Response to Flash Foxy & Outside Magazine Article

I don't want to trivialize this thread, but what if I decide that I interpret Marc801's unsolicited response to me as being a microagression against half-jewish men with ADHD who suffer from chronic injuries? He may not have known of my minority status and my disabilities, but shouldn't he have anticipated my taking offense and feeling intimidated to the point where maybe I would have to leave this website forever due to his rude words?

I think that's Marc801s very point, the offender doesn't get to decide whether the act was microaggression. So, Marc801, I am judge jury and executioner of whether or not you are a microaggressor. I can label you a microaggressor - you took the bait.

(Marc801, I'm sure you're a great guy if you are taking this position though, so I would never do that! Marc801 can be my friend anytime)

(Let's take this to the next level, though, and blame the victim, me: by choosing to post on this controversial thread, isn't this similar to a woman wearing skimpy clothing to a gym and then complaining that a hetero man stared for a second? Didn't I "ask for it" when I posted a reply here?

I sometimes think true vegans must be so bummed because surely they are crushing something when they walk or bike or drive. It's getting to the point that no matter how liberal you are, you still offend someone simply by opening your mouth.

Solution for female climbers problem at the Gym, gain 100lb and most likely you wont be bothered.

Dan Austin wrote:...it's really easy to say that people should just accept the status quo if you're not threatened by it. It's what makes this whole rhetoric of "I'm not saying she deserved to be raped, but at the same time, she had to have known that what she was wearing would attract attention" so disgusting. the prevalence of this type of rhetoric on MP is pretty telling about what kind of sexism exists in the climbing community

That's what I find so depressing about this entire thread. I've discovered people here I never want to meet, much less climb with, in real life.

bryans wrote:I don't want to trivialize this thread, but what if I decide that I interpret Marc801's unsolicited response to me as being a microagression against half-jewish men with ADHD who suffer from chronic injuries? He may not have known of my minority status and my disabilities, but shouldn't he have anticipated my taking offense and feeling intimidated to the point where maybe I would have to leave this website forever due to his rude words? I think that's Marc801s very point, the offender doesn't get to decide whether the act was microaggression. So, Marc801, I am judge jury and executioner of whether or not you are a microaggressor. I can label you a microaggressor - you took the bait. (Marc801, I'm sure you're a great guy if you are taking this position though, so I would never do that! Marc801 can be my friend anytime) (Let's take this to the next level, though, and blame the victim, me: by choosing to post on this controversial thread, isn't this similar to a woman wearing skimpy clothing to a gym and then complaining that a hetero man stared for a second? Didn't I "ask for it" when I posted a reply here? I sometimes think true vegans must be so bummed because surely they are crushing something when they walk or bike or drive. It's getting to the point that no matter how liberal you are, you still offend someone simply by opening your mouth.

Again (I alluded to it up-thread), the bigger aspect is not that one specific instance is so egregious, but that for women in climbing gyms, or at the crag, they experience it on a constant basis. One guy acting like a jerk is one thing, but when you have to deal with it 20 times in a two hour gym session where all you want to do is work on your climbing, it gets tiresome at best. Far more concerning and objectionable is that such a majority of women say it makes them feel unsafe.

Marc801 I just said we can be friends but than you say this:

If a woman feels she is being stared at and it makes her uncomfortable then no, the man can't really say "I wasn't staring, just looking".

Actually, they can both be right. She can be uncomfortable. He can have no intent to make her uncomfortable. Once she expresses discomfort and he doesn't react appropriately (apologize and go away) then yeah, he's in the wrong. But my god man, do we have to walk around staring at the ground because someone "might" think you "stared" at them? Can I not give beta or talk about a route I did because someone might perceive it as aggression? It's a sad, sad world when that happens.

I met a great girlfriend at the gym a while back and it wasn't because I looked at the ground instead of noticing her. I was also on the other end and had to deflect attention. I also talked to girls at the gym and didn't encounter reciprocity and moved on. That's how it works when you are single and doing athletic things in a confined space. I met my wife because I had the balls (her words) to look her in the eye ands ask her out, and to show up at her house one night a few weeks later to go on a spontaneous date (this was, again, before cell phones were everywhere, and people actually put themselves out there and risked rejection) Thank god I wasn't worried about offending her when I asked her out.

Marc brings it on himself by rushing to personal insults and judgments. These threads are a train wreck and everyone participating gets dragged down.

Marc801 wrote: Again (I alluded to it up-thread), the bigger aspect is not that one specific instance is so egregious, but that for women in climbing gyms, or at the crag, they experience it on a constant basis. One guy acting like a jerk is one thing, but when you have to deal with it 20 times in a two hour gym session where all you want to do is work on your climbing, it gets tiresome at best. Far more concerning and objectionable is that such a majority of women say it makes them feel unsafe.

I may just be an oblivious misogynistic d-bag but based on my anecdotal experience, it seems like you're exaggerating the issue. 20 times in a two-hour gym session? Once every six minutes? The only complaint about men that I've ever heard from any of my female climbing partners is that they never get asked out

Some folks seem to be confusing mate attraction with rape attraction, the latter of which probably doesn't exist. Males and females have different strategies for attracting mates. In both sexes, fashion/clothing plays a role in mate attraction. Wearing skimpy or tight clothing is a strategy of mate attraction. Women (and men for that matter) adopt these strategies to garner attention from the opposite sex. Thus, it is an attention gaining technique, some of which will be well-received, some of which will be poorly received. For scientific evidence of this see the article linked below and the quote from pg 1002.

carigoetz.com/docs/Womenspe…

"Sixteen cues positively correlated with exploitability. Four-teen of these cues were the same cues determined to be diagnostic of exploitability by Goetz et al.’s (2012) male participants: Atten-tion seeking, Come hither look,‘‘Easy,’’Flirty, Immature, Intox-icated, Open body posture, Party
ing, Promiscuous, Promiscuous friends, Reckless, Revealing clothing, Sleepy, and Young. Two additional cues, Tight clothing and Materialistic, were also positively correlated with perceptions of exploitability."

and 1003

All 14 of the cues men perceived as positively correlated with exploitability were also perceived as positively correlated with exploitability by women.

No one is saying that wearing this clothing makes rape the responsibility of the victim. Rape and glances/stares are far different things. All that is being said is that clothing intended to incite attention will gain it.

from Cbecker:

"I may just be an oblivious misogynistic d-bag but based on my anecdotal experience, it seems like you're exaggerating the issue. 20 times in a two-hour gym session? Once every six minutes? The only complaint about men that I've ever heard from any of my female climbing partners is that they never get asked out"

That's because all the men are scared because they read stuff like the article in question.

DTC said: "The real percentage doesn't really matter, nor does it matter whether there were 3 or 1038 "douchebags" doing the harassing. From the female perspective, they have an 18% chance of being victimized, and they have no way of knowing whether you are 1 of the 3 bad guys or 1 of the 1038 bad guys. To the female author, it might as well be a problem with all men."

Isn't the fact that you (and the author) sterotyping all men based on the actions of a few a bit sexist?

DTC said: "Actually, it is.
1 out of every 6 women has been a victim of sexual violence.
1 out of every 33 men has been a victim of sexual violence.
Only 1 out of every 10 rape victims is a man.
Seems pretty one sided to me. (Source: rainn.org)"

I don't doubt this at all, but is this a reflection of the climbing community?

DTC wrote: 1 out of every 33 men has been a victim of sexual violence. Only 1 out of every 10 rape victims is a man. Seems pretty one sided to me. (Source: rainn.org)

While I agree in general, men don't report this kind of stuff and aren't taken seriously so I wouldn't trust the numbers regarding this subject to be "the truth". Even in this thread its taken for granted that men always want sex.

I have a daughter and certainly I would like her to climb one day and experience it for what it's worth. Is there inequity in our society, of course. How can we fix it? Discussion is great and it might lead to change but it's a slow moving wheel. Many facets of our society can vouch for that. We're long ways from where we were 100 years ago. What I'll make sure is to teach my daughter and prepare her how to deal with the issue on hand in the forum. Not just in realm of climbing but thorough out her life. I don't want her to be a bystander and let idiots ruin her day climbing or whatever it might be. She'll know how to stand up for herself and tell you to fuck off right in your face. If more women did that, maybe we'd be, men, put back in our place. There are so many tools available to women these days to achieve the equality they rightfully deserve. (it's a fucked up way of putting it I know, we're all born equal) But, that's not the case. We'd rather take surveys then speak up when it's time to speak up and let the idiots know when they're unwanted. Just my two cents.

Shouldn't we look down on all gym climbers, regardless of sex?

DTC, why the hate?

bryans wrote:
Once she expresses discomfort and he doesn't react appropriately (apologize and go away) then yeah, he's in the wrong.

This is a great start to not being an asshole.

A great start to not being an asshole? You don't know even know me!

I have 5 and 8 year old daughters, I'm actually invested here. My girls will deal with this exact stuff. If not for the poor adult behavior and swearing I'd probably let them read this whole thread, my posts included. I also have a 10 year old son, ditto. I guess he needs to know the cold hard facts these days, that expressing interest in a woman or staring for something she considers "too long" (even a fraction of a second in theory) could get him labeled a micro aggressor. And yet there are tons of women on this thread who recognize that not everything is binary, that not everything has to become politicized, that men don't always have to walk around feeling like predators if they instinctively notice and look at an attractive woman in their vicinity. I'll want him to have hope that the genders can get along in climbing gyms, let alone the work place or the classroom or dorm room. It can be done!

bryans wrote: I also have a 10 year old son, ditto. I guess he needs to know the cold hard facts these days, that expressing interest in a woman or staring for something she considers "too long" (even a fraction of a second in theory) could get him labeled a micro aggressor. And yet there are tons of women on this thread who recognize that not everything is binary, that not everything has to become politicized, that men don't always have to walk around feeling like predators if they instinctively notice and look at an attractive woman in their vicinity. I'll want him to have hope that the genders can get along in climbing gyms, let alone the work place or the classroom or dorm room. It can be done!

Well I have a 9 year old girl and 7 year old son. You can tell yours that it is quite normal for men and women to get along at the climbing gym, happens all the time.

You can also tell your kids that if they show up to a job interview and phrases "microaggresion", "trigger" or "safe space" accidentally slip out of their mouths, don't expect a call back after the interview. The rest of you that buy into that stuff, please keep spraying all over fakebook, it is immensely helpful.

Rick Blair, well said. I guess I only commented in the first place because seemingly only the two extreme ends of the spectrum were being represented here. Yet usually most of the progress comes from somewhere in the middle (props all the same to the article, however flawed or whatever, from prompting some hopefully reasonable discussion)

Andrew Gram wrote: Misogyny is a continuum, and you don't need to sexually assault someone to be engaging in misogynistic behaviors. I absolutely consider unwanted staring to be casually oblivious misogyny - it is pretty much the definition of sexual objectification of women, and it is the refusal to consider a woman as a person and to just cater to one's own gratification instead. Unwanted advice is like that too - that guy is advertising that he thinks a woman is incapable of doing something without a man's help, which at best is patronizing and at worst shows contempt. When those actions are purely the result of a gender difference, that is misogyny. I was being facetious originally. Of course looking at and occasionally talking to women is not misogynistic. Leering at and patronizing women is though.

This is one of the best posts in this thread. If you are sitting there thinking "I've never done anything wrong that would add to a negative experience for a woman in the climbing gym!" then you're absolutely what's wrong. We've all made missteps, and instead of getting defensive (or in the case of a lot of this thread, aggressive) we should actually listen when someone else is talking.

Rob D. wrote: If you are sitting there thinking "I've never done anything wrong that would add to a negative experience for a woman in the climbing gym!" then you're absolutely what's wrong. .

That is a ridiculous statement. You are saying that every single male gym climber has at some point made a fellow woman climber uncomfortable (or worse), which is patently absurd, and that the very act of thinking this might be true is the "real problem". Even if you meant this as hyperbole (which doesn't seem to be the case) it's a very strange way to look at the world.

Gotta love male feminists. This is hilarious!! I personally have met multiple female partners in climbing gyms.

tim wrote:Shouldn't we look down on all gym climbers, regardless of sex?

I think you're guilty of a micro aggression there Tim. The gym is a safe place, at least, it should be.