The NARP Perspective on Gendered Locker-Room Stereotypes
Before I begin, let me start by saying, I am not, nor have I ever been ashamed of my athletic ineptitude. I don’t mind being the one to ask all the wrong questions in a room full of sports spectators, like “How many points is a touchdown?” or “Who’s the blue team?” or “Isn’t there anything better on?” I don’t know the rules or regulations, the culture or the character, the point or the pleasure of any sport. But there is one piece of lingo I’ve become particularly familiar with: NARP. If you’re confused by that term, it’s probably because you are one.
NARP is the acronym for a Non-Athletic Regular Person.
Fortunately, if you’ve gone this long without hearing it, then you’ve yet to have it yelled at you. More importantly, if you don’t know that word, then you probably haven’t spent much time where our story takes place.
So for this article, it was with a brave heart and a plugged nose that I went where no NARP has gone before: the locker room.
Doug Payton has been the equipment manager at Colorado College for 16 years. Playing football since childhood and onto a successful NFL career, he’s become a locker-room expert. Although, it wasn’t until he got off the field himself and came to Colorado College that he learned the ins and outs of both genders’ locker-room dynamics.
“The locker room is like a sacred place for them. We have a rule here: That happens in the locker room stays in the locker room. If people heard what they said in there, they’d be in trouble,” Doug tells me. “The girls might be worse than the guys. The guys will fight, but the girls, they’re sneaky. Really though, they’re not too different. It’s just an important place for any team because it’s their sanctuary. A coach might come in and quiet them down, but really, it’s theirs,” Payton explains.
So why, if they’re not so different after all, do we only get a look into the men’s refuges? Why must the female version remain a mystery? The male athletes I met with seemed only to support stereotypes and deny the genders’ similar sanctuaries.
“The locker room basically feels like any party with your team,” collegiate men’s soccer and lacrosse player Jack McCormick explains. “We always have music playing and we can talk about anything. The team wouldn’t be the same without the time we have in the locker room.” As far as locker room stereotypes go, Jack found them to be generally accurate.
“The towel-whipping, the crude speech, and inappropriate behavior — I’d say that’s all pretty real. At least one thing happens a day that I’m sure has been in a movie,” Jack says. “I imagine the women’s locker rooms are pretty different. If I had to guess, they’re probably a lot less crazy and vulgar than we are.”
While Jack’s predictions seem uneducated, can we blame him? After lengthy depictions of vulgar male athletes in movies and blank screens for the women, how can we be expected not to assume the same? A teammate of his agreed.
“There’s definitely a lot of singing and butt-slapping in our locker room. The movies are pretty accurate,” soccer player Connor Rademacher admits. “I would imagine that the girls’ locker rooms are different. I could imagine them just kind of getting their stuff and being more serious, not very rowdy like us.”
After confirming the obvious elusiveness of the women’s locker rooms, it was time to get to the bottom of this mystery. Why must it all be left to the imagination? Do women simply not enjoy rowdy, vulgar, party-like behavior, or is it the world that doesn’t like seeing it on the big screen? (Take a guess.)
Shockingly, soccer player Louisa Mackenzie described something quite similar to the guys when asked what women’s locker rooms are like.
“It’s just a place we can goof off without worry of people judging us. There’s always music playing and it’s a place away from our coaches or anyone so we can vent or work things out that need to happen,” Louisa says. “It’s where we get to know each other a lot better. I first learned how weird the girls on my team were from the locker room and I probably wouldn’t have figured that out anywhere else.”
Patty Atkinson’s description of her track and cross-country locker room sounds even more movie-like than any of the men’s descriptions,
“We just got this awesome new speaker that lights up and we pretty much bump everything from trap to 90s rap,” Patty explains. “Our captain will always post the top-ranked times in the SCAC and highlight girls on our team so we can see where we stand. Oh, and we also have a giant poster of Ryan Lochte in a speedo. All hail.”
Change Ryan Lochte to Lindsey Vonn and you have a picture-perfect men’s locker room. Looks like no matter what locker room you walk into, you’ll find sweat, nudity, dancing, touching, and even objectification of the opposite gender. So why is one half of this iconized and the other kept under wraps? The lewd behavior that occurs in men’s locker rooms is often written off as “boys will be boys” but whether we show it on TV or not, behind closed doors, girls will be girls, too.
All hail, ladies.
