Cole’s description of locker room culture is a disservice

I must object to Althea Cole’s description of locker room culture, simplifying it by sex. Such simplification implies that such experiences are set in stone, when they are more often an initial trial-and-error process

Many of us remember adolescence as a difficult time, a time in which an individuals need to start establishing their own values, in terms of the perceptions of their peers in addition to the expectations of their immediate family and society at large.

The phrase “we’re all girls” does capture some of the adjustments adolescent girls need to make to their self-image, in terms of modesty. It doesn’t capture all the comparative analysis young females are quietly making in terms of whose body is “best” and how that likely will affect their own opportunities and decisions, which sometimes escalates to backstabbing and manipulation.

And Cole’s description of male adolescent is a disservice to any parents trying to guide their boys through the often confusing and sometimes violent encounters of adolescent males, by declaring (on the authority of friends) they are “animals.”

The biological fact is all humans are animals … whether the individuals are male or female. Whether they are infants, six-year olds, adolescents or beyond. The socialization process starts with potty-training and goes on long after legal autonomy. One of the most distinctive aspects of humanity is the immense time and thought we give to raising our offspring. And sometimes to revising opinions we once believed were set in stone.

Bu Wilson

Iowa City