I was in a fraternity. We brothers gave each other nicknames: Stick and Stump and Leebo and Alien and JP and JC and BC. I was simply Trout. One guy majored in trombone; another was a cheerleader. Yet another brother rode his bike across the country to raise money and awareness for exceptional children. Four of us became pastors and not the four you might have suspected at the time, including the guy they called Trout.
We had pledges, of course, but hazing primarily consisted of late-night trips to Taco Bell and memorizing the names of the Founding Fathers. Pretty tame, quite dorky.
But was there alcohol? Absolutely.
Home football games started at noon because our stadium did not have lights. Alcohol was prohibited in the stadium, even for those of legal drinking age, and there were security guards checking pockets and pocketbooks at the gate. We started drinking early: we called it “pregaming.” We would buy a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a couple of buckets of fried chicken and call that “breakfast.” There were other fraternity houses where liquor flowed in more abundance.
One Saturday, during my senior year, I was getting ready to leave for the game when I saw a small group of sorority sisters headed towards our house. They were moving slowly and huddled around a freshman who was having trouble staying on her feet. I recognized one young woman as a fellow history major, and I asked if the freshman was alright. Right on cue, she vomited in the grass.
My classmate explained that her dorm room was across campus. She knew that, as a senior, I had a single room on the second floor of the house. She asked if they could take care of the freshman in my room.
I frowned. I supposed it would be alright; I was going to the game. I added, “Don’t let her puke on my bed.” Not very compassionate, I admitted even at the time.
But my classmate was grateful. She said that they would stay in my room with their sick friend. Then she sighed. “It’s hard. It’s …” she gestured in wide circles, “… all this!”
At the time, I assumed she referred to the drunk freshman and maybe their “pregaming” that morning. But 25 years later, after hearing about what allegedly happened at that fraternity house at Cornell University, I think of “all this” as double standards and misogyny, as her having to keep her hand over her drink, as her having to carry mace or car keys between her fingers like teeth, and as her always having to keep an eye on her sisters and trust that they, in turn, were watching out for her.
“All this” is rape culture, and we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Imagine, for a moment, that Jane Doe at Cornell had been surrounded by sorority sisters, not fraternity brothers. I believe that those women would have acted in the same way as I witnessed 25 years ago. They would have taken care of her.
I would later find out that the freshman was back to herself by that evening, hungover but otherwise fine. She was safe.
When I arrived back at the fraternity house after the game, my room had been straightened up, swept, and my clothes were folded and put away. All this and more—they even made the bed.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of the book with Wipf and Stock Publishers titled This Is the Day: A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he is a student of joy.
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