“Locker room culture” is never defensible

TW: This article includes discussion of sexual violence.

The pervasiveness of damaging heteronormative standards – including an alarming disregard for women’s autonomy and safety – has been demonstrated by a recent article written by a University of St Andrews student.

In recent weeks, an article defending ‘locker room culture’ was published in the Freshers’ Magazine of student publication The Saint. Positing that men and women cannot be friends without an element of physical tension, the article was heavily criticised for being not only misogynistic, but disrespectful towards survivors of sexual abuse. Coming on the back of an Instagram group called St Andrews Survivors, which has seen dozens of allegations of sexual abuse reported by users over the summer, criticism of the article was imminent. An open letter from the University’s Feminist Society decrying the content of the article even made its way into The Times.

The Saint subsequently took down the article, with the admission that its author, Linden Grigg, had been given a chance to rewrite it. When asked for comment, this is how Grigg addressed the criticisms:

“I do find it hurtful that you suggest I ‘am unable to view women through a lens other than sexual’. This is untrue and misleading. I have three younger sisters at home, all of whom I admire immensely, and my mother is my role model in life.”

As I see it, by attempting to counter claims that he sexualises women through mentioning that he has a mother and sisters, the writer is simply setting up a straw man. The accusation levied against him concerns women as a group. Any man ‘redeeming’ himself by graciously choosing not to sexualise the very last women he should be sexualising if, indeed, there is a hierarchy, does not make any other woman safe from the toxic power of the male gaze. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the torrents of comments under every social media article addressing misogyny, sexual violence and any negative actions taken by men against women, where the resounding message that is repeated time again is “not all men”. Or the denial of racism with the commonly-heard phrase “But my best friend/cousin/spouse/neighbour is black!” Keeping members of discriminated groups within your social circle does not make you a tolerant person by default.

“Its overt implication is that women are only valuable as family members or people in a position of care to the (male) individual.”

More significantly, however, Grigg’s principle here falls back upon the old pillar of kinship – the claim that he would never personally disrespect or routinely sexualise a woman due to having sisters and a mother in his life. Whilst this may be true, the sentiment in general is hugely problematic. Its overt implication is that women are only valuable as family members or people in a position of care to the (male) individual.

We find this principle rife in modern society. A similar attitude is taken by US Vice President Mike Pence, who in 2017 admitted he wouldn’t go to dinner alone with a woman, unless she was his wife. Attitudes like this effectively confirm that the sexualisation of women who have not ‘ingratiated’ themselves with men is rife in western society. The President infamously fares no better – who could forget “grab them by the p***y”, and his pitiful defence of his words as “just locker talk”? Armed with this knowledge of Trump, the electorate still chose this man as their most powerful representative. Doesn’t it say something about what society considers tolerable?

“An article that defends locker room culture only discourages scrutiny of the ways in which women are sexualised in everyday discourse.”

The horrifying end result of all this is the appropriation of toxic masculinity in the seemingly harmless moniker ‘locker room talk’. The ambiguity of this term is such that it has a place in the hierarchy of rape culture; comments that are defended by some for being innocuous can in fact contribute to the normalisation of gender-based sexual violence. An article that defends locker room culture only discourages scrutiny of the ways in which women are sexualised in everyday discourse.

It is also worth noting that the negative repercussions of articles such as Grigg’s extends beyond the objectification of women. This and other defences of “locker room talk” present a heteronormative narrative that is also excluding of trans people. The ‘When Harry Met Sally’ motif excludes those of different sexual orientations – why would there inevitably be sexual tension in a situation where one or either party is anything other than heterosexual? And when Grigg wrote of the tension between men and women, he inevitably was referring to attractions between cisgender men and cisgender women.

The continued defence allowed to proponents of ‘locker room culture’ encourages a society that believes in ‘boys will be boys’; in short, that men are not responsible for their actions, and heterosexual attraction is the only legitimate attraction. It stuns me that such a piece ever made it to publication in the first place. It disgusts me that Grigg’s revised article – a performative attempt to salvage his reputation – is available to read in the Issuu publication of the magazine.

It would have been a far better move from The Saint’s perspective to make an example of individuals like Grigg. The writer himself would do well to re-examine his own response to the debacle and question what he is really defending when he praises “locker room culture”.

 

Alice Manning

Feature Image courtesy of Shane via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.