Nude girl in adverts for climbing products

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Where can we find a reason to the fact that several big brands within the sector of climbing and mountaineering in their marketing have started to use pictures of half nude / nude girls?

We aren’t sure about the answer, but sure that we don’t like it and we will be happy to see it changed.

In the climbing guideline that cover Slovenia published by SIDARTA we find a nude girl in a PETZL advert. In the German magazine KLETTERN, the U.K. company RED CHILI try to catch the reader’s eyes with a girl’s backside in mini shorts. In the publishing firm DESNIVEL’s climbing guideline ”Psicobloc” we meet a picture of a man bouldering while, by the crag, two girls sunning, topless.

Those adverts and pictures reminds us of the old time pin-up calendar that you used to see in workshops and in dressing-rooms in mechanic industries, working places with traditionaly only men. We wonder, what makes PETZL, RED CHILI and DESNIVEL to place this category of people side by side with us climbers, their customers?

By the crag you still often finds more men than women, but the number of women are steady increasing and what was mainly a sport for men 25 years ago has now become a sport for anyone, especially regarding sport climbing and bouldering. The result of this is also to be found among many successful accents; about ten girls that have sent the grade 8c+ and for the first time in history a woman that climbs an equally hard route as a man when Josune Bereziartu’s successfully sent a 9a+!

With women as Lynn Hill, Robyn Erbesfield, Isabelle Patisser, Suzi Good, Ruth Jenkins, Mia Axon, Josune Bereziartu, Katie Brown, Leire Aguirre, Marietta Uhden, Jenny Lavarda and mountaineer's as Junko Tabei, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Hannelore Schmatz, Stacy Allison and many unnamed that stands for remarkable performance in the world of climbing and mountaineering. Their struggle, hours put to hours of training and preparations doesn’t seem to have anything to do with an old-fashioned view on women where pictures and adverts wants us to see them as bodies instead of seeing them as people that we can admire and get inspiration from because of their performances.

The question is, will the world of sport climbing, climbing and mountaineering be a part of this and encourage it to continue – to spread that female empowerment simply comes from being sexy?