“Locker room talk”: the cost of casual sexism

On Feb. 22, the U.S. Men’s Hockey team won gold in overtime at the Olympic games in a nail-biting game against Canada. This marked the first Olympic gold for the U.S. men’s team in 46 years, to the day. The last time the U.S. Men’s Hockey team won gold was when they defeated the Soviet Union. That game was given the well-known name “Miracle on Ice,” which led to a beloved movie and a fandom that held strong, year after year.

This moment was a dream come true for so many Americans, so many Minnesotans and even peers here at CSB+SJU.

But what happened hours later has changed the narrative.

A video from the Team U.S.A. locker room was leaked, which captured a phone call conversation between President Donald Trump and the men’s team. From an article in U.S.A. Today, published on Feb. 23, the conversation consisted of Trump saying, “We’ll do it at the White House… we’ll just have some fun, we have medals for you guys. And we have to, 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, okay?”, to which the locker room erupted in laughter, and so did many on social media.

Kash Patel, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is seen holding the phone during the conversation between Trump and the team and later seen celebrating and partying with them, on the same day that the FBI took lead on investigating an armed man who breached the perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.

The U.S. won 12 gold medals and 33 overall medals at this year’s Olympic games. Eight of the gold medals were won by women, the third consecutive Winter Olympic games where Team U.S.A.’s women out-medaled the men — the sixth consecutive including the Summer Olympics.

None of this is to discredit the work the U.S. Men’s Hockey team put in to winning gold. It was a hard-earned, well-deserved victory. Yet what happened in the locker room, and inevitably on social media and beyond, has reminded us that still, in 2026, there is inequality and inequity with women in sports.

The Olympics is a time to come together as a country, to celebrate the amazing athletes across the board that represent Team U.S.A. The Olympics shouldn’t be a gender issue, yet what we saw with the video in the locker room shows that it continues to be because of the casual mistreatment of women.

“Oh, it’s just locker room talk” or “boys will be boys, it’s not that big of a deal” are exhausted to justify this behavior; the excuses are plentiful and they normalize actions of men against women.

It’s worth saying that men should care about combating sexism in all forms simply because it’s the right thing to do. But if some perspective is helpful to frame your mindset: your mothers, your sisters, your female friends, your girlfriends, your daughters — they are all victims when speech like this prevails. Do you care about these people, their accomplishments and their wellbeing? Would they be proud of your conduct and how you and the people around you speak about women?

Sexism in any context comes back to bite us all eventually — especially in a society where misogyny is such a cornerstone of our culture. It’s a “joke” now, but don’t be surprised when it’s something even more severe later. We are failing to protect women in the long run when this continues. “Locker room talk” compounds until it’s part of the reason that women are passed over for promotions, or they’re harassed in public or countless other incidents that women in our country see every day. Normalization has consequences.

Your words matter. How you speak about women in public, but especially in private, matters. Like this U.S. men’s hockey team, you can claim allyship and respect for women in front of others all you want — but if you step behind closed doors and immediately change your tune, you are part of the problem.

In our experience and through many conversations with students over the years as part of this newspaper, we know that women at CSB+SJU encounter behavior like this constantly. Little things add up: ignoring Bennies or speaking over them during class discussions, less support for Bennie athletics in terms of student turnout and normalized sexist remarks during general conversations. Every woman seems to have a story with this type of behavior, whether it’s happened to her or someone she knows.

Studies have shown that women experience regular incidents of “everyday” sexism (the type that gets brushed off as a “joke” or is just accepted as a typical social occurrence, such as catcalling), often daily. One study from Penn State University found that women experience about one to two “impactful” incidents of sexism every week — the kind that is so severe that it sticks with them enough to produce harmful psychological effects.

We’re of the mind that every incident of sexism, no matter how much people want to play it off, is severe. We’d challenge every person on our campuses to feel the same, and act on it. Calling sexism out when you see it, everyday or otherwise, doesn’t always need to mean some dramatic confrontation: sometimes it’s just not laughing when something isn’t funny. It’s making it clear to those around you that you won’t put up with pointless disrespect towards anyone in our communities and carrying that mindset past campus grounds. It’s paying attention and being open to learning something new when class discussions center around sexism and the female experience (and not just because you need your CS credit). It’s showing up for women both on the world stage and in your locker rooms, even when you don’t have anything to gain from it. These small actions add up too. If the President wants us to laugh with him and celebrate the U.S.’s athletic accomplishments, he should get some better material.