[Linganth] "Locker room talk"?

[Leila Monaghan]

Koenraad Kuiper has a piece on “Sporting Formulae in New Zealand English:
Two Models of Male Solidarity” comparing a relatively polite volleyball
game with the abuse that goes on in a rugby locker room.  While he
demonstrates clearly that New Zealand men use feminization to insult each
other, the players do not boast of sexual aggression, just put each other
down in quite graphic ways.  I think the terms of abuse are different
(Americans are more likely to use what CJ Pascoe calls “fag discourse”) but
the effect seems the same.

Can be found on p. 315:
https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Approach-Interpersonal-Communication-Essential/dp/1444335316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476242960&sr=8-1&keywords=leila+monaghan

Having said that, one student wrote a paper for me about being ostracized
after he insisted on walking a drunk female friend home because the
fraternity party she was at seemed to be getting out of hand.  He was
called a “cockblocker” for it and pushed out of a friend group.  The
pressures on young men to conform to stereotypical behavior are real.

all best,

Leila





On Tue, Oct 11, 2016 at 4:30 AM, Elizabeth Keating <
Elizabeth.Keating at austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

> To add to this very interesting discussion:
>
> Benjamin Bailey’s 2016 article “ Street remarks to women in five countries
> and four languages: Impositions of engagement and intimacy” in
> Sociolinguistic Studies is an interesting discussion about a similar case
> of contested interpretation of demeaning behavior towards women. He
> describes referential vs. interactional accounts of what the behavior
> (street talk) means and how people should be accountable for it. Men who
> engage in street remarks defend their behavior as benign  (e.g. I was just
> saying ‘hi’ or giving her a compliment), while women interpret the remarks
> as an imposition of intimacy (i.e. a first pair part greeting or
> compliment, with interactional preferences for what must come next, the
> second pair part, e.g. a greeting or acknowledgement of the compliment).
> Women regularly ignore the street remarks, and through their lack of
> response to greetings or compliments, treat them as outside of norms of
> civil interaction.
>
>
>
> Best, Elizabeth
>
>
>
>
>
> Elizabeth Keating
>
> Professor, Department of Anthropology
> University of Texas at Austin
> 2201 Speedway Stop C3200
> Austin TX 78712
>
> Phone 512-471-8518, office: SAC 4.156
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Linganth [mailto:linganth-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Deborah Jones
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 11, 2016 3:01 AM
> *To:* Woolard, Kathryn <kwoolard at ucsd.edu>
> *Cc:* LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> *Subject:* Re: [Linganth] "Locker room talk"?
>
>
>
> Regarding the implications of talk of "locker room talk" for athletes, a
> couple years ago I taught a linguistic anthropology of "gossip, rumor, and
> lies" at University of Michigan. Among my students were four members of
> college football team, one of whom made a short presentation on "the locker
> room." His argument was that the locker room was a work space not entirely
> dissimilar to an office of cubicles: there were some corners in which you
> *could* have a more personal conversation, but you were still at work.
> According to my student, locker room talk was actually more likely to be
> about homework than about women. The real gossip, he claimed, came after
> practice, on the walk home. His teammates nodded emphatically in agreement.
>
> I don't think the student was at all suggesting that the kind of talk
> often associated with locker rooms does not in fact take place among
> football players.  However, I found it intriguing that this football
> player, unprompted, chose to emphasize -- for the entire class -- that the
> locker room was a place for 'work' rather than 'gossip.'
>
> -- Deborah --
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 5:31 AM, Woolard, Kathryn <kwoolard at ucsd.edu>
> wrote:
>
> Hi all –
>
>
>
> There’s a lot of expertise on gender and discourse on this listserv. Is
> anyone poised/ working on an op-ed piece and/or well-placed blogpost taking
> apart , for a general audience, the repeated invocation of “locker room
> talk” as a defense of bragging about sexual assault?
>
>
>
> E.g., what/where is this canonical  “locker room” that excuses bragging
> about criminal sexual harassment,  in the long-established age of Title
> IX?  And, what are the implications of this genre defense for athletes in
> high schools and colleges, in addition to professional teams, in a time of
> such public concern about sexual assault on campuses and highly publicized
> incidents so often involving athletes?
>
>
>
> I can’t write it, though I wish it could; I hope some of my talented,
> knowledgeable colleagues who can write for a broad public are working on it!
>
>
>
> Thanks –
>
> Kit
>
>
>
>
>
> Kathryn A. Woolard, Professor
>
> Department of Anthropology, 0532
>
> UCSD
>
> 9500 Gilman Drive
>
> La Jolla, CA 92093-0532
>
> kwoolard at ucsd.edu
>
>
>
> New book:  https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singular-and-
> plural-9780190258627?q=woolard&lang=en&cc=us
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Linganth mailing list
> Linganth at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/linganth
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Deborah A. Jones
>
> PhD Candidate
>
> Dept. of Anthropology
> University of Michigan
>
> 101 West Hall
>
> 1085 S. University Avenue
>
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107 USA
>
> _______________________________________________
> Linganth mailing list
> Linganth at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/linganth
>
>


-- 
Leila Monaghan, PhD
Publisher, Elm Books
Laramie, Wyoming
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20161011/49a436d0/attachment.htm>