Sexist Grading System

Jonathan Cunha wrote:Yeah, I would agree that they just want to kick as on their own terms

BINGO! Give the boy a ceegar, ladies!

ViperScale wrote: Think of it this way. If woman than V5, if man than V4 (this is basically what it is coming across in this post).

You are oversimplifying that blog post's argument to make it easier for you to counter it. I doubt you'll be able to find a logical fallacy in that blog post. What's clear is that your premises are different from Mr. Moore's.

ViperScale wrote: This is logic but abstract form (yes you can call it concrete in that it is easy to test for the logic but it is at a higher level and likely not all woman will think it is a V5 and not a V4).

This isn't really the realm of mathematical logic yet. If you said "for every climber X and bouldering problem B if woman(X) then grade(B,X) = V5 else grade(B,X) = V4," you'd be a step closer; but then you'd have to answer questions like "Am I interested in satisfiability or validity? Or truth in a particular structure I have in mind?" "If the last one, what is the domain and what is the interpretation of the non-logical symbols?" You may see why resorting to the "logical cavalry charge" really isn't the expedient way to approach a problem like this, especially when it's obvious that the sentence you want to test is not Moore's, but your own.

ViperScale wrote: If height 5.8 and ape index is 1 grade V4. If height 5.0 and if ape index is 0 than grade V5. This is a more concrete form of logic (and is really what ultimately he is saying in the post and would apply to anyone has nothing to do with gender).

Rather than "more concrete form of logic," (whatever that means) you should probably call it "a better hypothesis to test." That would bring out the statistical aspect of this discussion. In view of which, "nothing to do" needs to be qualified, because the average height of men is 5-6 inches more than the average height of women. Note the "roughly trace gender lines" in this snippet.

Alan Moore wrote: I make generalizations about gender in this short article, but I know that the world is not this simplistic. In looking closely at dude grades, we see how a homogenous group of climbers determined the rating standards that we use, and although the problems roughly trace gender lines, the issue is also about morphology, physiology, and the culture of the climbing community.

ViperScale wrote: I don't completely disagree with alot of the things he is saying about how our grading sucks. To me they are just commonly known facts that most everyone I climb with understands about it. His conclusion on the cause of why the system sucks is the problem.

It may be worth looking at this other piece on color-coding by the same author, a piece that mostly eschews the sexism controversy: blackmountainbouldering.com…

There's more than one reason why Moore and his co-author decided not to use the V scale. Ultimately, it's a matter of assumptions, values, beliefs--not one of logic.

I think you have it backwards. His post is oversimplifying it. I am saying that it has nothing to do with being male or female but has everything to do with people being physically different. His post is saying women aren't being taken into account when grades are put up, but you know what there are ALOT of people who aren't being taken into account when grading. Maybe all new grades need to be posted online and we need at least 10000 votes before we can grade it. The problem is when you have easily proven facts that will change how hard a climb is for a person and you are ignoring them and saying o its a woman. Even though he references the entire reason for it being harder... she is 5ft that is short and going to make alot of climbs harder. So why is he saying its a woman issue and not writing an article about how we need a new short person grade scale?

Maybe you are just the average person and have never run into routes that become near impossible due to your physical form. I am used to going out climbing with groups of people and having to climb a route different than everyone else because I have such a short reach compared to the average person.

So because I am a guy I am suppose to be able to climb the "guy scale" even though I have a reach closer to an average woman? Well they need to hurry up and get this "woman scale" so I can climb off of it instead of this stupid "guy scale". (this is sarcasm encase you miss it)

All his post is doing is making female sound like cry babies who want something scaled for them. None of the women I climb with want a different scale.

I understand the color system I have guide books that do similar things. I am not a fan of it. Rather someone say it is grade 5 instead of it is around grade 5 but not sure. I know it varies and noone can say exactly how hard something is. I think color scale works pretty good in gyms where you have setters who can't really truly grade everything perfectly. Outdoors I think you can get enough people climbing to come up with a more solid grade for the area.

ViperScale wrote:I think you have it backwards.

Of course, not.

ViperScale wrote: His post is oversimplifying it. I am saying that it has nothing to do with being male or female but has everything to do with people being physically different.

Moore is aware of the latter--see the snippet I quoted. And--I'm repeating myself, but I'll word it a bit differently this time--if you have two groups whose height is significantly different, in a statistical sense, then the a posteriori probability of a randomly chosen individual being in a certain height interval given that the individual is in a certain group is significantly different from the a priori probability. What does it mean in simple words? That women are--on average--affected more.

You may argue that in your opinion it's the individuals who matter, not the groups. Mr. Moore likely disagrees, but that is a value judgment.

ViperScale wrote: His post is saying women aren't being taken into account when grades are put up, but you know what there are ALOT of people who aren't being taken into account when grading.

The two claims are not contradictory.

ViperScale wrote: Maybe all new grades need to be posted online and we need at least 10000 votes before we can grade it. The problem is when you have easily proven facts that will change how hard a climb is for a person and you are ignoring them and saying o its a woman.

You keep implying that this is Moore's position, even though it isn't.

ViperScale wrote: Even though he references the entire reason for it being harder... she is 5ft that is short and going to make alot of climbs harder. So why is he saying its a woman issue and not writing an article about how we need a new short person grade scale?

Because in that blog post, Moore focuses on the undeniable fact that women are shorter than men on average. He claims, and there his evidence is rather thin and anecdotal, that the bias in the grading system has a negative effect on women's participation in climbing. He proposes a solution that may or may not have a significant impact. He seems to believe so, but I can see people being skeptical.

ViperScale wrote: Maybe you are just the average person and have never run into routes that become near impossible due to your physical form. I am used to going out climbing with groups of people and having to climb a route different than everyone else because I have such a short reach compared to the average person. So because I am a guy I am suppose to be able to climb the "guy scale" even though I have a reach closer to an average woman? Well they need to hurry up and get this "woman scale" so I can climb off of it instead of this stupid "guy scale". (this is sarcasm encase you miss it) All his post is doing is making female sound like cry babies who want something scaled for them. None of the women I climb with want a different scale.

I do expect that most women climbers would scoff at the idea of two scales. Would you care to quote (no paraphrase) Moore's words advocating separate grading scales?

ViperScale wrote: I understand the color system I have guide books that do similar things. I am not a fan of it. Rather someone say it is grade 5 instead of it is around grade 5 but not sure. I know it varies and noone can say exactly how hard something is. I think color scale works pretty good in gyms where you have setters who can't really truly grade everything perfectly. Outdoors I think you can get enough people climbing to come up with a more solid grade for the area.

More value judgments. I have nothing against them, and I've never climbed at Black Mountain, while I've seen gyms collecting feedback on how crimpy, strenuous, or reachy a route felt. I can see people holding these beliefs or different beliefs without contradicting themselves.

women typically have smaller hands and are better at climbs with small crimps. men are typically taller and are better at long reaches.

anyone is welcome to dispute guidebook grades. anyone is welcome to say a climb is harder for them. grades are vague and always will be.

i would say that grading is more unfair to beginners than to anyone else. a beginner climbing V5 in the gym will struggle almost anywhere in Colorado. is it an issue of soft gym grades or sandbagged outdoor grades? probably a little of both, but mostly the latter.

brenta wrote:It may be worth looking at this other piece on color-coding by the same author, a piece that mostly eschews the sexism controversy: blackmountainbouldering.com/#!grades/c1vqe There's more than one reason why Moore and his co-author decided not to use the V scale. Ultimately, it's a matter of assumptions, values, beliefs--not one of logic.

I think the idea for this book is really cool. I like the idea of using colors as a direct replacement for v-grades, especially for less traveled areas, because for one I think it has less of a limiting effect on grade discussions (as opposed to publishing concrete grades, which often then become verboten to question and therefore character damaging to discuss) and also it better reflects the innate FACT that any given problem or climb always has a 1-5+ grade difficulty spread for climbers of various proportions (and yes, as a distributional average I would expect males and females to cluster into distinct and separate groups...duh guys).

Basically, I see it as being exactly like the v-scale except it carries the philosophical idea that the grade represents a distributional spread and therefore can't be captured with a single number. Some people use the v-scale in this way, but in my experience the vast majority of climbers do not.

It's the difference between being able to experience climbing subjectively and have others share and recognize that subjectivity, and being able to openly and pleasantly discuss it, or having to comply to some rigid group think which can not be deviated from. Yes, I think this would attract more women to climbing, which would be awesome :)

It is worth pointing out that the exact same thing could happen with the v-scale, it would just require re-thinking how grades are arrived at. So....

As to the original subject at hand, in my experience, again distributionally speaking (due to the influences of our specific culture), certain males overly care to be "in control" of groups and "control the narrative". Meaning that the majority of climbers who use published v-grades (or grades in general) as a be all unquestionable-lest-you-reveal-yourself-to-have-poor-character measure are either male or the significant other of one of these guys attempting to keep drama in the house to a minimum. I think this is what may have motivated the original article.

brenta wrote: Moore is aware of the latter--see the snippet I quoted. And--I'm repeating myself, but I'll word it a bit differently this time--if you have two groups whose height is significantly different, in a statistical sense, then the a posteriori probability of a randomly chosen individual being in a certain height interval given that the individual is in a certain group is significantly different from the a priori probability. What does it mean in simple words? That women are--on average--affected more.

http://www.averageheight.co/average-male-height-by-country

http://www.averageheight.co/average-female-height-by-country

When you look at this issue from a worldwide perspective, it's not really sexist at all. Their are many groups who would be disadvantaged by taller people determining the climbing grades. If your logic holds, a group of Indonesian males who came to the Red River Gorge would be disadvantaged to a proportionately greater extent than American women. Does this mean our grading is racist too?

Should we broaden the ranges such that the color blue is anything 5.9-10d and red is 5.12c-13c? No, because that would mean that when I rope up for my next orange multipitch, it might be a casual affair, or I might have an epic because I've never climbed that hard before in my life.

I'm not even sure what redoing the system would gain. The routes labeled V5 that his friend can't do will still exist. If you label them V-black, the same men who can do them now will still be able to. His friend still won't be able to climb them. But she'll be able to climb V-Silver and V-Gold. If this is about 8a.nu scorecards, the entire thing is a moot point and climbers will find a pecking order regardless.

ViperScale wrote: I never claimed to be the best english writer in the world (if that is all you can see when you read a post i feel bad for you), I scored perfect on math half of the SAT when I was in 10, I didn't do so well on the english side. Still that degree means next to nothing about grading a climbing route (sure it does have to do with how people come up with the grade for themself etc but has nothing to do with how the system takes multi inputs and averages out the grade etc). That and nothing he said in there can be isolated to only affect women. His only example he uses compares an extremely short women to the grading system (aka the average climber). It doesn't take any of the degrees I have to understand the massive flaw in this system. A grading scale takes input from multi people to try to get an average grade for an average person. If you have a physical feature that makes you not average the system will not work perfectly for you. I take this into account every time I talk to anyone about a route's grade. I talk about how I climbed it with my -4 ape index and issues I personally had to work through to get past a certain move. If they are the same height as me with a 0 ape index than some moves would probably be much easier from them. I also have small hands (probably related to my small ape index) that is also helpful sometimes to get into small cracks others can't. Maybe we should make a new grading system that scales based on hand size, body weight, height, ape index, etc and it would be a perfect system for everyone on the planet. Every issue he calls sexist in the article is issues that guys have problems with on the grading scale as well. So his calling it sexist instead of just writing an article about issues with the grading system is stupid. YDS is supose to grade a route based on the single hardest move (other systems grade on overall difficulty of the route). This means a 5.10a with 90ft and 5.4 moves and a single 5.10a move is going to feel ALOT easier than a 5.10a route with maybe 1-2 move easier than 5.10a. Lets go get 1 male and 1 female with the same height, ape index, body build and see how they do on a bunch of different routes graded differently. I have no question they won't be similar in grades. Men and women bodies are naturally different so likely there will be some moves the women could do easier and some that the men could do easier but you are only going to get an average.

When you were in 10?

Hard to take some one seriously with poor grammar..mmmmmmmk

mozeman wrote: When you were in 10? Hard to take some one seriously with poor grammar..mmmmmmmk

People who don't like a post but can't find an augment against it look at grammar.

You know what we don't need to go to a color system. We just need to add an extra letter for height friendliness of the route.

How about we do 5.10a and leave the R, X, PG-13 for the danger and add an extra SO (easier for short), TO (easier for tall), T (tall friendly but not really bad for short), or S (easier for short but still not bad for tall). We could even do the same for hands SHO, SH, BH, BHO. Than we will have the perfect system to rule them all. /sarcasm off

Matt Stroebel wrote: When you look at this issue from a worldwide perspective, it's not really sexist at all. Their are many groups who would be disadvantaged by taller people determining the climbing grades.

Did you read this?

Alan Moore wrote: The things I say about grades will also resonate with some men

Matt Stroebel wrote: If your logic holds, a group of Indonesian males who came to the Red River Gorge would be disadvantaged to a proportionately greater extent than American women.

On reachy routes, why not? Unless, of course, Indonesian male climbers disproportionately come from a stratum of the population whose mean height is significantly larger than the national average. And what happened to the Indonesian female climbers? Erased from the narrative, eh? What about the people from planet Gliese 667cc--in case there are any? Stronger gravity, higher temperature... they might be smaller than the earthlings. We can't discuss grading systems until we have acquired the pertinent information about the climbers from Gliese 667cc.

I'm being facetious, but I do believe that one is justified, when discussing a climbing guidebook, to focus on the relevant constituencies. Is there a large group of actual or potential users that is not served well by the current grading system? That's reason enough to consider alternatives. Do the proposed alternatives achieve the desired result? That's much harder to answer, in general.

Matt Stroebel wrote: Does this mean our grading is racist too?

You should ask Mr. Moore. This is where he seems to come closest to answering:

Alan Moore wrote: I doubt that anyone intended the rating systems to be sexist, but nevertheless, dude grades are ubiquitous.

I wouldn't be surprised if it emerged that you and Mr. Moore define "sexist" and "racist" in slightly different ways.

Matt Stroebel wrote: Should we broaden the ranges...

I'm trying to stay out of this part of the discussion. There are obviously both pros and cons, whose weight will be different in the judgments of different climbers.

Sexism or gender discrimination is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender.

So you are telling me all these rock climbers are intentionally saying we need to grade this in such a way that it will make it harder for women to climb it? Are route settings in a gym finding a woman and asking them to test the route and when it is to easy for them they change it to make sure only the guys can climb it?

Just because it is harder for someone to climb a route because they are shorter doesn't mean you are being prejudice against them. I don't know I have not climbed every crag in the world so maybe there is one crag where they grade based on how hard it is for a route to be climbed by a short person that way everything is under 5.6 unless you have to be 6ft+ to climb.

Like I have already said If he had just removed the "woman" out of the article and made it about heights causing issues with grading I wouldn't be arguing with what he had to say. I still think it isn't a reason to worry about changing the way things are graded but I would agree that it does make a difference on some routes because I have the reach of a 5'6'' person. I do think it is fun for me to figure out ways to get past sections that others can climb through easy though

PS: I am pretty sure I pointed out earlier that I think PhDs and grades are pointless (or mostly pointless). I also was annoyed with the max you could get on end of grade test being 99 percent, maybe because I hate odd numbers and never could be 100 (yes I know when you get a 99 it means you at the 100).

Quoted: Is there a large group of actual or potential users that is not served well by the current grading system? That's reason enough to consider alternatives. Do the proposed alternatives achieve the desired result? That's much harder to answer, in general.

Served well? The only disservice I see is one of ego. 'But I totally crush V_. Obviously this is sandbagged and I'm sad!"

I think a lot of women would feel demeaned by a crushing male telling them that he will change the grading system to better suit their puny little bodies.

Source: my girlfriends 30 minute tirade after reading the article in question.

Wow.... i figured this wood die as a thread cause its stupid....

The author got some things wrong.... the Stonemasters did not invent the YDS... that was the old farts who climbed at Taquitz in the 1950's..... it was their idea...

isn't Lynn Hill about 5.2????

never herd her say squat about how she is at a disadvantage.

Bearbreeder.... flied lice is good for climbing, makes one thin.... best climber I have climbed with lately is a 6.2 Korean chick who weighs in at about a buck one o five.... she went from 5.7 to 5.12 in like three days. Freaking unfair I say.... change that grading system.

and Viper... I agree about the grammar police. Can't think up a good argument... beat them up on their prepositional phrase usage.

I just love this place.

Viperscale and Brenta, if you are going to continue this debate one of you needs to change your profile pictures, they're too similar and I find it confusing to keep track of your opinions, thank you for your cooperation.

ViperScale wrote: So you are telling me all these rock climbers are intentionally saying we need to grade this in such a way that it will make it harder for women to climb it?

No, I'm not.

simplyput wrote:Served well? The only disservice I see is one of ego. 'But I totally crush V_. Obviously this is sandbagged and I'm sad!"

You are entitled to your opinion, but I'm not sure why you want to discuss it with me. I thought I made it clear I'm not interested.

Ryan M Moore wrote:Viperscale and Brenta, if you are going to continue this debate one of you needs to change your profile pictures, they're too similar and I find it confusing to keep track of your opinions, thank you for your cooperation.

Those pictures are well separated on my scale, which I have no intention to change. :-)

brenta wrote: Those pictures are well separated on my scale, which I have no intention to change. :-)

Yea mine has a biner and clove in it.

Guy Keesee wrote:The author got some things wrong.... the Stonemasters did not invent the YDS... that was the old farts who climbed at Taquitz in the 1950's..... it was their idea... isn't Lynn Hill about 5.2???? never herd her say squat about how she is at a disadvantage.

They also said Lynn Hill wasn't a stonemaster. and I guess that means if she graded the Nose at 5.14a? it was really only 5.12d because for us dudes it is easier?

A stupid article written by a stupid person using the popular "What she saw next made her realize climbing was sexist" approach to writing.

Guy Keesee wrote:The author got some things wrong.... the Stonemasters did not invent the YDS... that was the old farts who climbed at Taquitz in the 1950's..... it was their idea... isn't Lynn Hill about 5.2???? never herd her say squat about how she is at a disadvantage.

They also said Lynn Hill wasn't a stonemaster. and I guess that means if she graded the Nose at 5.14a? it was really only 5.12d because for us dudes it is easier?

A stupid article written by a stupid person using the popular "What she saw next made her realize climbing was sexist" approach to writing.