Climbing Culture, Gender and the Body

Climbing Culture, Gender and the Body offers a nuanced and critical analysis of the ways in which the narrative of the ideal climbing body steeped in masculine, elite aesthetics, has come to dominate climbing culture across gender identities, often to the exclusion and detriment of most climbers. Drawing from historical analysis, critical theory, including gender performance and genealogy, and close readings of climbing media, including films, memoirs, and performances, this book traces how certain body types are represented and celebrated as the norm. It examines the genealogy of the climbing body and its entrenchment in a narrow physical ideal, asking how these ideals have been perpetuated through specific storytelling forms. In doing so, it exposes the embodied costs of chasing a hypermasculine standard in a sport already defined by risk and extremity, including disordered eating, and extreme risk taking. Drawing from comprehensive research and cultural critique, the book investigates how new ways of thinking about the way sporting bodies are narrativized can disrupt this conformity. It concludes by proposing alternative narratives that centre diverse, non-normative bodies and new modes of belonging in the sport. This book will be useful for students, scholars and researchers interested in sport studies, gender and performance studies, and body politics, as well as for climbers seeking a critical reappraisal of their sport’s cultural landscape.