Ivy League Locker-Room Talk

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Art credits to Wanxing Lu!

Ruiyan Wang ‘17, Editor-in-Chief

When audio of President-elect Donald Trump’s lewd comments about women surfaced, he coined the term “locker-room talk,” chalking the remarks up to friendly banter and masculine camaraderie.

“Locker-room talk,” it appears, is not a phenomenon exclusive to the unreserved public figure. According to an exposé by The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student publication, players on the Harvard men’s soccer team have been cataloging the women’s team recruits based on physical appearance and sexual appeal since 2012. The men also assigned nicknames and numerical ratings to their female counterparts.

For one athlete dubbed “Gumbi,” an author wrote that “I am forced to rate her a 6… [because] her gum to tooth ratio is about 1 to 1.” For another, a writer mused: “She seems to be very strong, tall and manly, so I gave her a 3…Not much needs to be said on this one, folks.”

In response to the “scouting report”, once a public Google document, Harvard University has canceled the remaining two games in the men’s soccer team season and forfeited play in the Ivy League Championship. Though the team is currently at the top of the Ivy League standings, it will not be in contention for a NCAA tournament spot.

In a statement detailing this decision, University President Drew G. Faust called the reports “completely unacceptable” and “counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of [the Harvard] community,” expressing her disappointment that “the appalling actions of the 2012 men’s soccer team were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few individuals.”

Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise echoed these sentiments, remarking, “Harvard Athletics has zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”

Appreciating Harvard’s forthcoming and serious treatment of the “scouting report,” Justin Yuan ‘17 states, “It’s nice that the administration actually owned up to the issue, though. A lot of cases of campus sexual assault involve universities that try to cover up the incidents to maintain their image. The men’s soccer team shouldn’t have made the rankings to begin with, but at least Harvard is being a role model where other institutions have failed.”

Though many students commend Harvard for taking action against sexist behavior, the incident still raises pertinent questions about demeaning attitudes towards women and rape culture on campus. According to an article by The New York Times, 31 percent of Harvard’s class of 2015 reported unwanted sexual contact. Harvard is not alone in these alarming trends; the Association of American Universities found that 23 percent of female college students experienced forced sexual contact last year.

Hyeiwon Kim ‘17, notes that a larger culture of disrespect for women exists: “I feel like people think it’s okay to say these things about women now… If you look at the treatment of women online, in commercials, or even by our soon-to-be President, it’s obvious where boys are learning that this kind of behavior is acceptable or even normal.”

For Hannah Alexander ‘19, “what is most surprising and disappointing is that Harvard students, who are supposed to be the most intelligent individuals of our generation, did this. At any other college, I almost expect it.”

In a collective op-ed for The Harvard Crimson, six members of the Harvard 2012 women’s soccer team have taken these events as an opportunity to call on women and men alike to challenge misogyny. Denouncing the document as an attempt “to pit us against one another,” the women emphasized the importance of cultivating “an environment and a culture that strives to life up all of its members.”

“We want to encourage our fellow women to band together in combating this type of behavior, because…we are stronger when we are united.”

“To the men of Harvard soccer and to the men of the world, we invite you to join us, because ultimately we are all members of the same team…We cannot change the past, but we are asking you to help us now and in the future.”

Though the actions of the Harvard men’s soccer team are disturbing, they have galvanized institutions of higher education to critically examine how to raise respectful and self-aware individuals. As the women of Harvard soccer articulate, “‘Locker room talk’ is not an excuse…The whole world is the locker room.”