Sorority: No fat chicks, minorities

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/education/25sorority.html?ex=1173070800&en=c5e69c176014de9e&ei=5070

GREENCASTLE, Ind. — When a psychology professor at DePauw University here surveyed students, they described one sorority as a group of “daddy’s little princesses” and another as “offbeat hippies.” The sisters of Delta Zeta were seen as “socially awkward.”

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.

 

Let 'em go over to Omega Mu....

 

GDIs rule.

 

At our college rag, one of the editors previously worked in a copy store, where they often worked on sorority-officer guides at rush time.

One of the guides instructed officers that, at rush events, to "try and seat all the girls you know you don't want together, somewhere in the back of the room."

It's shit like this, reinforced in the article, that made me proud to be a GDI.

And my friends and I partied just as hard.

 

Some of my best female friends in college were DZs. I'd be interested to hear what they're thinking about their sorority today.

 

DZ's at my school were.. well most of the sorority girls were bitchy, but they were particularly bitchy. They fit the cookie cutter mold of "pretty" and rarely let girls in who didn't. I was in a sorority, but it was a professional organization that I predict will be considered "social" over professional in the next five years. I quit midway through my junior year. Those girls were bitchy, too.

 

There was a frat where I went to school that we called the "Fat Chick Frat." Every time you went to a party there there was always fat chicks. We stopped going to that place after the third party since Fat Chicks suck and all. No offense intended fat chicks.

 

I call it the "Rule of matching." Folks prefer to hang out with people of relative equal attractiveness, socioeconomic status, successfulness, ect. After all, if you hang out with the upper crust, that makes you upper crust, at least by proxy, right? Of course, you can elevate your status if you're ugly or overweight. You can elevate it by throwing money around. Stay shallow, America!

 

Oh, we had names for ALL the sororities at my school. The DZ's were The easy dz's.

 

Read this story yesterday. It doesn't surprise me.

A former roommate of mine was a Kappa Delta at a state school in the Rockies and told me that she had left her sorority for a year because she didn't agree with the fact that her sorority had ousted the president because she was a lesbian.

"I'm a Taoist and the root of Tao is about balance. My principles do not balance with their. And don't tell anyone this because it will be bad for the sorority."

Um, duh, I work at the newspaper.

At the end of the year she was back with the sorority and when I asked about what happened with the former president, she shrugged it off and giggled and said, "These are my girls, how can I stay away from them?"

 

I always found that state-school frats contributed the most to the negative image of Greeks. Of course, I was the fat geek in my house, so I have no idea what it's like to be the popular frat boy, either.

 

I was in college at Maryland back in the '80's, and the same thing happened. The sorority Sigma Kappa were all ugly, borderline freaks. (I'm not trying to be offensive, just truthful). The house population dwindled, and their reputation in the greek system was a joke. In order to prevent the chapter from dissolving national came in, made all the actives alumns, and recruited a group of about 20 hot, no make that smoking hot girls to repopluate. Needless to say Sigma Kappa became very popular after that. Chapter saved.

I'm not saying it's right, but this is the way sororities work.