It's really got nothing to do with the article.

In reply to StuPoo2:

Hate? Seriously...

I assume more of such pieces will drive traffic down.

CB

In reply to StuPoo2:

So in the case of poor articles masquerading as research such as this one, no-one should be allowed to object and point out the flaws? 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I think that's idiotic. Corbyn supporters support corbyns policies, image, etc. They had misplaced beliefs that those ideas could win elections - or plausibly, they would rather take the ideas they believe in into politics and to the polls, even without much hope of winning. Better that than support ideas you don't believe in, for some.

I'm baffled as to why you would even bother proposing some psychological explanation about what their vote for party leader would signal to their peers. You're talking complete bollocks. 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

These are not either/or.  As I said to Toby, virtue signalers do sincerely believe in the virtue of what they are signalling.  Indeed, it is because they believe their policies to be morally mandated (and the further left the policies are, the more morally pure they are) that they are unwilling to sully themselves with compromises and prosaic matters such as winning elections. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Which again describes your (and I don't mean this as negatively as it is often meant) self righteousness: your utter conviction that you are right, and indeed your way of getting to the 'answers' is the only way of getting to them. 

What you seem to be accusing the virtue signallers of doing is political debate. What's wrong with that?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

You have no basis for saying that anyone voted for JC for reasons of peer approval. Your point is a pile of crap. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

Andy's been on:

https://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/escape-back-to-reality

Quote from bottom of article:

[Note: This piece was offered free of charge to several large outdoor media sites, and climbing organisations, some who had previously published social justice articles. All of them turned it down, so if you agree with it, then please share it.]

In reply to TobyA:

I don't think that's a fair summary of anything I've said.  Having an opinion is not the same as "utter conviction that you are right, and indeed your way of getting to the 'answers' is the only way of getting to them".

Indeed, I've described myself as a centrist on political stuff, and centrism is all about pragmatic compromises between arguments pulling in different directions.  I can see a lot of good in what the right says, and see where they are coming from, and I can see a lot of good in that the left says, and see where they are coming from also.  All of which is pretty much the opposite of what you accuse me of.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Ha, ha.  "I'm not right wing but...".

In reply to Thrudge:

OK. 

No, that's a metaphor. I can see your point about zealotry, but you can't just decree something to be a religion when it isn't, especially when you precede it with "let's call it by it's proper name". That could ccorrectly be followed by "a bit of an overreaction in my opinion". 

In reply to Mr Lopez:

... I do believe that the freedom to succeed or fail as determined by your innate value is more important than a fairer distribution of essential resources. 

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Well I'm not. And if you think otherwise then perhaps you yourself are left wing, and unaware where the centre-ground is? 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

If that's about you, then it's you that's had your account hacked.

If it's supposed to be about me, then no, that's not what I'd say. I'd say we need some sensible balance between the "good" of individual liberty and the competing "good" of some amount of redistribution of wealth.  

So do most of the centre ground (= the bulk of the electorate).

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I was just willfully misrepresenting your position by caricature. Maybe that's trolling... 

But I don't see what gives you the objective view of where the centre ground lies though. Anyone who can read the spectator without a sick-bag is definitely right of centre in my view. 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I'm simply defining the centre ground empirically -- in terms of the middle of where voters actually vote. 

Let me guess, the Left define the center ground in terms of how they'd like voters to vote?

(PS, that was counter-trolling; though I'm interested, how, then, would you define the centre-ground?)

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Defining centrist politics by majority is self defeatingly stupid, as it by definition excludes ever electing a radical government of whichever flavour. If that happens, well, then this is just the new centre.

Employing that con trick makes it easy to normalize policies in the public discourse that were clearly radical fringe ideas just a few years ago,  a strategy especially beloved by right of centre politicians from Reagan and Thatcher onwards to Orban and his ilk.

IMO it makes much more sense to rank individual policies in multiple fields from left to right (especially obvious e.g with taxation or regulation of the economy), and define the centre as a weighted mean of all these individual scores. It is then possible to map out where parties sit with respect to that centre, and observe parties drift left or right, which obviously happens all the time.

Yes the centre as such may also drift over time*, but not as quickly as electoral success.

CB

*One example is the growing acceptance of environmental policies. Most of what the Greens here in Germany were ridiculed for in the  1980s is now mainstream and largely accepted, at least on paper, by parties that are widely across the spectrum with respect to other policy fields.

In reply to cb294:

Fair point, but I didn't so much intend taking only one election, but rather the set of elections over the last few decades.  By that metric, it would indeed be the case that governments can be markedly "left" or "right".

In reply to Coel Hellier:

To wrestle the thread back towards the OP, could I just point out that *everybody* thinks their views are held by the majority, so your methodology for finding the"centre" may be flawed 😉

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Yes, when averaging over decades defining centrism based on majorities makes a bit more sense. However, I would argue that even then it should still be about ideology / policies, not electoral success. Take some redneck flyover state in the US that has been and will always be dominated gun toting, pro life evangelicals. Would their politics deserve being called centrist if we only wait long enough? Majority or dominant for sure, but centrist?

Actually I don't think you really employ that majority based definition yourself and instead use it a stick to whack Corbybist Labour: At 10.32 you called yourself a centrist based on pragmatically compromising between ideas from the left and right, which is pretty much the ideology / policy based definition.

CB

In reply to cb294:

My definition is not quite about "majorities" but more about the "median" voter.   Based on that, I'd put the centre line somewhere between Tony Blair and David Cameron.  

I don't see anything wrong with defining "centre" relative to some population, and so it makes sense to say: "The centre-ground of US politics is further right than the centre-ground of UK politics".

I guess -- alternatively -- you could maintain: "No, the centre-ground is in the same place, by definition, but rather, in the US there are more voters to the right of centre".

In reply to Coel Hellier:

It's garbage though: firstly, most voters in the UK aren't anywhere on the left-right spectrum at all, they just want to "get brexit done". Secondly, what I'm disputing is your claim that you personally stand in the centre, rather on the right. Anyone who can read some of the drivel you link on here without vomiting is right of centre - similarly if you don't suffer moderate to severe symptoms in response to George Monbiot, you're left of centre.

It's pretty hard to really be the centrist you claim to be, because if you're politically engaged then your politics will have some kind of philosophical foundation and, in the background, there's a vision of what the perfect society would be like. I've grilled you on many occasions to try to get at what underlies your specific policy preferences, and what I've seen under there is pretty damn right wing.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

My as-near-to-perfect-as-we-can-get society would very much be full of compromises and balances.  That's inevitable given human nature, with a lot of what we want being in tension with other things that we want.    Attempts at a purist utopia don't work since they entirely forget about human nature (e.g. communism).

Examples? 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Um, not your finest hour Jon

In reply to Coel Hellier:

So, you don't really have any ideas on how society *should* be? 

It's more important that sports stars have the personal freedom to tweet homophobia, than that a 12 year old sports fan is not subjected to homophobia from their idols. Why? Because freedom for sports idols to tweet their opinion is paramount, and if you've got no choice because you're gay and only 12, then f*ck you. That's the hand you got dealt, so suck it up. Your straight peers won't lose out from the homophobia, and it'll endorse it as the best attitude to hold - what's the problem?

Poor people are poor chiefly because of their bad breeding. They inherited low IQs and aren't capable of the skilled work the market rewards. Schooling doesn't help much - it's best to just leave the market to work so that the cream can naturally rise to the top.

In reply to Deadeye:

Why? I can't see how anyone who isn't right wing can read the Spectator without throwing up, violently, because it's packed full of fallacious drivel underpinned by right-wing philosophy. Similarly, as someone on the left, I can quite easily tolerate George capitalism-is-cancer Monbiot; but it's obvious to me that if you're not left wing, you'll start frothing at the mouth.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

So defending free speech is now "pretty damn right wing"?  Traditionally the left lauded free speech, since it was necessary to challenge entrenched power.  All the social reformers of the left needed to tell people what they didn't want to hear. 

So supporting employment-protection, such that employers can't just take a dislike to you and sack you, is now "pretty damn right wing"?   So the left is now ok with employers sacking people because they don't like what they said on social media?   "Tweet: we should form a trade union and agitate for better conditions", "You're fired".

So thinking that people should be included in sports teams, regardless of their racial, cultural and religious background is now "pretty damn right wing"?    So the left is now ok with "because of your Pacific Islander upbringing, and because you dared to voice some of the beliefs of that Pacific Islander upbringing, we won't accept you"?  That's "inclusive" is it?   The only thing Folau did wrong was say he is anti-gay because he is a Christian; if he'd said he was anti-gay because he was a Muslim, the left would not have dared utter a peep.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

So far, those are statements about how things are.  (I'm leaving aside for the moment whether I have actually said anything phrased quite like that.)  Factual statements about how things are are neither "left" nor "right". We need to keep a clear distinction between facts and values, and the political "left" vs "right" bit is about values and policies -- not about facts!   We should not have different sets of facts depending on our politics.

If we forget that distinction, then we have such as "I don't want there to be climate change; therefore there isn't any climate change, it's all a hoax".   Similarly, "I don't want kids' prospects to be substantially affected by their genes, therefore it they aren't substantially affected by their genes, they are blank slates and the genes are just for show" is pure science denial.    Facing up to how reality is is not "left" or "right", it's something we should all do regardless of position on the political spectrum.

But there you're then reading into me what I've not said.  As I repeatedly emphasized on such threads, I was discussing how things are in reality, not getting into policy.  Though I'll happily discuss policy with you if you wish. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Not necessarily. Depends on whose speech, and whose rights one person's freedom conflicts with. I've pointed out the competition of rights, and whose side you've chosen, and you haven't even managed to acknowledge that there's a competition at all. 

That's just utter bollocks. You have no basis to say that, it's just another PanRon "THE LEFT THE LEFT THE LEFT". It's not an argument. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

The level of conscious and unconscious bias on a host of issues across individuals and society is undeniable. I think the most interesting outcome from this thread is the level of hostility the article has aroused. Sure, the methodology was not exactly rigorous, but it was kind of interesting and the conclusions were not particularly surprising on the whole. To me, it looks like the negativity on this and other reaction threads says more about a perceived editorial creep on UKC towards ‘grievance studies’ which is rife at the moment in areas of the humanities and social sciences. Thanks to the ‘dog park’ paper citation up the thread, which I enjoyed tremendously back when it happened.
I had a look back at the list of editorials and this kind of content is tiny compared to ‘ a climbs b at grade c’ or ‘buy d whether you need it or not’ 😁 These don’t tend to elicit much, if any response.

I’ve got to say I follow the ‘if you’re not interested, don’t read it’ mantra myself and rarely look at the any of the editorial articles unless it’s someone I know or somewhere I go. There’s much better content targeted at my interests on other channels. However, there’s a constituency on here that feels a sense of ownership about UKC, and sees it as a ‘climbing only’ resource. I wonder if there’s any possibility of UKC jumping the shark? What do you think?
 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Thanks at least for forcing me finally to look up what the hell that means!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

If we only support freedom of speech for those we like and agree with, then we don't support freedom of speech. 

And if the rule is freedom-of-speech for those we like and agree with, then that puts way too much power into the hands of whoever gets to decide what is likeable and agreeable -- and they will always misuse that power.

I don't agree that there is a "right" to not hear opinions one finds offensive and upsetting.  

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Pure news items and gear reviews aren't generally expected to cause a discussion, whereas opinion pieces such as this are clearly intended to.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

We're back to the start with this. Freedom of speech is not freedom for sports stars to post whatever they like on twitter. I know you think it is. It isn't. 

That's fine for adults, it's not fine for kids. That's why there's film classifications, watersheds, content warnings etc. Are these an affront to freedom of speech too?

I've explained what the issue is with role models for teenagers espousing homophobia, but you won't engage with the issue. It isn't about freedom of speech, it's entirely context dependent, and your arguments about the power of the censor are irrelevant. There are plenty of places where homophobia can be expressed without sanction, but the twitter feed of a sports star ain't one of'em, for good reasons. 

You need to rethink what freedom of speech means. It isn't freedom to publish whatever you like, wherever you like. That's a principle you don't actually want to defend. 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I think that this is where we disagree.

It's not that I "won't engage", it's that I disagree.  You place a higher priority on protecting the teenager from the views of one of their idols; I place a higher priority on everyone saying that they think. 

The power of the censor is entirely relevant if it means that someone voicing their religious convictions means that they lose the only career path they are good at.   If "religious freedom" means anything, it surely precludes that. 

Suppose a leading sports star came out as gay, and, on their Twitter feed, openly criticised the Catholic church and Catholic teachings about gay people.  Would that be unacceptable because some teenage Catholic kids who idolise that player might be upset?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

There are negative consequences from role models tweeting homophobia. There are no negative consequences from role models refraining from tweeting religious or political views that their employer finds objectionable. Your priorities are unjustified. 

I don't support anyone's right to practice their religion or express their religious convictions at work, without agreement of their employer. You might not think that a sports star's twitter feed is "at work" but I'm afraid the employer disagrees, and their word counts for rather more than yours here. 

If their employer didn't want them expressing those views because they didn't want to alienate Catholic fans then fine. I don't think the case is equivalent, given the specific issues of teenagers discovering their sexuality and the influence of role models in that context. 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Almost all social progress everywhere has depended on people voicing views that some other people find objectionable.  

How about if the government, as an employer, said that no-one paid by the taxpayer can criticise the government, even in their private life, because the government finds that objectionable.  Would there really be no negative consequences?

I'm with you there.

Correct.  The test I'd use is simply: does the employer have password-access to the account or not. 

OK, so it's the employer who decides the scope of their out-of-hours control of an employee?  Which means they can extend it to all aspects of someone's private life, if they so choose.

And you think it is "pretty damn right wing" to want the employee to have more rights, and in particular rights to free expression without employer oversight? 

I'm locking this thread now as it's gone off-topic and seems to be going round in circles.