[24359] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Toast Song
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sharon Zohar)
Fri Jun 11 22:50:15 2004
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 14:53:01 -0400
Reply-To: zonuts@alum.rpi.edu
From: Sharon Zohar <zonuts@GMAIL.COM>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <MWDE06LAhTrBoe2U8QV00000044@mwde06la.mail2world.com>
>> Our chapter is composed of relatively equal numbers of male and
females, and I have heard no complaints about the toast song from
anyone in our chapter. There is something to be said for keeping long
standing traditions.<<
I think that the primary reason for changing "Men of" to some other
two-syllable gender-neutral equivalent is less about active brothers
than it is about potential brothers and even potential chapters.
Talk to anyone who has been on staff for a few years, and you'll
probably hear stories about potential pledges whose interest in the
fraternity has been turned off by "Men of." I almost lost an entire
petitioning effort.
I worked with a petitioning group at Yale from 1991 to 1993. After a
period of initial activity, we had 5 men in the fledgling group, who
understood what we were about, and who wanted women on the campus to
become part of the group, and who were working hard at publicizing the
fraternity to everyone on the campus. After a few weeks of the group
plateauing at five male members, finally, two women came to a meeting.
They were active in other service groups on campus, and were lively
and sparkling. I could tell quickly that these two women could be
tremendous assets to the group, for recruiting new members and for
making the group's fellowship stronger and more fun.
This was the meeting where I was introducing the Toast Song. I had
worked with my section chair to determine how and when to teach the
group various things, because petitioning is a very different process
than pledging, and it seemed to be a good time to teach the song.
I gathered everyone into the Fellowship Circle. I thought that
teaching it in call-and-respond method, where I would sing a line and
then the group would repeat it, would make the experience more
personal than everyone holding a song sheet. That meant that the two
new women had no idea that the song contained the words "Men of"
before hearing the words.
The two women heard me sing "Men of" and proceeded to drop arms and
step outside the circle. That was a crisis moment.
If the women walked out the door without hearing what the fraternity
was really like, what we were (and are) really about, they would
spread negative information about the fraternity to the service
community on campus. The petitioning effort could easily have died
right there. The five men in the group had a look of shock on their
faces, and they obviously had no idea what to do.
I had to act. Until that moment, I had supported the idea of keeping
the Toast Song from changing. I did not want to see the rechartering
effort at Yale die, and suddenly, I understood why changing the Toast
Song was so important. I asked the women not to leave. I asked them to
hear me out.
I told them of the unofficial alternate version of the song with the
words, "True To," and I explained about the history of women in the
fraternity, and about the awkwardness of the language situation in
general.
They heard me out. They started nodding as I explained the history,
and when I asked them to rejoin the circle, and sing the alternate
version, they did.
Had I not done what I did, the group's survival would have been in
serious jeopardy. Instead, the group survived and thrived, and
chartered in April 1993. And the women never had a problem being
called brothers.
There are many brothers who like to say that if prospective pledges
and petitioners are turned away from us because of those two words in
the Toast Song, the prospective pledges and petitioners are not worth
having. I disagree.
An entire chapter is worth having. Two words are not worth that loss.
How many other people have we lost? How many potential chapters?
Sharon Zohar
Alumna of Epsilon Zeta (RPI) 1987
Semi-retired Sectional Staff
"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to
be normal." -- Albert Camus
