I'm doing a paper on how the sports climbing community has adapted to women's needs. My ideas are clothing/equipment, events/workshops, books specifically for women/websites, etc,...

I would also like to know why women start climbing in the first place, what are their initial goals and problems they face when they're starting.

If anyone has any ideas or information about how the community has adapted to women, it would be very helpful. Thank you!

Chat to someone at Run Like a Girl (Gosia or Megan)
or Delaney who does the Rock Chicks website.

They'll give you some good info and some exciting stories!

I second that!

needing to pee when your on a tiny ledge with guys is about the only real problem I can think of! that and "womens specific" clothing that only comes in pink or baby blue or more recently white????, that leaves your back open every time you bend over!
Other than that its a mans world and it rocks if you have a good sense of humour, can carry all of your own stuff, remain calm when the shit hits the fan and dont take them boys seriously at all!

Same reason that guys start climbing in the first place...

When I first started climbing there weren't many chicks around me. The guys would try give me helpful beta but they didn't understand that women's bodies work differently and it would be frustrating that I couldn't simply do it their way. Eventually you learn how your body works and you start finding other women to climb with and then you get "chick beta". It was a real eye-opener and great to learn.
Every climber needs to figure out their own style and how their body works but when I started I felt very alone in discovering this. These days it seems there is a lot more training and knowledge available to me (perhaps I was just isolated when I started, this knowledge has probably been around for a while).

A friend of mine told me to come try out climbing and I got hooked

I agree with what illona said about guys trying to give advice that doesn't quite work for women. They tend to forget that we don't have the strength they do and have to rely on technique more than strength to get up a route

It's not just about strength but about a different centre of balance and being better or worse at certain techniques. For example when I started I wasn't very strong on gastons but my boyfriend at the time was. I would have to rework the beta so that I would end up side-pulling the same hold that he was gastoning.
And there were a whole bunch of tiny holds he would never even consider as a hold (i.e. he wouldn't even see them - I called it crimp myopia) but which I would find very useful.