Photo:Pete Webb

When Andy Kirkpatrick revealed, on Facebook, that certain feedback said that his climb with Alex Jones puts people off climbing and does a disservice to the sport he also asked for opinions. What we're talking about here is a climb done for a single purpose. It wasn't done to promote climbing, to encourage people to go outside their comfort zone or even to show anyone can do something if they try. It was done to raise money, a one off that is on target to raise £1.5m. What I replied I've reproduced below and I wouldn't change a word!

"I hate all "the sport" bollocks. In 50+ years I've met people who climb for the enjoyment, people who climb for the thrill, people who climb to push themselves and even people who climb for money but I've never met anyone who climbs for "the sport". If it puts a few people off then maybe they weren't really right for climbing anyway and compared to the number it inspires it's negligible. Above all, though, it wasn't about the climbing it was about raising millions of pounds for people who would love the luxury of being able to choose whether they eat or not never mind if they choose to climb as a recreation."

While it took 3 days of prime time TV coverage to elicit such a negative response it appears that it only took three and a half minutes for Sheffield Adventure Film Festival to upset someone. LaDIYfest (noun) (pron; lay dee aye why fest) Sheffield, an inclusive, DIY, anti-capitalist, community-based feminist collective involved with local activism and a range of events and activities, decided on the basis of the ShAFF trailer that the festival was responsible for showing "all young, white, conventionally attractive within the boundaries of "acceptable" femininity" in a "role that's largely decorative". The intial post ends with "having a strand which promotes women’s films is self-defeating if the trailer, which will be most people’s encounter with the festival, barely features any women actually doing sports. Please try harder. Maybe even try being adventurous."

While acknowledging that "browsing their website that they are trying to promote films made by and featuring women in what they recognise is a male-dominated industry" they then went onto to claim that ShAFF is"a major festival with paid employees, sponsors, funding and access to the press".

There are so many aspects of this attack that piss me off, starting with the fact that "a major festival with paid employees, sponsors, funding and access to the press" in reality has no full time employees, is run by a self employed person with a part time assistant and a mass of volunteers. Sponsors? Sure there are a few sponsors but are they constantly on the phone offering pots of money? Not a chance and I know this from experience. Those sponsors are hard fought for with months of negotiations after almost a decade of delivering a constantly growing festival footfall and often translate into services rather than actual money.

The reality of ShAFF, beyond the 3:30 trailer is a festival that embraces equality like no other. This is a festival where female directed films are promoted, as are films featuring women. It's a festival where one of the highlights is a film and presentation by Jamie Andrew, a quadruple amputee, and a festival that doesn't see an athlete's colour, religion or race, it just sees a fellow lover of the outdoors. Beyond the films this is a festival that promotes youth with dedicated young adventurer films and a young adventurer photo exhibition. It's also a festival where film makers, directers athletes and the glitterati of the outdoor world mix with backpacking Joe Public on equal terms, a rare festival where there's no point hero worshipping the guy or girl on the big screen because you could well be elbowing them out of the way at the bar the same evening. It's a festival that doesn't charge a fee to have a film considered, making it available to those with less money and a festival which helps both the environment and the penny conscious with the biggest 2nd hand kit sale of its type in the country - and then suggests to sellars that any unsold items get donated to a community charity Gift Your Gear. These aren't the actions of a discriminatory festival but of a festival that lives and breathes equality, not just in the words is uses but in every choice it makes.

Perhaps there is an under representation of women visibly engaging in active sports in the trailer and perhaps that's because of the acknowledged under representation of womenin adventure sports overall. Put simply you can only make a trailer from the content you're given to work with. As for the accusation that the women are in a "role that's largely decorative" and the focus on "a young, slim, blonde woman going for a run with her dog", "Another young, conventionally attractive woman with a nose piercin" and "Two women – again, attractive, young and blonde" - well like it or not adventure sports does tend to be a young person's thing in general. Yeah I hate it too, but the films this trailer is made from are real, literally on the edge, adventure sports not some back garden You've Been Framed episodes. To operate at the level the athletes involved are at generally means being young and very fit, so it's no surprise that the majority of people in the film, and trailer, are young and fit (which presumably means "conventionally" attractive, although that is rather too judgemental for me).

Jamie Andrew is presenting a special fundraising evening for Sheffield Hospitals Charity at ShAFF

What the two examples above demonstrate is the way in which there always seems to be someone who, rather than look at the good things that people do, choose to pick those actively doing something about an issue and try to find a negative. It's the same as the way in which Greenpeace chooses to pick on the outdoor industry in relation to down production rather than the bedding industry - the outdoor industry actually leads in terms of traceable and environmental down but gets far more attention than an industry that does little. It's easy to criticise  and criticising someone in the public eye may just get you some attention for a fleeting moment, and it's even easier if you're doing it as a bystander. It will be interesting to see if those criticising ShAFF would join a special forum on women in adventure sports films on offer from the organisers and even more interesting to see if anyone questioning whether Alex v The Rock was a disservice to the sport can raise £1.5million for those worse off than us.

As a business, as a website and as a person I am 100% behind Andy Kirkpatrick and Alex Jones's climb (not forgetting the team who helped make it happen) and I couldn't give the proverbial about whether it was good, bad or indifferent in climbing terms. It put a positive impression of climbing in front of a population who normally only hear of climbing when someone dies but most of all it achieved a purpose I defy anyone to criticise. As for Matt Heason and Lissa Cook who organise ShAFF, I'm equally supportive of both the event and the individuals. Sure I do quite a bit of work for ShAFF and I consider Matt and Lissa as friends, but I do that work for nothing because of what ShAFF is and I chose Matt and Lissa as friends because they epitomise the values I admire, they have my total respect and the idea that they could discriminate against any section of society would be completely alien to them.

It may not be very British but for once I think it's time we stood up and said "Bloody good show" and stopped being so negative.

Dave

Editor MyOutdoors

Note: This article was restored from the archives. It's published creation date is inaccurate.