Thursday, October 13, 2016

Locker Room Talk: No Men or All Men?

[content note: misogyny, misandry]

It turns out I have further thoughts on the Trump Tapes.

Specifically:

1) Trump dismissed his sexual assault commentary as "locker room talk." That language is telling for many reasons, a key one of which is that he did not actually make his comments in a locker room. He made them at a workplace, about a female colleague. Treating a workplace "like a locker room" (as a a locker room is defined by Trump) is actually referred to as "creating a hostile work environment." And, it says a lot about a man's worldview when he thinks the workplace is his... locker room.

2) I appreciate the sentiments of various men on social media saying that men actually just talk about mundane things, or don't really talk about things at all, in locker rooms. Since Trump the Misandrist has asserted that men as a class sexually harass women in the way that he does, or at least boast about doing so with their bros, I think it is important for men who do not sexually harass women to say so.

However, as I alluded on Twitter, it is not helpful for men to suggest that such talk does not ever happen in locker rooms, either. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Some men talk a big sexual harassment/assault game with other men in locker rooms (and other "safe" sex-segregated spaces), enabled by men who laugh along or remain silent. Other men don't.

No comments: