14-Year-Old Girl Paving Way For Women To Dominate Rock-Climbing

How will Gen Z impact your business today, tomorrow, and in ten years?Ashima Shiraishi is 14 years old, and she's being hailed as among the top rock climbers in the world, if not the best. She is the youngest climber of either gender (and the first woman) to climb at the highest difficulty grade.She can't compete against adults in sanctioned competitions until she turns eighteen, but has beaten them in other contests. There are those who think she may be the first female climber whose accomplishments transcend gender, and she told Vice, "Climbing is a sport that females might take the lead in. They're the ones that will be pushing the sport."As female athletes continue to be considered second-tier compared to male, and even female gamers are shut out and discriminated against in a game whose success is based on skill and not physical strength, rock-climbing may be one of the first sports women and men can compete in against each other that can shift our ideas about sports and gender. If women can beat men at sports, one of the shibboleths of sexism falls away. Gen Z updates daily – Download n2 on the app store now.