Sororities and their discontents

Groucho Marx said, "any club that would accept me I would never join".

Well, clubs, even...


but, yeah.

I saw this, and it makes me cringe, not only because of the bias and nastiness, but also because, inevitably, all sororities are painted with the same brush. And that just ain't true.

The vast majority do not engage in this kind of nasty, uncalled for crap. I say this because I know. I am a Pi Beta Phi and I also acted as our Panhellenic Rep. I've seen not only my own sorority in action but also Tri Delt, Alpha Phi and a number of NHPC sororities like Alpha Kappa Alpha. They did not and do not behave this way.

I could imagine, prejudicies about fraternities and sororities as as common as they are about the (German) Student Corps (that would be a -distantl<- equal association here): there are these and those.

My second-hand information about sororities comes from the Joan Hess/Claire Malloy murder mystery and Alexandra Robbins' Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities

This limited reading does not make me a World Authority.

I think that the young women at national headquarters were overwhelmed my a mighty nostalgia for the days of their youth. Unfortunately they were in a position to act on their yearnings.

That's a disturbing book.

Gargamel--

Robbins, an established author in her late 20's, evidently looked young enough to pass as a sorority girl which she did on several campuses at several sororities.

I was distressed by the lack of privacy these young women chose and by the amount of matter-of-fact, heavy drinking that Robbins described. Most distressing was the way the sorority girls were exploited by their brother fraternities.

I remember that the black sororities were definitely a cut above the white sororities in terms of diversity and of community service.

I read the book a few summers ago, when I was a grad student at the University of Alabama, a school whose sororities were targeted in Robbins' account of racism in the Greek system. As a teaching assistant, discussions of race were often awkward, as I never was quite sure what to expect from the two or three callow minds in each classroom.

But the drinking and body image issues were the most obvious. There was indeed a tall skinny blonde sorority, a brunette sorority, a fat girl sorority. I kid you not--one of my coworkers at the library, a fratboy, told me as much. It was staggering the amount of 90lb blondes on that campus.

Most disturbing to me though is the groupthink that particular system seemed to inspire. On Election Day 2004, black and white W flags unfurled from frat mansions. It was like 1930s Berlin. Many of these kids come from small towns and think campus is a bustling metropolis, though it's just another podunk town with a football stadium. They think the world ends there, and in some ways the greek system encourages such a narrow viewpoint. With the future business connections pledging provides, why would they ever leave Alabama, see the rest of the world, subject their beliefs to opposing points of view?

I was never in a frat, though I lived in the dorms with a whole hall of Pi Alpha Nu guys, and they were good guys. Plus, they had connections, which made cheating and getting drugs easier. The sorority girls were usually the drunkest girls at the party. I liked that too. So, to sum up, fraternities and sororities are good.

We don't have them here, so the whole idea just seems weird.

I've never had any interest in them and thought most of them are weird. But, I've heard about good ones from people I like where they don't get drunk all the time, or according to this article screen you out because of how you look.

As far as I'm concerned, this article reflects, in some ways, the failure of American school systems and parents; all that superficial mean behavior starts at what? age 4, 5?

I remember a frat boy was very friendly with me and took me to his frat house a few times but I never bite as I couldn't afford it.

BM

Once again, I cringe.

My sorority was community service-based. We did the signups for the annual campus blood drive and also donated. We helped each other with schoolwork. My "mother" (other groups call them the big sister or big sis) graduated summa cum laude. We also told the guys at SAE where to get off.

Some of this may have to do with being in a city. Garg, you may be surprised to hear that when we had a house, back in the 70s, there was a VietCong flag flying there for a while.

The woman I work with who is an organic farmer was in a sorority when she was in college. This was the 60s, in the Midwest, and the main function of her's was to make the place as multi-cultural as possible.

I work with a woman now who is still active in her sorority-- she graduated about 20 yrs ago. They mostly do charity and outreach in the community..

I don't think for a minute that all sororities are sister organizations of Animal House. I'm guessing that the stronger the Greek mystique on campus, the more sorority stereotypes are likely to be accurate.

At the local state university an old-fashioned Animal House, Party Boy fraternity was closed down for old-fashioned partying and public puking.
Times are changing--in good part because of college and university authorities taking firm stands on both underage drinking and alcohol in general.

No ****!

I think the Greek thing is a whole other monster in the south. And of course I was generalizing. As a teaching assistant I was told, before my first day leading class, that students at Alabama were the most severe conformists in the country, which I found to be quite untrue. They routinely surprised me. Of course I was privy to thoughts written in solitude (essays), uninfluenced by peers.

No ****, although I'm hard-pressed to find a photo or anything (I know what the alums told us when I was in school).

And I agree, it's different in the South, plus it's very different when it's a mainstay of socializing, whereas at BU it was just one of several options for what to do. I think that's probably better for most people, and not just in the context of Greek life, to have options and not be stuck with one thing, particularly when you're trying to get an education. Insularity, at least to me, seems to be kind of counter to what you're attempting to do at college, e. g. expand your worldview.

And, as you said, open words and deeds are often different from private ones -- true for all places and all age groups.

My sorority experience was very positive. We had a large Greek community at the major state university I attended, with the large southern mansion style Greek Row. If I remember correctly, the SAE's were our brother frat, but I didn't attend those functions much.

I didn't live in the house, preferring a private dorm, but I had to spend certain hours there for dinner, and meeting with sisters to study. I was asigned a "Mom" to help me adjust to campus / college life. She is still in touch every year or so. Mostly it was to make me check in and assure I WAS doing my studies instead of partying. We were also mainly service oriented, being one of the sororities Jes mentioned.

However, I also pledged as a TKE lil sis. That was where I partied.