# Pink locker rooms and a knee jerk feminist.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 23, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982 "2005-09-23T00:23:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/81 "2005-09-23T22:39:29Z")
IOW it’s a big whoosh, beagle.
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/82 "2005-09-23T23:30:17Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> From past thread experience I’ll testify there’s a very vocal contingent (at least on this board) who’d be shouting “reverse sexism” if that happened.
Those men are idiots IMO (unless they were deliberately being waggish).
> [@](#):
>
> But that’s not the point. The insult isn’t “I’m comparing your athletic skills to females, which are somewhat less than males on average.” The insult is “you’re all just a bunch of _girls_.” Meaning weak, dainty, shameful, helpless, useless, etc.
Shameful, no. But the vast majority of girls are in fact – relative to the men in question – weak and dainty, and therefore helpless and useless on a football field.
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### Author:  [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/83 "2005-09-23T23:43:36Z")
> [@Zabali\_Clawbane](#):
>
> Is this: statment made by an anonymous person in the blog even remotely true? :eek:
>
> /hijack
It might be true. In the old days University Hospitals were fully a half mile away from the stadium. There was the Field House and a huge football practice field/ polo grounds/ ROTC drill field and tennis courts and parking lots and trees and grass between them. Now the hospitals have expanded to fill that whole area and three big hospital parking structures are just across the street from the east wall of the stadium, not 200 feet away. The stadium now seats some 70,000 people and is filled, flat filled, for every home game. I can well imagine that parking for the hospital is a real pain on game days. Hell, parking is a pain all over town on game days. Iowa City is not that big a city and when I was a high school and college student there in the late 50s and early to mid 60s there weren’t 70,00 people, including students, in the whole damn’d town.
One of my pleasant memories as a teenage was sitting in my back yard a full three miles from the stadium of a warm fall afternoon and listening to the low surge of sound on the western breeze, the noise of distant surf carrying the war chant of the prairies: EEE-OH-WAH-WAH, EYE-OH-WAH-WAH, Eat ‘em up, eat ‘em up, eat ‘em up.
There are sacred cows and there are sacred cows but no cow is more sacred in the Iowa and Cedar River Valleys, from the Loess Hills to the Muscatine Island, from the Big Muddy to the Father of Waters, across that vast corn field quartered by interstate highways, than Hayden Frey and all his works and the horse he rode in on.
Professor (visiting) B is so much dead meat. She has officially blown here credibility with the faithful. EEE-oh-wah-wah, EYE-oh-wah-wah … And tomorrow we have to play Ohio State at Columbus. What would Woody Hayes say?
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/84 "2005-09-23T23:46:59Z")
> [@furt](#):
>
> Those men are idiots IMO (unless they were deliberately being waggish).
No argument here.
> [@](#):
>
> Shameful, no. But the vast majority of girls are in fact – relative to the men in question – weak and dainty, and therefore helpless and useless on a football field.
Don’t be deliberately obtuse. Of course it’s meant to shame and humiliate. That’s the thing that pisses women off about it.
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### Author:  [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/85 "2005-09-23T23:48:51Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> IOW it’s a big whoosh, beagle.
Ah.
So all of those media reporters (see above cites…Google for more to your hearts content) have been “wooshed” by ol’ misogynist Hayden.
Gotcha.
> [@](#):
>
> everybody knows what the guy’s doing
Guess you have a funny definition of “everybody”…or is this another one of those “wooshes”?
You kids and your l33t-speak get me all confoozled sometimes.
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/86 "2005-09-23T23:49:34Z")
And of course the vast majority of men are weak and dainty and helpless and useless on the field too. “Girlie-men”
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### Author:  [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/87 "2005-09-23T23:51:16Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#):
>
> And tomorrow we have to play Ohio State at Columbus. What would Woody Hayes say?
Hush you and your jinxing ways!
I’m afeard that we’re gonna put the ug in “ugly” at the shoe on Saturday.
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/88 "2005-09-23T23:58:36Z")
> [@beagledave](#):
>
> So all of those media reporters (see above cites…Google for more to your hearts content) have been “wooshed” by ol’ misogynist Hayden.
The whole thing’s a joke - yes.
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/89 "2005-09-24T00:36:36Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> Don’t be deliberately obtuse. Of course it’s meant to shame and humiliate. That’s the thing that pisses women off about it.
Do you get angry when women make sport of the shortcomings of men? If a female acquaintance were to cattily say of another woman that “she looks like a linebacker” would you denounce her for misandry? Do you get upset with the way shows like _Queer Eye for the Straight Guy_ “shame and humiliate” typical heterosexual men?
Personally, I don’t have a problem with any of those (provided they are done in good humor), as they are based in factual differences in the genders.
Am I to assume you find those things objectionable, too, or does it only run one way?
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/90 "2005-09-24T00:37:59Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> That’s the thing that pisses women off about it.
More accurately: a small minority of women.
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### Author:  [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/91 "2005-09-24T00:44:39Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> The whole thing’s a joke - yes.
Thank goodness we have you to set all of those media types straight!
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/92 "2005-09-24T00:45:52Z")
> [@furt](#):
>
> More accurately: a small minority of women.
I wasn’t talking about the pink walls there. Ask a cross section women how they feel about “ladies” and “girls” being used to ridicule and I’d think the numbers would trend a higher than a small freakish minority of women being annoyed by that. Never seen a Gallup poll on that one though.
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### Author:  [@SparrowHawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SparrowHawk)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/93 "2005-09-24T01:59:15Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> I wasn’t talking about the pink walls there. Ask a cross section women how they feel about “ladies” and “girls” being used to ridicule and I’d think the numbers would trend a higher than a small freakish minority of women being annoyed by that. Never seen a Gallup poll on that one though.
Whether it’s a small minority or not, I’m willing to fall within that group. While there are plenty of ridiculous things about my sex that I’m willing to laugh about, I don’t appreciate my sex being ridiculed for itself. As I said, it’s not the “you are useless _on a football field_, just like a girl”, it’s the extension of the contempt beyond the field and the opposing team into the real world and onto all women. The attitude can certainly be seen working out in the sort of situations where male athletes, heady with the idea that women are meant to be conquered and taken advantage of, are given leeway for criminal and abusive behavior. Boys will be boys, and all.
I’m not saying every college athlete, much less every male, is guilty of such an attitude. That would be the equivalent of the sort of thinking being objected to. But the attitude does exist. Of course, a pink locker room is hardly the height of its expression. It’s kind of cute, kind of funny, in fact. Maybe that’s why those who object to it perceive it as so pernicious: the jocular upholding of an attitude very ugly at its heart. Take objection to it, and you’re seen as a crank, an unreasonable, slightly unhinged old biddy.
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/94 "2005-09-24T02:44:52Z")
> [@SparrowHawk](#):
>
> I’m not saying every college athlete, much less every male, is guilty of such an attitude. That would be the equivalent of the sort of thinking being objected to. But the attitude does exist. Of course, a pink locker room is hardly the height of its expression. It’s kind of cute, kind of funny, in fact. Maybe that’s why those who object to it perceive it as so pernicious: the jocular upholding of an attitude very ugly at its heart. Take objection to it, and you’re seen as a crank, an unreasonable, slightly unhinged old biddy.
Gee, that’s compelling. I wonder if your next mission is to get everyone (men and women alike) to stop using the phrase “throws like a girl”, because it also is one of those pernicious mysoginistic memes. Of all things to get your panties in a bunch over, pink walls in a visitors locker room is dead last on the list.
Face it, women are weaker than men, generally do not care a whit about sports, and generally would rather stay clean and pretty than roll around in the mud while risking serious injury. (Needless risk taking? Not a big feminine trait. Ctitically vital on the football field, though.) These are all perfectly reasonable attributes to accuse a competing football team of being in order to shame them. (Though I agree with a previous poster that the message itself might serve to fire the other team up.)
The argument seems to be that feminine traits should never ever in a million years under any circumstances be considered anything less than ideal. Well, guess what? On a football field, feminine traits _are_ less than ideal; they’re downright _bad_.
Are women so insecure that the slightest hint that they may not be perfectly suited for something is such an affront? Hmmm, on second thought: “Are women so insecure that…” is almost always going to be answered with a “yes”, I guess.
Imagine a woman who can’t commit to a long term relationship due to a fear of intimacy. If one were to comment that she seemed mannish regarding relationships, that would be logical and normal. If one were then to object to this comparison on the gounds that is hurtful to men, then that person would be batshit insane.
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/95 "2005-09-24T02:55:10Z")
> [@furt](#):
>
> Personally, I don’t have a problem with any of those (provided they are done in good humor), as they are based in factual differences in the genders.
With the exception of penis length, vaginal depth and number of y chromosomes, almost all the differences between men and women are overlapping bell curves. So let’s not exaggerate the daintiness of women. My old gym teacher(ess) was a terrifying specimen who could have snapped almost any linebacker’s ulna in an arm wrestling match. At least that’s how she looked.
And good humor isn’t enough. You have to be actually funny. Misogyny, racism antisemitism - there’s a ratio of offensiveness to funniness you have to overcome. My estimate - with misogyny you have to be about twice as funny as you are offensive. So if you’re mildly offensive you have to be moderately funny or people will think you’re just a loser-dickhead. Or women anyway. If you’re really offensive you have to be extremely funny. With racism and antisemitism the ratio is like 1000 to 1. But misogyny’s cool these days so the ratio’s much lower.
The other thing here you’re forgetting is this isn’t my idiot girlfriends bitching about men after too many wine coolers. This is a college settng where there are equal opportunity considerations. You just can’t go creating an environment that officially ridicules a subset of students (even if they are on average “inferior” in something to the average of another subset), so the standards of official behavior are understandably stringent. I may think men are hopeless with children (I don’t, though you apparently do) but if an early childhood ed prof. starts cracking wise about men in their class, they need to be officially bitch-slapped.
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### Author:  [@SparrowHawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SparrowHawk)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/96 "2005-09-24T03:12:43Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> Gee, that’s compelling. I wonder if your next mission is to get everyone (men and women alike) to stop using the phrase “throws like a girl”, because it also is one of those pernicious mysoginistic memes. Of all things to get your panties in a bunch over, pink walls in a visitors locker room is dead last on the list.
My panties are fine; thanks for taking an interest. Maybe I wasn’t clear. I personally find the pink locker room kind of cute and funny. I was postulating why someone might object to it: that they find it symbolic, or even indicative, of a genuine attitudinal problem among male college athletes. We can argue over whether it’s truly representative of the problem, but I wouldn’t hold much respect for anyone who pretended the problem doesn’t exist and shouldn’t be addressed. My question would be whether paint color really was the best venue for introducing the objection to the attitude.
Oh, and anytime you want to quit saying stupid things like “throws like a girl”, be my guest. Anyone who’s taught properly can throw properly.
> [@](#):
>
> Face it, women are weaker than men, generally do not care a whit about sports, and generally would rather stay clean and pretty than roll around in the mud while risking serious injury. (Needless risk taking? Not a big feminine trait. Ctitically vital on the football field, though.) These are all perfectly reasonable attributes to accuse a competing football team of being in order to shame them. (Though I agree with a previous poster that the message itself might serve to fire the other team up.)
>
> The argument seems to be that feminine traits should never ever in a million years under any circumstances be considered anything less than ideal. Well, guess what? On a football field, feminine traits _are_ less than ideal; they’re downright _bad_.
Way to miss the point. The argument is definitely _not_ what you think it seems to be. I’m not going to bother to make it again. Go back and read the previous post, if you really want to know, which I doubt.
> [@](#):
>
> Imagine a woman who can’t commit to a long term relationship due to a fear of intimacy. If one were to comment that she seemed mannish regarding relationships, that would be logical and normal. If one were then to object to this comparison on the gounds that is hurtful to men, then that person would be batshit insane.
Oh, pish, men aren’t sensitive enough to be hurt. Men are tough, you silly git. I would find the characterization of “mannish” neither logical nor normal. However, my objection to the comparison would be on the grounds that it was a stupid thing to say.
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/97 "2005-09-24T03:42:24Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> I wasn’t talking about the pink walls there. Ask a cross section women how they feel about “ladies” and “girls” being used to ridicule and I’d think the numbers would trend a higher than a small freakish minority of women being annoyed by that. Never seen a Gallup poll on that one though.
I do not think anything but a small minority of women find the pink walls ridiculing.
> [@](#):
>
> With the exception of penis length, vaginal depth and number of y chromosomes, almost all the differences between men and women are overlapping bell curves. So let’s not exaggerate the daintiness of women.
And let’s not play silly games where we pretend there isn’t a difference between an accurate generalization and an inaccurate stereotype. Not one woman in ten thousand would have the physical toughness and strength to play 1-A football; hell, not one _man_ in a thousand does.
> [@](#):
>
> And good humor isn’t enough. You have to be actually funny.
And I respectfully submit that most people, including women, _do_ find it at least mildly amusing.
> [@](#):
>
> Misogyny, racism antisemitism - there’s a ratio of offensiveness to funniness you have to overcome.
Ah; you have a formula for measurable objective funniness we can calculate? I’ll ignore the fact that many comedians would argue that the humor is inextricably linked to the offensiveness, and instead just ask who we’re supposed to go to to get out humor approved by. Presumably we can’t just decide on our own, since that’s what got us into this mess. Is there an objective panel Hayden Fry should have gone to to get his humor-to-offensiveness ratios checked?
> [@](#):
>
> You just can’t go creating an environment that officially ridicules a subset of students.
I agree completely; but I, and I suspect the vast majority of women attending or affiliated with the University of Iowa, am not persuaded that what’s going on is remotely close to a ridicule of women.
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### Author:  [@twin\_infinitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twin_infinitive)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/98 "2005-09-24T03:48:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> We can argue over whether it’s truly representative of the problem,
It isn’t. If anything, the pink locker room pokes fun at the opposing team’s stereotypes, if any. There is nothing sexist, and certainly nothing “shaming to women” about it. Continuing to argue so just makes one look foolish and reduces what would have been a valid point to absurdity.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/99 "2005-09-24T04:12:49Z")
> [@twin infinitive](#):
>
> If anything, the pink locker room pokes fun at the opposing team’s stereotypes, if any.
Ah, I get it now. Fry had the visiting locker rooms painted pink because he’s a feminist and wants to rehabilitate visiting misogynists! So the home locker room should be pink as well, I guess.
> [@](#):
>
> There is nothing sexist, and certainly nothing “shaming to women” about it. Continuing to argue so just makes one look foolish and reduces what would have been a valid point to absurdity.
Would painting “you’re all gay!” on the walls be demeaning to gays, or would it be a valid point about gay guys not generally being football players? It’s roughly the same idea and that’s why it’s demeaning.
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### Author:  [@twin\_infinitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twin_infinitive)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/100 "2005-09-24T04:25:25Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Ah, I get it now. Fry had the visiting locker rooms painted pink because he’s a feminist and wants to rehabilitate visiting misogynists! So the home locker room should be pink as well, I guess.
No. My point is that there is no sexist angle to the pink locker room at all, except _possibly_ that an extremely mysoginist opponent may take offense. Because only a hardcore mysoginist, or a feminist who has lost touch with reality, would see the pink locker room as offensive. And honestly, who cares if either of those two groups has to deal with the horror of a pink locker room.
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Would painting “you’re all gay!” on the walls be demeaning to gays, or would it be a valid point about gay guys not generally being football players? It’s roughly the same idea and that’s why it’s demeaning.
It’s not “roughly the same idea”. It’s not even “roughly in the same ballpark” and the fact you think it is just shows that you are, unfortunately, in the “lost touch with reality” category.
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