locker Room Talk

October 2016

“@caitlin_kelly: One woman warning you about a creepy dude and a dozen other women chiming in with their own stories is our version of locker room talk. – 10/13/16, 4:14PM”

Designed in fall 2016, lockerRoomTalk is a response to audio footage of then-U.S. Presidential Candidate Donald Trump talking about his entitlement to women’s bodies. While some dismissed this as “locker room talk.” Others were outraged at how both the footage and this type of dismissal were such blatant examples of rape culture. For some survivors and those who have experienced sexual violence, it became an opportunity to take to social media and push the conversation forward by sharing their experiences.

Created with the creative programming tool, Processing, lockerRoomTalk is an interactive, visual representation of the way space can be reclaimed when people share their stories about or within those spaces. There is a connotation in the dismissal of Trump’s words as, “locker room talk,” that it is appropriate to perpetuate these ideas as long as it’s in men’s-only spaces. But we know that these ideas don’t only exist in these spaces, they permeate our society.

Survivors and people who have experienced sexual violence recognize that communities of people sharing their stories are important in the work of dismantling rape culture. The juxtaposition of the locker room as a representation of physical space with tweets as a representation of digital space speaks to the type of places that have been reclaimed in this conversation.