Sorority Women Shafted

[lillibet]

Here's the NY Times article that caught my attention this morning. The DePauw University chapter of Delta Zeta is being re-organized by their national, in such a way that all the non-white, non-skinny women have been asked to leave. I'm not a huge supporter of the Greek system, but I do know how important a person's house can be to them and some frustration with nationals screwing around with cool houses. This kind of garbage is exactly the reason why I'm generally down on sororities: the pressure to embody an image that promotes false stereotypes of what a woman should be.

Comments

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

I want to read that article but the link's not working.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Should work now. It's http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/education/25sorority.html?pagewanted=all

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I read that last night and had the same reaction. It's bad enough to have to put up with those sterotypes from men, but even more galling when fellow women reinforce them. Feh.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's pretty appalling.

The women they interviewed who left or were kicked out describe a sorority chapter that was exactly why I'm *not* down on the system as a whole; one more like the one I joined at MIT. (And the optimist in me would like to think that there are more chapters like that out there - whether they're largely skinny and white or of all shapes and sizes - who actually have the diversity of characters and brains and interests that doesn't always come out on the surface; that if you talked to them about what they valued about their sorority it would not be "my sisters are all skinny and cute and attract the most attractive fratboys to our parties.")

It's too bad their national organization seems stuck on the idea that a chapter these stereotypes would do a better job of recruiting than a chapter that bucks the stereotypes would, or for that matter that having a larger number of skinny white members is better than a smaller number of women who build a strong chapter and have a committment to the sorority that will pay off for the sorority in the long run. It's the least stereotypical "sorority chicks" I knew who actually volunteer their time to the national and local chapters 10 years down the line...

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Pretty twisted.

I'm glad my college had no Greek system.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

the greek system, by and large, is built around reinforcing the standard stereotypes. good for the DZs that bucked the system -- looks like there are enough of them that they might be able to form their own sorority (if they're still interested in such things afterward).

[sethg]

carefully not thinking of red-hot umbrellas and a certain MIT frat

The one that was dissolved by its national organization, allegedly for being insufficiently Jewish?

[starphire.livejournal.com]

:)

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the sororities at my college were strictly local: no national membership meant no national control.

[ceo]

That's completely appalling. It does make me happy that half of the women they didn't throw out resigned anyway.