People Seeing Red Over Pink Locker Room

[MorganGrayson]

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - The pink visitors' locker room at the University of Iowa's stadium is making some people see red.

Several professors and students joined the call Tuesday for the athletic department to do away with the pink showers, carpeting and lockers - a decades-long Hawkeye football tradition.

Critics say the use of pink demeans women, perpetuates offensive stereotypes about women and homosexuality, and puts the university in the uncomfortable position of tacitly supporting those messages.

"I want the locker room gone," law school professor Jill Gaulding told a university committee studying the athletic department's compliance with NCAA standards, including gender equity.
For decades, visiting football teams playing at Kinnick Stadium have dressed and showered in the pink locker room. The tradition was started by former Iowa coach Hayden Fry, a psychology major who said pink had a calming and passive effect on people.

But as part of the stadium's two-year, $88 million makeover, athletic officials took the former coach's interior decorating ideas to another level, splashing pink across the brick walls, shower floors and installing pink metal lockers, carpeting, sinks, showers and urinals.

The controversy gained momentum and media attention last week when a visiting law school professor told reporters she had received death threats after voicing objections on her Web site.

Death threats?!?!?!?

[ReighlynnRaine]

They could make a little extra cash and rent that thing out to make movies in.

[MorganGrayson]

Originally Posted by ReighlynnRaine

They could make a little extra cash and rent that thing out to make movies in.

Spoken like a true pornographer!!

[ReighlynnRaine]

[Sin]

LOL That's awesome!

[selena]

Some people just need to be slapped around for awhile. This person obviously has no real concerns in her life, or the color of a locker room would not be her focus.

[MorganGrayson]

I agree, Selena. I'm no expert on this, but I imagine not all "visiting team" locker rooms get a total makeover with spiffy new paint and tile, no matter what the color. The temptation to give the "visiting team" crap must be overwhelming.

And I think the ladies should just gear down about what's sexist and what isn't. Pink is just a frigging color and in and of its self has no value other than what a bunch of hysterics decide to assign to it.

Equal money for both female and male sports teams would be a much better use of this woman's obviously free time than ranting about the color of the locker room.

And as for it indicating "homosexuality"? I thought lavendar had that honor.

[DrGuile]

arent they the ones promoting the stereotypes by saying that having a pink locker room is gay and offensive?


If you're against stereotyping, wouldnt having a pink locker room be a non-issue?

Plus I love the idea of a football team getting sicked up in a pink locker room, it's a great image

[MorganGrayson]

Originally Posted by DrGuile

arent they the ones promoting the stereotypes by saying that having a pink locker room is gay and offensive?

I think you may have aimed that remark a little high up the intellectual food chain. Yes, they are, but they'd just shriek at you for pointing it out; accuse you of being "an insensitive male;" and possibly cause you to use "one of those words."

A nice, sane, rational reaction to the remodeled locker room would be "ooh, this is nice...no toxic mold shit like the last place we suited up...let's go play ball!!!" (Which is probably the reaction of the visiting teams, by the way. Notice how they are not quoted in this article.)