# 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:** 7
### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/121 "2005-09-24T20:43:36Z")
> [@furt](#):
>
> Y’know, this thread has put me in mind to see a movie. [I hope nobody finds it objectionable.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105812/)
Since I never saw it - I’ve always wondered, was the point of that movie to confirm that white men can’t jump, or to show that they actually can?
---
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/122 "2005-09-24T20:45:08Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> Since I never saw it - I’ve always wondered, was the point of that movie to confirm that white men can’t jump, or to show that they actually can?
It’s not really either. But Woody Harrelson does dunk at the end.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/123 "2005-09-24T21:23:01Z")
Talking about this whole bell-curve thing: it’s all fine and dandy to blather about the curves overlapping, which only refutes the statement “The weakest man is stronger than the strongest woman” (and similar patently false blanket statements). Does anyone, however, even **uglybeech** , seriously contend that in any contact sport, be it gridiron, soccer, either code of Rugby, Australian Rules, ice hockey, field hockey, shinty, Gaelic football or hurling, that if you compared _like with like_ - the _nth_ percentile on each bell curve, where n is what you please - women would stand up to men on anything like even terms?
I can’t speak for **ug** ’s gym teacher, but I knew socially a girl who wore the #2 shirt for Wasps ladies - Wasps are a London-based rugby club who, as a male, I wouldn’t get into as a shoe-shine boy never mind a player - and I can confidently state that if she and I had ever met in a scrum, she would have left on a stretcher, unless I deliberately went _very_ easy on her.
And it’s not just about men being bigger and heavier. My wife may even outweigh me by a few pounds these days - Mrs M is chary of revealing her exact weight - but, though my occupation is quite as sedentary as hers, I’m at least twice as strong, possibly more. I have this whole male upper body musculature thing going on, and testosterone into the bargain. She doesn’t.
So:
> [@Tenar](#):
>
> Is an 18-wheeler tractor trailer better than a Lamborghini Testarossa? Not necessarily. It all depends on what you want to do. Women are NOT inherently “bad” at sports, they are simply not the same as men. Jerk.
That’s _Ferrari_ Testarossa, but in any sport designed for and played by men, it is idiotic to expect women to come out ahead, level, or even without an embarrassing amount of daylight between the two, _if you compare like with like_.
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### Author:  [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/124 "2005-09-24T22:29:51Z")
> [@Malacandra](#):
>
> Does anyone, however, even **uglybeech** , seriously contend …that if you compared _like with like_ - the _nth_ percentile on each bell curve, where n is what you please - women would stand up to men on anything like even terms?
Sure, that’s how bell curves work. Unless they’re identical, the 5th percentile in one curve won’t equate to 5th in the other. It may equte to 7th, 10th, 20th, or 30th, etc. I only brought up overlapping bell curves as a tangential qualification to bring statements like “factual differences between men and women” in closer alignment with reality. This isn’t a penis/vagina difference, this is like a height difference - with variability and overlap. But there is no question that the average woman is a lot weaker than the average man.
> [@](#):
>
> And it’s not just about men being bigger and heavier. My wife may even outweigh me by a few pounds these days - Mrs M is chary of revealing her exact weight - but, though my occupation is quite as sedentary as hers, I’m at least twice as strong, possibly more. I have this whole male upper body musculature thing going on, and testosterone into the bargain. She doesn’t.
Yeah, muscle mass is a big deal here. I’m not sure how important testosterone is except in building muscle mass though. There are also probably some differences in muscle speed too, which would impact reaction speed. But I think (in your rugby player example) that you’re saying there are no women who are stronger than you, which is extremely unlikely unless you’re a competitive bodybuilder.
Anyway IMHO none of this is really related to the OP. Unless your contention is that the whole “girlie-man” taunt is just a comment on the relative muscle mass of men vs. women
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### Author:  [@WonJohnSoup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WonJohnSoup)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/125 "2005-09-25T03:26:03Z")
I used to wrestle in high school. It was awesome watching a girl own a guy. And it happened a lot more than some people would suspect. Maybe 1 in 4, 1 in 5 of the matches \* saw.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/126 "2005-09-25T07:55:05Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> … But I think (in your rugby player example) that you’re saying there are no women who are stronger than you, which is extremely unlikely unless you’re a competitive bodybuilder.
>
> Anyway IMHO none of this is really related to the OP. Unless your contention is that the whole “girlie-man” taunt is just a comment on the relative muscle mass of men vs. women
I didn’t say “no” women, but I did point out that the bell-curves have such a shift between them that one of the better female rugby players in the country was still appreciably smaller and weaker than a somewhat-bigger-and-stronger-than-average, but not by any stretch exceptional, man. By comparison, if I’d ever scrummed against a _male_ Wasps front-rower, there isn’t the least doubt but that I’d have been the one leaving the field on a stretcher. The gulf was that yawningly wide in both directions.
(The high-quality female rugby player is doubtless much fitter and faster than me. However, the game is structured such that she can’t run or hide for ever. There must be some - the number’s indefinite - contact situations such as the scrum and the lineout, just as there must be scrimmages in gridiron.)
Related to the OP? Well, this thread’s been meandering around every which way, I agree, and I don’t think I’m the worst sinner here. The “girlie-man” taunt, if we interpret the pink locker-room as that, is based on the flat-out fact that, were the visiting team a bunch of women as is being crudely asserted, they wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of winning, or even losing with dignity. It’s that kind of game. Whether that’s because of smaller size, lesser strength, poor ball skills, reduced aggression, lack of courage, or whatever… is really rather beside the point.
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/127 "2005-09-25T13:52:00Z")
> [@Zabali\_Clawbane](#):
>
> I thought pink came to be associated with women in Victorian times, before that it was considered “aggressive” and “virile” and a male color. Then the Victorians began associating the color blue with boys, and needed a color for girls. 😕[This link](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=238733), and the links that lead from it seem to back me up a bit.
[nitpick]
The link backs up your basic statement (that pink used to be for boys and now has switched) but you have the times all cocked up. The Victorian era was from approx. 1840-1900; one of the magazine ads quoted in that article had pink being for boys in 1914, which was on the tail end of the _Edwardian_ era, which followed the Victorian era. It gives WWII as the time that pink and blue associations switched genders, which is absolutely nowhere near Victorian times.
[/nitpick]
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/128 "2005-09-25T15:34:28Z")
> [@uglybeech](#):
>
> Since I never saw it - I’ve always wondered, was the point of that movie to confirm that white men can’t jump, or to show that they actually can?
As **Marley** said, it didn’t especially do either. The title was just some good-natured and fact-based teasing.
And it did suck; monumentally so.
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### Author:  [@twin\_infinitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twin_infinitive)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/129 "2005-09-25T18:20:01Z")
> [@Excalibre](#):
>
> If you really, honestly thought it was a relevant comment (I trust you realize now that it certainly wasn’t), then I should apologize. I didn’t realize you were developmentally disabled - now I feel like a jerk for making fun of your intelligence. It’d be like beating up a kid in a wheelchair - just not a fair fight.
It was a relevant comment.
I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept for you, but “pink” does not equal “women.”
Many women don’t like pink, and it has nothing to do with hating women. This is important, because if we used your definition this would not be possible.
In fact, some women don’t like pink precisely because of its connotations with being unaggressive, uber-feminine, etc. Women can be great at sports. But probably not if they are unaggressive and uber-feminine.
In that light, your already idiotic slander of the coach becomes even more ridiculous.
As a side note, your attempt to equate calling someone developmentally disabled with painting a locker room pink is the biggest indicator yet that there is you, and there is reality, and never the twain shall meet.
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2005, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/130 "2005-09-26T06:17:47Z")
> [@Tenar](#):
>
> Perhaps ironically, THIS (and the other postings by Ellis Dee] is far more insulting to me than the pink locker room thing.
>
> Women are NOT less skilled at football. They are NOT less talented at football. They are simply SMALLER and LIGHTER and have different centers of gravity. This has nothing to do with their skill level or their talent. Could a team of fit and talented women beat a team of fit and talented men? Probably not. But that is a matter of SIZE rather than ability.
Can you read? I said: “Women aren’t as good as men at football.” This little diatribe of yours actually supports my statement, dipshit. And by the way, there are quite a few positions where size dictates ability. Not one 190 pound person on the planet could play offensive lineman well, regardless of skill, training, gender or muscle mass. Think sumo wrestling. Would you say that women are just as good as men at sumo wrestling, only smaller? If you did, you’d be an idiot, because size itself is part of the what makes the competitor successful. (I’m not saying women can’t be bigger than 190. I’m refuting your ignorant assertion that ability and size are unrelated.)
Really what the pink locker rooms are saying are reflected quite well in [this guy’s story and his attitude](http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,6903,543962,00.html). The message is that the opposing team will be as easily handled as the top two women’s tennis players were handled by the #203 seeded man.
I notice nobody has addressed my last post. In another thread, I described the thrashing that the Giants just suffered with the following:
“Tomlinson played like a man among boys out there.”
So, please explain:
a) How this statement is hateful to boys, or
b) How this statement is qualitatively different from “playing like a bunch of women” or however you want to translate the pink locker room message.
Regarding the _White men Can’t Jump_ tangent: the white guy could not, in fact, jump. He lost everything he’d worked for through the whole movie by betting the black guy he could dunk, which he of course could not do. After losing all his money, his girlfriend left him.
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### Author:  [@WonJohnSoup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WonJohnSoup)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/131 "2005-09-26T06:37:26Z")
Being a boy is a temporary condition. Gender is something you’re born and stuck with (barring the obvious surgery option ofcourse).
As for why it’s not nearly that offensive that the title of the movie is ‘White Men Can’t Jump,’ women have historically been an oppressed class. White men have not. I never understand why some people ignore the obvious context that matters so much here.
And Woody dunked at the end.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2005, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/132 "2005-09-26T08:22:53Z")
> [@WonJohnSoup](#):
>
> I used to wrestle in high school. It was awesome watching a girl own a guy. And it happened a lot more than some people would suspect. Maybe 1 in 4, 1 in 5 of the matches I saw.
Remember that whole bell-curve thing? What’s going on here is that the contestants have been matched for size - I’m not sure to within how many pounds, but I believe the range is small - and you’ve probably got females who rank _much_ higher on their gender curve for strength and aggression than their opponents… and still lose three out of four or four out of five, minimum. That’s after comparing _unlike with unlike_ greatly to the females’ advantage.
We had a discussion in GQ or GD some months back. In the course of it, it emerged that one of the top women wrestlers in the country trained on high-school boys of similar size… and still lost half the time. A man with aspirations to represent his country who lost to boys his size half the time would be laughed out of the sport.
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### Author:  [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/133 "2005-09-27T01:14:21Z")
update.
I wish that I could say that I was surprised by this, but I’m not.
Apparently some chuckleheads have decided to vent their opinion about Ms. Buzuvis’ position via the only POSSIBLE way, by of course making [death threats](http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050926/NEWS01/50926001/1053/RSS02).
Idiots.
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### Author:  [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/134 "2005-09-27T03:01:59Z")
> [@WonJohnSoup](#):
>
> As for why it’s not nearly that offensive that the title of the movie is ‘White Men Can’t Jump,’ women have historically been an oppressed class. White men have not. I never understand why some people ignore the obvious context that matters so much here.
So at what point will white men have the right not to be ridiculed?
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### Author:  [@WonJohnSoup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WonJohnSoup)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/135 "2005-09-27T07:05:25Z")
> [@BabaBooey](#):
>
> So at what point will white men have the right not to be ridiculed?
I dunno. Never? I never felt anyone had the ‘right’ not to be ridiculed. You’re just a misogynist jerk if you use the actual condition of being a woman as an insult.
If you want to know when it’ll be AS BAD as insulting an oppressed minority with a stereotype, the answer is: when you’re no longer on top of the hill.
> [@](#):
>
> Remember that whole bell-curve thing? What’s going on here is that the contestants have been matched for size - I’m not sure to within how many pounds, but I believe the range is small - and you’ve probably got females who rank much higher on their gender curve for strength and aggression than their opponents… and still lose three out of four or four out of five, minimum. That’s after comparing unlike with unlike greatly to the females’ advantage.
>
> We had a discussion in GQ or GD some months back. In the course of it, it emerged that one of the top women wrestlers in the country trained on high-school boys of similar size… and still lost half the time. A man with aspirations to represent his country who lost to boys his size half the time would be laughed out of the sport.
I’m not sure what your point is. I personally don’t think even if you took all the women in the world and had them train full time would they dominate the guys we have in the sport now. Ofcourse women will generally have less muscle mass pound for pound than a guy in the same weight class. I was coming from the stance that most people probably think a girl would lose maybe 90, 95% of the time. And 1 in 5 is still a pretty lousy record. It’s just better than what most people would expect.
I personally have a problem with some of the feminists I know who insist that women can be just as good as guys in sports that have been traditionally dominated by men. I don’t think they can be as good at football cuz size obviously matters a lot there, and you’d be hard pressed to find a woman who can replace your average NFL linebacker. I just think it’s a real male-centric way of thinking. The real problem is that most people just don’t see something like figure skating and synchronized swimming as respectable as basketball (I chose figure skating and synchronized swimming because I’m guessing the lower center of gravity and naturally higher body-fat ratio gives women an advantage there).
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/136 "2005-09-27T07:33:21Z")
> [@WonJohnSoup](#):
>
> Being a boy is a temporary condition. Gender is something you’re born and stuck with (barring the obvious surgery option ofcourse).
So disparaging the other team by saying they play like girls, as opposed to women, would be fine then?
And recognizing that men are better than women at football is an indicator of being a misogynist jerk? I did not know that reality could be sexist.
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### Author:  [@WonJohnSoup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WonJohnSoup)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/137 "2005-09-27T07:59:28Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> So disparaging the other team by saying they play like girls, as opposed to women, would be fine then?
>
> And recognizing that men are better than women at football is an indicator of being a misogynist jerk? I did not know that reality could be sexist.
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> So disparaging the other team by saying they play like girls, as opposed to women, would be fine then?
>
> And recognizing that men are better than women at football is an indicator of being a misogynist jerk? I did not know that reality could be sexist.
I dunno. Is the main insult that they’re female and the young age is just the frosting on the insult? Cuz that seems to be what it’s about. Otherwise you’d insult an all-men team by calling them “boys” and avoid the confusion, right? In anycase, half the time ‘girls’ refers to women, too. Using ‘boys’ in place of ‘guys’ isn’t nearly as common.
I don’t think you’re a misogynist jerk for recognizing reality. I just posted my own views above yours regarding that. It’s still wrong to use womenhood as the basis for the insult. How about this? Blacks as a whole score lower than average on the SATs. Next time I run across someone who scores below the class average on a school test, I’m gonna go, “What the hell? What’re you, Black?” Though I guess that’s the reality so it’s okay to say that.
And the reality we live in is a world that IS sexist. You want to tell me that it’s not?
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/138 "2005-09-27T08:49:56Z")
Your ideas are interesting and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I believe however there is a fair amount of debate about why black people have a lower average SAT score and it is generally held to be the fault of culture and upbringing. If this were not the case - if it were merely the case that black people were congenitally stupid, and there was nothing to be done about this - then it might make sense to structure society in accordance with reality, and it might be legitimate to scold an under-performing white student with the shameful accusation that he was no better than a black. But the evidence does not justify such a view; there are far too many brilliant black intellectuals - lawyers, doctors, scientists, etc. Were there as many brilliant and successful female footballers, there would no longer be any foundation but prejudice for insulting a man’s prowess by likening him to a woman.
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/139 "2005-09-27T08:52:44Z")
> [@WonJohnSoup](#):
>
> I dunno. Is the main insult that they’re female and the young age is just the frosting on the insult? Cuz that seems to be what it’s about. Otherwise you’d insult an all-men team by calling them “boys” and avoid the confusion, right? In anycase, half the time ‘girls’ refers to women, too. Using ‘boys’ in place of ‘guys’ isn’t nearly as common.
The main insult is that they are hopelessly outclassed. Whether referring to them as boys, girls, women, children; it all conveys the same concept.
If women are offended by the idea that they can’t compete with men in sports, then why aren’t they offended that 99% of all sports segregate men and women?
Hell, most men’s sports allow women to compete with the men, yet no women’s sports allow men to compete with the women. The reality that drives that dichotomy is the exact same reality that makes pink locker rooms a legitimate means of psyching out your opponent.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2005, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-locker-rooms-and-a-knee-jerk-feminist/322982/140 "2005-09-27T09:19:40Z")
Even funnier, I suppose, would be to decorate the locker-room in the style of a kindergarten - complete with toddler-sized furniture. 😃
Talking of segregated sports, it always amuses me when I hear female tennis players complaining that their prize money is less than men’s (it isn’t everywhere, but it is at Wimbledon, f’rinstance). The solution is simple: integrate the sport and have everyone compete for the same prize.
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