The U.S. Men's Hockey Team Failed the Locker Room Test
Men need to stop bonding over humiliating women
I want to talk about locker rooms.
The U.S. Men’s Hockey Team was in theirs on Sunday, yukking it up on the phone with Donald Trump just minutes after their gold medal win. The president invited the team to the White House, but ‘joked’ that he’d “have to” invite the gold medal-winning Women’s Hockey Team, as well.
“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team. You do know that? I do believe I probably would be impeached [if not].”
With one or two exceptions, the men erupted in laughter.
There’s been a national backlash since—but also a defense. American women are being told that Trump’s comments and the team’s reaction were all in good fun. That it was just boys being boys. That it was locker room talk.
The last time we heard that excuse was in 2016, when Trump’s “pussy-grabbing” tape dropped. And while there’s certainly a difference between ‘joking’ about sexually assaulting a woman and ‘joking’ about being forced to treat a women’s sports team equally—they have something in common: commiseration over women’s humiliation.
Men regularly bond over shitting on women, and it’s hard to describe just how painful that can be.
When that Access Hollywood tape was leaked, I wrote at The Guardian that the worst part wasn’t actually the vulgar language. The real stomach-dropping moment came when Trump and host Billy Bush met Arianne Zucker—the actress they had just been saying disgusting things about minutes earlier:
“It’s painful to watch not just because Zucker doesn’t know what was said about her, but because this is what women are afraid of. That the men we know, the men we work with—or even love—say horrible things about us. That despite assurances that they respect us and consider us equals, men are secretly winking behind our backs.”
Sports reporter Megan Clarke notes that the U.S. men’s hockey team has spent the better part of the Olympics publicly cheering on their female colleagues. They’ve been going to the women’s games, praising them to the press—two of the players even have a mother who was on the U.S. team that won the silver medal in 1992.
“All of that feels so hollow now,” Clarke writes. After all, how are we meant to trust anything men say if we think it’s all for show?
I can’t help but wonder how many of these players have daughters—and whether they’ve told them that they can be hockey players one day, too. How many have told them that the women’s game matters just as much? Do they think their girls will still believe them after they hear their dads laugh?
No one expected any better from the president: Trump is an adjudicated rapist and serial misogynist who demeans women as easily as he breathes. But there are too many men who know better, yet laugh along with men like the president anyway. As comedian Daniel Sloss has put it:
“I believe and deep down I know that most men are good, of course, we are. But when one in 10 men are shit and the other nine do nothing, they might as well not fucking be there. Being good on the inside counts for absolutely fuck all.”
Publicly supporting women is nice, but what really matters is what men do behind closed doors. What matters is how they hold each other accountable.
The men’s hockey team shouldn’t get a pass because they were in the locker room—that’s where women need their support the most.
And, of course, the women are clearly morally superior to the men in having the good sense to decline the Fuhrer's invitation.
Having played hockey myself and watched both teams, I can say that the women's team is better than the men's team in skating, stick handling, passing snd shooting. The only thing that might prevent them from beating the men's team is the size/weight advantage of the men, in a game that involves heavy physical contact. The women's game was a joy to watch!