Legal “Locker Room Talk”: Essentialist Discourses of Masculinity in Law*

Abstract

In this article, I examine how legal actors construct masculinity in law, even in cases that have seemingly little to do with gender. I analyze 118 recent cases in which lawyers, witnesses, and/or judges use gendered expressions, such as “locker room talk,” as a key element of their legal strategy, testimony, or decision-making. By identifying the specific behaviors to which these legal actors refer when they describe something as “locker room talk,” I develop a typology of the narrow, essentialist, and predominantly violent forms of masculinity that are deployed—and normalized—in contemporary U.S. law.