A rock climber was minding her own business when a nearby man made the 'most sexist' comment she'd ever heard while climbing.
Jess, who describes herself as 'just a girl exploring the world with her dog', was recently tackling a rather challenging climb (to me, they all look really difficult) when some men around her starting having a conversation.
Were they praising her climbing? Not really. Were they talking about everyday life, sport, current affairs or literally anything not to do with the woman in front of them? Sadly, no.
The TikToker (@hiker.jess) was getting ready to ascend a rockface, getting a feel of it, when she overheard some iffy comments from some spectating men. 'Yeah, I've been interested in this but I don't have the strength,' one of the men said.
'Now this has got to be harder for women because women carry more weight than men do,' he continued.
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Now, research has shown that men, on average, store fat a bit differently from women – but there's nothing to say it should bear any effect on someone's ability to climb. Also, it's obviously none of their business.
'Yeah a lot of people think that climbing is just all upper body... it's also a lot of footwork,' the man's pal replies. 'It's a lot of thought too,' he says. 'Yeah, thought and body position,' his friend adds. 'Because she's probably not stronger than me. I could lift more than her – but look at her go... and women normally carry more weight,' he continues, before Jess climbs down and walks away.
Jess has posted a couple of versions of the clip, but the original upload has more than 2.7 million views and thousands of comments. 'How do you stay silent? I’d be screaming by the time you were done,' one user wrote. 'Male podcasts taking a field trip to go climbing,' another wrote. 'It’s the way men just be talking nonsense with each other like this and think they’re all making solid points,' a third commented.
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In a follow-up video, Jess said the hardest part was 'definitely staying silent... I didn't feel confident or safe enough in my surroundings to turn around and say something to this man. He wasn't a climber, he was just a bystander, which made it even worse when nobody in the climbing community turned around to say anything.'
'I don't process my emotions very clearly, and so it took several hours afterwards for me to think of something witty I could have said. In the moment though, I felt like I was on display, and anything I could have done was going to be criticised by this man,' she added.
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Cameron Frew