Sportscenter, my favorite show, was kind enough to enlighten us about the University of Iowa's pink, visiting locker room in their stadium. The mental effect on the visiting team that is desired may not always be achieved, but over the years coaches have spent hours masking over everything pink in the locker room. Not all teams mask over the pink, some coaches let their players see the pink. All the players interviewed last night on Sportscenter were not offended by the pink. Most said things like, "I think it's a good idea", "Why not try to play mental games with your opponents?"
Nevertheless, we have gay and lesbian rights activists saying that the use of pink is trying to present women or gays in an inferior position to the young, strapping football players. What it boils down to is this: the people that are protesting the pink locker room are afraid of being offended, or they are afraid of the pink locker room offending someone else. And since something might be offensive, even if it is a long-standing tradition, it's no good and must be stopped immediately before some 300-lb-lineman breaks down in the locker room and cries for his mom because the pink makes him feel inferior. And as far as associating pink with women with weaker football players...I'm okay with that. You're lying to yourself if you think a team of women could go out onto the football field and play a tougher, better, and stronger game against a team of men, and beat them. The tradition is for the guys that don't care about offending their opponent a little, not for the activists and law professors that see something wrong with it.
1 comment:
I think I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I understand where you are coming from, but I do see this as part of a larger culture that seeks to shame men and disempower women. Regardless of how the pink is functioning in this situation, it is perceived as effective because of an existing idea that a) women are weak and b) men who are in some way like women are not as good as other men, or not real men perhaps. I don't think the concern is with offending people, but with teaching these men that these ideas are ok. I will grant you that a team of women would be unlikely to beat a team of those men, but the same can not be said for all women and all men. I see it very much the same way that I viewed Arnold calling Democratic lawmakers "girlie men." The goal was to make them look and feel weak by empasizing the inferiority of women.
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