I'm a sorority girl. Things weren't meant to be that way, but I have come to embrace my affiliation with the Greek community. I rushed without the intention of actually pledging a house and becoming initiated, just as a way to meet new people, but I survived the hellish rush process and entered the pledge process to find myself a lifetime sorority member, provided I stay financially current. With my membership, I've found a small community within the sometimes-overwhelming university population.
I love my place on The Row, but asking frat boys what house they think I belong to has become a guilty pleasure of mine, as their responses are sneaky telltale ways to see what a guy really thinks of me. (There goes that trick.) To the chagrin of the Panhellenic Council, everyone considers X sorority to consist of Y-type of girls. So when a guy sincerely guesses (i.e. not simply trying to tell me what I want to hear) that I belong to X house, well then I know - he thinks I'm a Y-type of girl.
A psychology professor at DePauw University has studied the effects of such responses among students. As part of her class, professor Pam Propsom administers annual surveys to students, polling their perceptions of the university's sororities. As is the custom at USC, DePauw students pegged sorority girls from one house as "daddy's little princesses," while they deemed members of the Delta Zeta house as "socially awkward."
Members of the Delta Zeta chapter at DePauw saw themselves as a diverse sisterhood, while the national Delta Zeta sorority feared for the house's reputation and asked, ever so kindly, for 23 "sisters" to leave the sorority.
The so-called uncommitted members were the overweight and/or minority girls, while the true sisters were the pretty, popular girls.
All sorority girls have, whether they will admit it or not, been told about the importance of either maintaining or improving their sorority's image. We're told in order to ensure a good reputation that when wearing our letters we must look our best, for a sister wearing her letters on a bad hair day could potentially ruin a house's reputation.
OK, so maybe most houses don't truly fault members for declaring their sorority affiliations when not looking their best. I won't lie, I did wear my letters sweatshirt when I was fighting the grippe just to see if I would be advised to wear a nondescript sweatshirt next time my head was about to fall off - my sisters passed the test, and no one told me how awful I looked.
The Delta Zeta incident exemplifies sororities at their worst; from my experience, sororities are not that extreme. Evaluating my sorority experience thus far (who knows if I'll be allowed through the door after this article's publication) and talking to friends in various houses has shown me that, on the whole, sororities welcome the individual. When inside a sorority house and with fellow sisters, sorority members embrace quirks, tell you you're beautiful when you feel you are not and will often go out of their way to help simply for the sake of sisterhood. However, problems are abound when matters venture outside the house and into Row politics.
Prior to an exchange or a B&B - short for Burgers 'n' Beer, a frat-hosted get-together with a sorority - we're reminded to look our very best, for we don't want to disappoint the frat guys, who probably don't give a damn who you are, what you look like or what sorority you belong to by the end of the night. Moreover, if a girl wants to look good, she'll look good - she doesn't need advisement on her personal upkeep.
And then comes the rush talk, a lecture about how rush is pivotal for any sorority's spot on The Row. Concerning rush, all sororities seek to initiate the best pledge class; though sorority officers don't admit the best looking girls help to make the best pledge class, they make sure you get the message to look good in order to attract the hot potential new members.
One sorority girl, however, was much more frank about what sororities expect during rush. In an e-mail sent by one Kappa Kappa Gamma member to her sisters last semester, tips were given on how to stay fit during the holiday season. Attached were inspirational photos of overweight sorority girls from other houses - with the implication to avoid looking like them. Come on; as the Kappa so aptly stated, no Kappa wants to "come back to Kappa Kappa Krispy Kreme bid day shirts."
Sure, in the end, rush and sorority membership comes down to the house where you connected best with active members, but the process begins with appearance. Sometimes, though, sorority members get too preoccupied with reputation and forget why they joined a sorority in the first place: for sisterhood. As the DePauw affair demonstrated, it can dissolve in an instant for sisters who don't fit the sorority ideal.
-
Elizabeth Kenigsberg is a print journalism freshman from Calabasas.
