Column: The illusion of sisterhood: Male domination and the Greek system

By Renee Thessing

As college students, one system in particular inhibits the learning process of higher education more than any other: The Greek System.

Why, when we are supposed to be expanding our minds and challenging common sense notions, do some of us revert back to a childhood mentality?

The Greek system is a totally American construction and frankly, most foreigners are amazed, yet perplexed, at the conception of exclusive clubs. Just when we’ve broken the chains of shallow high school social interactions, we decide to enter once again into a futile, constructed hierarchical system. A chapter’s purpose is to maintain or improve its reputation in the Greek community. While this may not be a totally bad goal, I must question the methods of improving one’s chapter and the underlying purposes of the Greek community in general.

As a former member of a sorority, I will mostly focus on the implications of being a female Greek.

As soon as we first arrive in our quaint, concrete walled dorms, the buzz of Panhellenic Recruitment passes from room to room. At a school of 40,000, Recruitment seems to be a great way to meet people, even if you don’t want to join a house. However, this is the beginning of the complicated mixed messages inherent in the sorority system. Throughout the week, non-biased leaders instruct women to “be themselves,” but at the same time, wear these articles of clothing on these days. As we’ve all seen, on the first day of Recruitment, every single woman wears the same t-shirt. The rest of the week isn’t much better; women flood the streets of campus indistinguishable from one another.

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On the other side of the process, a single sorority woman has the possibility of speaking to more than 30 different potential members for maybe less than five minutes. No person can recall every single potential member’s bubbling personality. In order to remember, the sorority member will write down notes of what they’re wearing, even though most of the girls wouldn’t want to be wearing those clothes in the first place. The idea of the dress code is undoubtedly a tradition, but what does the tradition accomplish? Through the first two days of Recruitment, most potential members are weeded out by a combination of their clothing and physical appearance. Of course, a potential member may dazzle you with her conversational skills, but most of us are freshmen and we haven’t become totally comfortable with ourselves in the new environment.

After receiving your bid, the acceptance into one house, you are then forced to automatically become “sisters” with about 40 other strangers. Of course, you trust your older “sisters” to have made wise choices, but you seem to have gone through a social process rather passively. You’ve just made 40 new friends without choosing those people or even speaking to them. You now belong to an exclusive club and you have the responsibility to represent this club.

However, you begin to realize they’ve sold you on a club, exaggerating the true qualities of what being Greek entails. During Recruitment, sorority members are told to emphasize “sisterhood” and their “philanthropy” – just don’t talk extensively about what we really do: drink with the boys. You’ve just entered a world where you are separated from the male sex, yet you are solely focused upon them. It’s much like a sleepover in the seventh grade – boys aren’t allowed to be there, but we’ll talk about them all night.

Finally, you fully experience the life of sisterhood – upholding the chapter’s reputation at exchanges. Dress as slutty as possible, so you attract the boys and they want to hang out with our house in the future. Enter into patriarch domination. Play the role of the submissive woman. Be that “tennis ho” or “slutty secretary.”

Sororities have an amazing potential to promote female solidarity and acceptance of each other. However, this is just an illusion as houses focus on improving their reputation in the hierarchical system. If the sorority system wants to live up to the ideals of sisterhood that it espouses during Recruitment, then end the catty competition for the male prize that continues to marginalize women as second-class citizens.

Renee Thessing is a junior in LAS. Her “tennis ho” attire allows you to easily approach her in a bar. Her column appears on a rotating schedule. She can be reached at [email protected].