Pretty in Pink

There's a furor at the University of Iowa over the visitors' locker room at the football stadium. It's pink. The showers, the carpeting, the lockers - all pink. It's been that way since the Hayden Fry days; Coach Fry believed that the color has a calming effect on people. Perhaps he reasoned that a calmer opponent would be a less effective one.

Now some professors and students want the pink gone. According to the AP, they argue that use of the color promotes old stereotypes against women and homosexuality.

The story I've linked to doesn't contain many details - so here's hoping there's more to this than what the AP is reporting. Because on its own, what I know from this is no reason to start a protest. If the walls were painted with slogans like "The Wisconsin Badgers are Girlie-men" or references connecting the visitor's quarterback to a sensitive female body part, ok, that's reason to protest. But does the mere presence of the color pink mean that whoever uses the color is a sexist? Of course not.

So I hope there's more to this. If not, the good folks in Iowa City need to get back to the farmland.