Posted on 08/29/2014 10:02:17 AM PDT by Zakeet
A University of Iowa (UI) professor is protesting the venerable football teams sexist pink visitor locker room by marching around in a robot costume Friday afternoon.
Kembrew McLeod, director of graduate studies at the university, organized Fridays march in order to draw attention to criticism of the locker room as some students and faculty have deemed its pink paint job sexist. McLeod also says the color condones homophobia.
This trend away from hypermasculinity in sports makes it all the more unfortunate that the University of Iowa still hosts visiting teams in pink locker rooms, McLeod wrote in a recent editorial.
The Million Robot March falls on the annual celebration which honors former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry, the winningest football coach at the university. In 1979, Fry had the visitor locker rooms painted pink as the calming nature of the color could put [the] opponents in a passive mood, according to his memoir.
Amazingly, top administrators still defend this move; its as if the university has sided with the jocks who used to beat up the queers in high school, the marchs website states. Does a pink locker room directly lead to violence against women and gay people? No. But it does reinforce the repeated narratives about being a man that kids are exposed to from a very young agewhich creates subtle and harmful ripple effect.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the University of Iowa renovated their athletics facilities in 2005, adding new lockers, urinals, and showers in various shades of pink.
Thats what pranks do they shake up our everyday routines and surprise us with an unexpected and unconventional sight, sound or performance, McLeod said. Sadly, UIs pink prank amounts to little more than a juvenile taunt, a sophomoric stunt left over from a bygone era.
Yet not everyone finds the locker rooms decor offensive. University of Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner insisted it was the best locker room for an away team.
[Its] spacious. I dont care about the color, it has a lot of space, Gardner said.
IU President Sally Mason said earlier this week that repainting the locker rooms wasnt a priority for the school.
"To tear that apart and spend the money right now to redo that just seems like a very low priority to me," Mason told Fox News. "Would a pink locker room have been my first choice? Probably not. But that predates me by quite a little bit."
Fridays march isnt the first time McLeod has donned his robot costume to make a statement. He previously protested President Clinton and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as a heckling robot.
The Million Robot March will convene Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. Robot costumes are not required.
Nope. Just the opposing football team.
You know, when I was growing up, people plastic wrapped the boys’ locker room pink as part of a prank, that and taking the skeletons and model organs from the bio lab to hang up as a family eating dinner in the middle of the cafeteria (don’t ask me how the high schoolers/staff got it back down) . Oh, the days where there actually was some sense of humor seem really gone.
Who didn’t have at least one time getting picked on in Elementary, Middle, or High School. Most of the stuff I didn’t like at the time, but most of it I can laugh at in hindsight as well.
I had to click to see what its assigned gender is.
Who didnt have at least one time getting picked on in Elementary, Middle, or High School
...my problem was mostly with the budding hippies, back in the sixties, who were obnoxious beyond belief and had a field day with me and my cuffed pants and crew cut...I took it for awhile, then went postal on a particular asshat who later said he never saw my meltdown coming...
...overall it is not my favorite memory...the kid was much smaller, and while most of the administration backed me, I could really have hurt him...
Notice how encouraging masculinity in men is now harmful. This is Marxist brainwashing.
...this clown and his raging feminist sisters are poised to take over every cultural venue in this country...football will especially be under the gun...and apparently, to read some of the comments on this forum, many posters will be celebrating with the witches when football gets axed...
That’s cool. :)
Kembrew? WTF kind of name is that?
LOL!
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