"Our cohogs, they play eight, because of them we masturbate."
For those students on campus these words, sung to the tune of "This Old Man," may sound familiar. They were part of a song used to open a presentation on issues of gender and diversity at Dartmouth in the Collis Commonground this January.
Given more recent events on campus, however, these words, along with other incidents of gender-rooted controversy, acquire an even greater significance.
Despite the heated controversy ignited of late by the Zeta Psi fraternity "sex papers," gender problems are not new to Dartmouth Greek life. Indeed, since the first years of coeducation, tensions between women and men in fraternities -- as well as those not affiliated -- have crept up from time to time.
What has changed, perhaps, is how the campus and administration reacts to such events.
"I really thought the school wasn't going to make it," John Meyer '74 told Boston Magazine in 1983. "The women had to be tough as nails. The men really gave them a rough time ...Women weren't treated as people, they were treated as women. They were sex objects and were typecast as either prudes or prostitutes."
Women at the College during the 1970s were openly referred to as "cohogs," a term derived from quahog--a derogatory term used to describe the female genitalia.
In 1975, Theta Delta Chi fraternity used the term as the focus of its song, "Our Cohogs," which brothers sang at the Fraternity Hums contest over Green Key weekend that year and which included the previously mentioned lyrics and others like it.
The Dartmouth at the time characterized the "controversial" number as a "detrimental satire on 'This Old Man,'" humorously adding "that these boys didn't mince for words." Thanks to Theta Delt's "imagination," the fraternity won the singing contest.
No reports of outraged students or faculty appear in either the news or Op-Ed sections of subsequent issues of The Dartmouth, nor any further mention of the incident.
Although any controversy ultimately surrounding the Hums incident did not pinpoint the Greek system per se, nor concern the campus as a whole, there was debate. Female students involved in a philosophy class titled "Feminism and Revolution," included the song in the video they produced called "You Laugh." Featuring seven women singing the Theta Delt song, was shown to alumni and students two years later as part of a ten-day alumni symposium entitled "Men and Women at Dartmouth: What's the Difference?"
Audience reactions to the video were mixed, according to The Dartmouth, ranging from claims that the video "was not an accurate portrayal of Dartmouth at that time" to admissions that women were still not accepted as equals on campus.
Yet in view of the all-female panel, who was heckled by males in the audience at a similar showing of the video a year before, "[t]hat the panel this year was composed of both men and women, most of whom took a seemingly moderate stand on the issue, might reflect there has been a change of attitude," The Dartmouth said.
Another major gender controversy seems to be the racial and sexually offensive poem allegedly read aloud at a meeting of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and written by one of the fraternity's brothers during the summer of 1995.
Women who had seen the poem told The Dartmouth that it contained derogatory comments about women, specifically Native American women, and referred to specific Dartmouth women, including one by name.
The poem also alluded to rape, mentioning a woman who was being harassed but "got away with only a kiss," Debbie Carbonaro '97, who read the poem, told The Dartmouth.
As for reactions to the incident, brothers of Beta met with several women to discuss the alleged poem and apologized, privately, for the incident. The house was condemned -- but not sanctioned -- by the College, receiving a letter from then-Dean of the College Lee Pelton that rebuked the brothers and called on them to react in a positive way to the incident.
A year and a half later, the College derecognized Beta after the fraternity violated social restrictions placed on the house when a brother physically attacked a Sigma Nu fraternity brother during the Summer term.
Following on the heels of the Beta incident, an Alpha Chi Alpha pledge script containing racist and sexist language was found during the 1996 Winter term and delivered to administrators.
While the administration did not take punitive action in these cases, students mobilized to address the issues themselves. For example, in an effort to provoke campus reaction to both the script and Beta's poem, a group of concerned students placed signs and piles of manure on the front lawns of both fraternities.
"We as concerned students will not allow their racism, homophobia and misogyny to go unnoticed, particularly because they are a symptom of a larger problem," read a press release explaining the group's reasons for taking action. "We dumped this shit on the lawns of these two organizations because we are angry."
This and similar outrage prompted Alpha Chi to read aloud and discuss the script with an audience of 250 later that term.
According to The Dartmouth, the Alpha Chi script described women in racially and sexually objectionable terms. One part of the script describes a scene in which an Asian brother, on a visit to Korea, "ends up with a Korean whore."
The word "grimbo man" -- a combination of "grim" and "bimbo," according to audience speculation -- was used to refer to a brother who dated ugly women. The script also refers to a brother as a "pussy."
Audience members both congratulated the brothers for making the script public and criticized them for not doing more. Dean Pelton, who attended only part of the discussion, said he felt the discussion seemed "constructive ... there was a lot of healthy conversation."
Yet one member of the audience, Mike Roberts '96, said of the script at the time "there is definitely a pattern of behavior that we're shown that needs to be addressed on a grand scale."
"In some sense this is institutionalized," he said. "That is what scares me most."
