Suitably Flip

Dames

David Freddoso at NRO weighs in on a regrettably resurrected attempt to squelch one of the great American collegiate traditions.

I cannot smile upon any attempt to change The Greatest of All Fight Songs for the sake of politically correct whining. I thought we got beyond this gender-neutral nonsense years ago.

But our terrible football season at Notre Dame must be contributing to the insanity. I read with only slight alarm this mother-daughter tag-team letter to the daily student newspaper of my Alma Mater, advocating the desecration of our Victory March:

The student body finished off the fight song with, "while her loyal sons are marching onward to victory." Our family, however, finished it off with, "while her loyal sons and daughters march on to victory."

You can technically force those lyrics into the song's tune, but it requires a cudgel to do so.  If it was tried in the past as the writers suggest, then I can see why it did not catch on.

As one of the writers is too old, and the other far too young to know, I will fill them in on something they mention in their letter: Notre Dame men pump their fists and shout at the line, "While her loyal SONS are marching." Why is that? It began when I was at Notre Dame (mid—90's) as a small way of resisting some previous lame-brained attempt to make the fight song gender-neutral. Later on, the women — at least the ones with a sense of humor, who do not see life as a power struggle against men — began emphasizing the "HER" in "her loyal sons."

I also attended the University in the mid-90s and remember this lamentable flap.  The women in my corner of the student section must've been less well humored, as I remember hearing angry screams of "AND DAUGHTERS!" befouling the majesty whenever the band got to the last line of the fight song.

Here is my plea to the writers of this letter, on behalf of hopelessly unenlightened patriarchalists everywhere: Notre Dame's songs and traditions were not intended to make you feel good about yourself. Please leave them alone. So far, we have been forced to raise our fists on "Sons." Don't make us do something more drastic, like re-name the university after a man.

Indeed, the prospective slope of gender neutralization at Notre Dame is comically slippery.  "University of Notre Personne" doesn't even quite get you there, as "personne" is a feminine noun.  The fight song mentions "her" 8 times and "sons" twice.  Replacing them all with "its" and "offspring" renders it somewhat less lyrical.  The idea of slapping the Victory March with revisionist gender neutrality as it prepares to celebrate its centennial would be enough to make the Gipper turn in his grave (if they hadn't dug him up a couple weeks ago).

And I can only imagine the fundraising letters we'd start getting if the administration needs to reclad the two-ton gold-gilded Virgin Mary statue atop the Golden Dome in more androgynous attire.

All the major Notre Dame songs extol the virtues (oops, that's a man-centric prefix... hertues?) of "Notre Dame men answer[ing] the cry" and "the charge of fighting men".  The songwriters noted that when "Notre Dame men fight for Gold and Blue" they "sweep the foemen's ranks away".

What's silliest about the campaign to besmirch this century-old tradition is the fact that the letter writers are pleading with student leaders to lobby for the switch on the basis that it would honor their own family's tradition of singing the sensitive version.

Comments

Dames

David Freddoso at NRO weighs in on a regrettably resurrected attempt to squelch one of the great American collegiate traditions.

I cannot smile upon any attempt to change The Greatest of All Fight Songs for the sake of politically correct whining. I thought we got beyond this gender-neutral nonsense years ago.

But our terrible football season at Notre Dame must be contributing to the insanity. I read with only slight alarm this mother-daughter tag-team letter to the daily student newspaper of my Alma Mater, advocating the desecration of our Victory March:

The student body finished off the fight song with, "while her loyal sons are marching onward to victory." Our family, however, finished it off with, "while her loyal sons and daughters march on to victory."

You can technically force those lyrics into the song's tune, but it requires a cudgel to do so.  If it was tried in the past as the writers suggest, then I can see why it did not catch on.

As one of the writers is too old, and the other far too young to know, I will fill them in on something they mention in their letter: Notre Dame men pump their fists and shout at the line, "While her loyal SONS are marching." Why is that? It began when I was at Notre Dame (mid—90's) as a small way of resisting some previous lame-brained attempt to make the fight song gender-neutral. Later on, the women — at least the ones with a sense of humor, who do not see life as a power struggle against men — began emphasizing the "HER" in "her loyal sons."

I also attended the University in the mid-90s and remember this lamentable flap.  The women in my corner of the student section must've been less well humored, as I remember hearing angry screams of "AND DAUGHTERS!" befouling the majesty whenever the band got to the last line of the fight song.

Here is my plea to the writers of this letter, on behalf of hopelessly unenlightened patriarchalists everywhere: Notre Dame's songs and traditions were not intended to make you feel good about yourself. Please leave them alone. So far, we have been forced to raise our fists on "Sons." Don't make us do something more drastic, like re-name the university after a man.

Indeed, the prospective slope of gender neutralization at Notre Dame is comically slippery.  "University of Notre Personne" doesn't even quite get you there, as "personne" is a feminine noun.  The fight song mentions "her" 8 times and "sons" twice.  Replacing them all with "its" and "offspring" renders it somewhat less lyrical.  The idea of slapping the Victory March with revisionist gender neutrality as it prepares to celebrate its centennial would be enough to make the Gipper turn in his grave (if they hadn't dug him up a couple weeks ago).

And I can only imagine the fundraising letters we'd start getting if the administration needs to reclad the two-ton gold-gilded Virgin Mary statue atop the Golden Dome in more androgynous attire.

All the major Notre Dame songs extol the virtues (oops, that's a man-centric prefix... hertues?) of "Notre Dame men answer[ing] the cry" and "the charge of fighting men".  The songwriters noted that when "Notre Dame men fight for Gold and Blue" they "sweep the foemen's ranks away".

What's silliest about the campaign to besmirch this century-old tradition is the fact that the letter writers are pleading with student leaders to lobby for the switch on the basis that it would honor their own family's tradition of singing the sensitive version.