locker room talk hurts men too
hockey canada scandals and what we can learn from them
I’ve always found locker rooms fascinating and revealing, especially when it comes to men and boys and what we expect, and demand from them.
If any of us had any doubts that locker rooms were a toxic space, it became undeniably clear when Donald Trump said that threatening to assault women was just “locker room talk” back when he was running for president in 2016. It prompted me to make a video with my friend Casey Jost about a show called Locker Room Talk where men can say whatever they want, without fear or consequences. As Michelle Obama noted at the time, when she took the stage at a rally for Hillary Clinton at the time in New Hampshire, “To dismiss [Trump's comments] as locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere,” she told the crowd. "The men in my life do not talk about women like this.”
But what struck me about Trump’s comments was that we often turned to women to know how they made them feel, and I was surprised we rarely asked men. “Locker room talk” became a touch point for me, that proved women weren’t the only victims’ of sexism. The more I read about locker rooms, the clearer it became, that locker rooms weren’t a safe place for women, but they also weren’t a safe space for men either.
And now there’s a scandal making headlines in Canada that makes this all crystal clear: locker rooms aren’t really safe for anybody. Since last May, Hockey Canada has been embroiled in a controversy that began when a large settlement for a sexual assault case became public. A woman received 3.5 million dollars after she says five World Junior hockey players gang raped her in London, Ontario in 2018. Since then, reporting has revealed distressing information about the frequency of violence and abuse in the world of hockey. Just a few months ago, the Globe and Mail uncovered that accusations against players were so frequent that millions of dollars were set aside in an undisclosed fund, exclusively used to settle sexual assault lawsuits. Since then, the federal government called on investigations and audit to find out if public funds were used to silence these lawsuits, and major sponsors like Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire have cut ties.
But it’s not just women who are victims of this culture of violence in hockey. Many men have also recently come forward with horrifying details of being tortured, sodomized, raped, assaulted, humiliated and even urinated on while they were players in the league during initiations. While these accounts are hard to read, it is forcing us to confront just how damaging patriarchal ideals of masculinity can be to the development of men and boys. One ex-player interviewed last week, said the violence he witnessed and survived, has ruined his life. We are simply not used to hearing men, especially these kinds of burly men who are alpha ideals of masculinity, tells these kinds of stories. He said that if his daughter wanted to play hockey, he’s be okay with it, but not his son. Girls deserve protection, and it seems like more and more parents are realizing that boys need it too.
If “date rape'“ is a euphemism for rape when it comes to women, hazing is the euphemism for rape when it comes to men. In some circles, hazing is often just another word for assault, and almost once a year, leads to death. Very few of these cases make it to the mainstream, partly because schools are desperate to preserve their pristine reputations, but also because we rarely hear about sexual violence against men, from other men.