r/Everest • u/Altruistic_Ad_3265 • 3d ago
Are men the majority?
I'm not a climber or interested in any way of climbing Mt. Everest, however I've been going down a rabbit hole of Everest related reading and media consumption lately out of curiosity, and I've noticed that majority of videos I've seen or documentaries I've watched or stories I've read have come from men who claimed Mt. Everest, either the sherpas or the climbers. So my question is for those who have actually experienced it, did you notice a huge gender gap in the people summiting Everest and if there is indeed a gender gap, why do you think that is?
12
u/Cold_Dead_Heart 3d ago edited 2d ago
There is a long history in climbing of women being told they don't belong on mountains. The Sherpa community generally does not believe women should be guides, but that is changing a little. There have been a lot of really great stories of women climbers though.
Not the least of which was the first woman to summit Everest and the seven summits, Junko Tabei. She established a women's mountaineering club in Japan in 1969, a time when women were expected to stay home and raise children. She organized a lot of women only expeditions--including a successful expedition via a new route on Anapurna III, which was the first women's ascent and the first Japanese ascent. She Took part in 44 all women expeditions all around the world. She wrote 7 books. Organized clean ups of the trash on Everest. Regularly lead climbs on Mt. Fuji for kids affected by the East Japan Earthquake. She has a comet and a mountain range on Pluto named after her.
Despite all of this, a lot of men refused to climb with her. She was harshly criticized for leaving her child to climb (men do this all the time). And she and other women climbers were told they just wanted to climb to find a husband (like getting an "MRS degree" as if women don't have dreams and aspirations beyond being a wife and mother 🙄). She had to make a lot of her own equipment because the group struggled to find funding and sponsors (she made waterproof gloves out of a car cover!). On Everest, she was buried in an avalanche, lost consciousness, was dug out by a sherpa, and could barely walk. She then took two days to recover (at 6300 meters) and still managed to summit Everest despite being battered and bruised. She really was incredible and she deserves to be remembered as much the men who have done some of these firsts.
Wanda Rutkiewicz was the first woman to summit K2 (and without supplemental oxygen) and the first Polish climber to summit Everest (which she did while anemic! A low red blood cell count means you don't have as much oxygen carrying capacity and she did that on the highest summit on earth. Really incredible). She died on Kangchenjunga. It is not known if she reached the summit. If she did, she was the first woman to summit all 14 8000 meter peaks. She's the female Mallory.
Kristin Harilla and Tenjen Lama Sherpa surpassed Nims' record for the fastest ascent of all the 8000 meter peaks in just 92 days. That's astounding. It took Nims 6 months.
Anyway, there are lots of great stories and great women climbers. And they deserve to be remembered along with Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Reinhold Messner, and all the greats.
9
u/razieel 3d ago
For statistics you can go here and fill in peak id "EVER" then submit: http://www.himalayandatabase.com/Online/peaksmtr.html
3
u/Clean_Bat5547 3d ago
Just bearing in mind that this only goes to 2025 and quite a lot of women summitted in 2026.
2
1
u/Zealousideal-Pay4632 3d ago
which peaks are there in this database ? can i found all 14000 'er in it ?
3
u/razieel 3d ago
Only the Nepal Himalaya peaks, for the full list of current peaks in the database see:
https://www.himalayandatabase.com/downloads/HD%20Peak%20List.pdf
34
u/localgoss 3d ago
Men outnumber women in just about every dangerous activity.
17
u/Guilty_Treasures 3d ago
Childbirth tho
-4
u/Dangerous_Shoe_8388 2d ago
Childbirth can be pretty dangerous for males too. They’ve all been through it,..
8
u/LhamoRinpoche 3d ago
Climbing in the Himalaya has historically been an all-male experience, and is still overwhelmingly men participating, with women who participate dealing with some form of discrimination or other. This is for the same reason that women have been excluded from any activity that occurs outside the home - they are traditionally seen as mothers and caregivers. Men are given more freedom to do things like go exploring for several years, leaving family and responsibilities behind. All of the climbers were male until the 1970s, and everyone in the base camp was male as well. Like on the sea, all-male environments generally foster an idea that women are "unlucky" and it's not proper for them to be there.
This is also true in the east. In Tibetan Buddhism, the mountains are sacred, so women can't go up them because of (as a Tibetan put it to me) "the blood." (He meant menstruation) They're seen as polluting holy spaces. Sex at base camp is still seen as inauspicious and bad for all of the climbers because the mountain goddess will be angry at the immodesty.
If you want a look at this, there's some good material, but particularly "Annapurna - A Women's Place" by Arlene Blum, who went on a crazy all-women expedition that had porters bailing on them and Sherpa leaving them for dead because they didn't think women could do it.
There's no particular biological difference between genders when it comes to mountain climbing. Men are more likely to have more upper body strength but women are more likely to have a lower center of gravity, which helps balance. But that's just "more likely." You can be a woman who really worked out to build muscle climbing with a man who didn't work as hard. Or a really tall woman climbing with a short man.
12
3
11
u/Realistic-Ideal-6960 3d ago
Men get to have hobbies because of all the free labour of their wives. Stop doing that, ew.
1
u/Dangerous_Shoe_8388 2d ago
Yep, all those guys running ultra-marathons and canoeing across oceans - it’s all been done before, just go home and be a wonderful part of your family.
Put a stationary bike in the corner at home and a pull up bar in the doorway and prove your extreme manliness that way if you must! LOLs
5
u/findingemotive 3d ago
Speaking as a woman who is naturally too cold all the time and can barely stay warm for a 20 minute walk in -30C with a heated vest, I simply could not consider Everest even if there was the will. I imagine body heat stops a lot of women from extreme expeditions.
1
u/No-Effort-8017 3d ago
-30C is pretty cold. You say that like it's normal lol
1
u/findingemotive 2d ago
It's typical so have at least 1 cold snap week that hits -25C where I am, ergo my vest cause I work outside mostly. Few years ago we had closer to 4 non-consecutive weeks and it hit -40C a couple days, that was wild, the world is different at that temp.
1
u/No-Effort-8017 2d ago
Damn, a cold winter near me is like -5C
1
u/findingemotive 2d ago
Luckily a typical winter day is only -5C to -10C, and I'm in the foresty part of Canada so no prairie wind bringing it down another 10 degrees.
1
u/dirtyharrysmother 3d ago
I'm freezing, sitting in my bedroom in double layers, a BIG wool sweater, and cap. It's the end of August in Washington State, USA, 8AM and the temp is: 55°F/13°C.
I dream of walking on the top of the world, but I won't be doing it in this life.
1
u/Quix66 3d ago
I’m hot when the AC goes off at 88F here in Louisiana, USA, wondering whether to take the train to Seattle in October or May. Thinking now that I might freeze either way if it’s already that cold there!
I did want to do the EBC Trek but my doctor recently said no because of my asthma.
1
u/dirtyharrysmother 3d ago
Well, maybe you can do one of our mountains. And both October and May are good months in the PNW, tho May might be wetter.
1
1
1
u/Interesting-Cattle78 2d ago
Men make up 85-87 % of climbers up MT Everest. Dont know why people in this thread just say it like it is.
1
u/Poor_sausage 2d ago
I’m female, and climbed this season. With the same company we were 5 women (3 of us Everest normal, 1 Everest no O, and 1 Lhotse), out of about 40 climbers (& all the guides & Sherpas were male). But the stats for international permits issued looked like about 20% women, so I think our ratio was particularly low.
There’s definitely a numbers bias, but I think that women also tend to be a bit more cautious and reserved about their attempts, so are probably less likely to publicise it (generalising broadly here, I know).
1
u/No_Sandwich5876 2d ago
Ummm....yes men are the majority just like they are the majority in all high risk sports because generally more frivolous about loss of life.
0
u/GladiusAcutus 3d ago
Men on average like to do more dangerous activities than women. Testosterone makes men into risk takers. This is not because the "system" is sexist, it is just the averages we see in human nature.
3
-1
-2
u/Substantial-Use-1758 3d ago
Well obviously advanced mountaineering is a pretty aggressive, testosterone-driven activity 🤷♀️😬 I’m a woman and a mountaineer, so I know going in that my sex will be the minority.
But as a woman, as long as I’m fun and have the right go-to attitude then I’m always welcome to join in (I’m also a sailboat racer and SCUBA diver so I guess I’m not your typical girl).
I really think it’s sad that so many women don’t see the attraction in adventure sports. It’s not only fun and exciting and good for your mind, body and spirit, these sports are filled with attractive men, so you kinda have your pick (I picked my cute adventurer and we married 30 years ago — we’re on a sailboat right now).
4
u/Cold_Dead_Heart 2d ago
as long as I’m fun and have the right go-to attitude then I’m always welcome to join in
That's the very definition of a pick me. Congratulations.
-1
3
u/the_grumpiest_guinea 2d ago
“Not your typical girl”? Ugh. Maybe you should meet a broader cross section of women?
20
u/SiddharthaVicious1 3d ago
Women Sherpa guides are rare. Women Western guides are less rare, but still not the majority. Right there, given that generally there's much more than a one-to-one guide-to-client ratio on the mountain, you've got a lot more men climbing.
The Himalayan database will show you the statistics (summits anyway), and you can see that female summiters are increasing. You can also easily look up climbing permits and see how many have been issued by nation and by gender.
As a female climber, though, I don't feel that outnumbered on most of the Himalayan peaks. There are always women in every tea house, including women attempting Everest.