Here we go again. It seems that Jill Gaulding, a former University of Iowa associate professor of law (now “practicing” law in Minnesota) is on the warpath again. And she is joined by former University of Iowa professor of law (now on the faculty of the Western New England College of Law) Erin Buzuvis. It seems they are offended that the football stadium’s visitor locker room is pink and she “represents” a “group” who thinks (and I quote) ‘the pink color is derogatory toward women, intending to make visiting teams feel like “sissies.”‘. OMFG! Read the full article in the Daily Iowan here. Of course, Ms. Gaulding and Buzuvis don’t know the first thing about WHY the locker room is pink. They just knows it IS pink and that they believe it shouldn’t be. (This kind of begs the question: What the heck is a former or current female law professor doing in a MEN’S locker room?)
For those of you who don’t know, former University of Iowa coach Hayden Fry asked that the locker room be painted pink because according to many psychological studies on colors, pink has a passive and calming effect. From the Wikipedia article on Hayden:
And Fry had the visitors’ locker room painted pink. Fry, a psychology major at Baylor, knew that pink is occasionally used in jails and mental institutions to relax and pacify the residents, and Fry claimed that it might have the same effect on the visiting team. Principally, though, Fry hoped that the unusual color would distract and fluster the opposing players and coaches.
I know that Bo Schembechler came to Iowa each year with posters and plain white paper to cover all the pink walls. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that other coaches did the same thing.
And now, the famous Pink Locker Room is just supposed to change overnight? Because a few vociferous people think it’s demeaning to women and homosexuals to have a locker room painted pink? I get wound up about many things, but REALLY! The color of a locker room? I agree with what Pat at Knife Party has to say:
Wait, what? Maybe this comes as a result of my education at Florida State as opposed to Iowa, but I fail to see the connection between painting a locker room pink and demeaning women or homosexuals. I’ll concede that pink is not the most masculine of colors, but in a time when frat boys and business professionals alike wear fashionable pink shirts and ties, I fail to see how such a color is insensitive to anyone.
While written when Gaulding, Buzuvis and their cohorts first got wind of the color pink in the locker room, Sally Jenkins’ article in the Washington Post is no less meaningful. Two separate places are key in her article. First off:
Fry, for those who don’t remember him at Iowa, was a cagey good old boy who enjoyed teasing the opposition, as the title of his autobiography, “A High Porch Picnic,” suggests. Fry’s attitude was, if some opponents considered those walls a “sissy” color and it bothered them, that was their own fault. The whole point was to discomfit people who were insecure enough or dumb enough to take it seriously.
So according to Hayden in his autobiography it’s only works if someone is insecure enough or dumb enough to let it work. So what does it say about at least two learned lawyers? And later in the same article:
Fry understood something Buzuvis apparently doesn’t: The people most likely to be undone by pink walls are not straight men, women or gays, but misogynists and homophobes.
Get a grip. You want the University of Iowa (who at the time paid both of you about $100,000 in salary) to cough up enough money to replace the plumbing (sinks, urinals and stools), the carpet, the floor tile and the lockers and then also paint the walls? Because YOU are insecure enough to let something like a pink locker room affect you? A locker room, I might add, that you have NEVER set foot in? And all in the name of political correctness? I sure am glad that both of you “ladies” have moved on to other universities to instruct our future lawyers, and that you aren’t getting any more of MY tax dollars as your salary. And isn’t it kind of funny that both chose to resign here and continue with their cause from afar AFTER the University of Iowa and the Board of Regents consider this subject closed? Ladies - it’s time to move on; this fight was over last year.
