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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Every now and then,

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Speaker 1: even though I know I shouldn't do this, I look

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Speaker 1: at our reviews on iTunes, which usually are very different

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Speaker 1: than our list or mail. You know, people are our

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Speaker 1: listen of mails and as you know, fun stories, um

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Speaker 1: constructive criticism. We get all sorts of points of view,

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Speaker 1: words of encouragement, words of encouragement. But you know, on iTunes,

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Speaker 1: if people don't like you, they just let you know,

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Speaker 1: and it's just fine, pretty straightforward. They don't hold back.

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Speaker 1: Everyone's entiled to their opinion. But I've noticed that in

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Speaker 1: reading reviews, not just of our show, but other people

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Speaker 1: show that if you want to get across the point

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Speaker 1: that someone a girl hosting a show is not intelligent,

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Speaker 1: you call her a sorority bimbo. It's like an immediate,

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Speaker 1: somehow classification of lack of intelligence. Yeah, all you, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of the legally blonde thing. All you care about

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Speaker 1: our are your shoes and your looks and you're just

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Speaker 1: kind of talking out. We might yeah, we might say

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Speaker 1: like a few times. I mean, we know we do that.

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Speaker 1: It's off the cuff, but if we say it a lot,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily make we're sorority bimbos. So so you're

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Speaker 1: saying that there is a negative stereotype about sorority women. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they're intelligence. And so then we started thinking about

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Speaker 1: all these other stereotypes that are out there about sororities,

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Speaker 1: and so we want to answer the question do sorities

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Speaker 1: get a bad rap? So only I think the first

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Speaker 1: thing that we we have to address is whether or

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Speaker 1: not we were members of sororities. Okay, you go first, Molly,

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Speaker 1: I was not. I was what has sometimes been called

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Speaker 1: a g d I or a gosh darned independent, although

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Speaker 1: that's usually the lighter term used. And did you find

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Speaker 1: as a g d I you had certain perceptions of

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Speaker 1: what the authorities were like? Coming from my eighteen year

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Speaker 1: old mindset, I would say yes, I might not have

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Speaker 1: had the most patience with it I had. I went

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Speaker 1: to a very large college, there was a very lively

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Speaker 1: Greek system, and I lived in the dorm my freshman year.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of the girls um living with me

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Speaker 1: participated in rush and it kind of drove me insane.

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Speaker 1: So I you know, I probably I probably got off

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Speaker 1: on the wrong foot with sororities. Okay, I myself was

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Speaker 1: a member of a sorority, which usually surprised people when

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Speaker 1: they hear that about me. Um, but I sort of

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Speaker 1: started off at the same point of view that you did.

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Speaker 1: I was not planning on doing this when I went

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Speaker 1: off to college, but just happened to find girls that

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Speaker 1: I really liked and got along with, and so I

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Speaker 1: did it. I was probably not the most Uh. I

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Speaker 1: was probably not the best member of the sorority or

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Speaker 1: the social chair it was. It was not social chair.

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Speaker 1: But it was a really great opportunity for me to

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Speaker 1: get to meet people I would have met otherwise and

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Speaker 1: to do activities I would have never done otherwise. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I will say I was out at dinner the

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Speaker 1: other night with two of my friends who were also

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Speaker 1: in a sorority, and someone was asking us how we

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Speaker 1: all knew each other, and rather than proudly proclaiming that

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Speaker 1: we were sorority sisters, we said, well, we all went

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Speaker 1: to college together. Because I think that even though now

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Speaker 1: I'm out of college and away from all those sort

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Speaker 1: of stereotypes, I still was kind of afraid to say

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Speaker 1: or to to open myself up to that sort of

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Speaker 1: preconception of what a sorority girl was. Yeah, so even

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Speaker 1: people who are inside the system sometimes have to deal

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Speaker 1: with what the stereotype is. So let's dive right into it. Well,

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing for me, because I'm coming from an

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Speaker 1: outsider's perspective, I don't I didn't know much about sororities.

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Speaker 1: I had plenty of friends who were involved in sororities, Um,

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Speaker 1: I just wasn't. And uh, the cool thing to me

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Speaker 1: about how it all started was the first secret society

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Speaker 1: for women started in eighteen fifty one and making Georgia.

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Speaker 1: And that was the Adelphian Society, which now Alpha Delta Pie.

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Speaker 1: And what I like wondering about this is, um, their

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Speaker 1: their activities in this first society were praying, singing, and

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Speaker 1: writing and reciting poetry at their meetings. That was what

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Speaker 1: they got together to do. It sounds wild, sounds like

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Speaker 1: just sort of glorified coffee house in some way. Now,

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Speaker 1: the reason why this is kind of cool is that

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Speaker 1: these women started Viadelphian Society UM as a way for

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Speaker 1: them to be able to have intellectual and social companionship

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Speaker 1: with other women because at the time colleges were mostly

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Speaker 1: populated by men and there really wasn't much of an

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Speaker 1: outlet for women to express their opinion and really, uh

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Speaker 1: share their ideas and things like that. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: sort of a means of support because they were the

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Speaker 1: first women on campus. The men weren't treating them too nicely.

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Speaker 1: It was a time to get together and just really

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Speaker 1: let it all hang out. And uh, the Adelphian Society

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Speaker 1: was followed very quickly by other societies. Uh. They started

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Speaker 1: using the word sorority just or have these kind of

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Speaker 1: societies in eighteen eight two UM, and then in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o eight we had the first Greek organization for African

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Speaker 1: American women. And now those two are are somewhat separated

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Speaker 1: in terms of leadership. There are different Greek councils that

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Speaker 1: oversee both of them. And then following that, there have

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Speaker 1: been all sorts of sororities coming up to represent different

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Speaker 1: cultural interests, like there's an Asian American sorority, their Service sorority.

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Speaker 1: So now there's sort of different groupings for people of

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Speaker 1: different backgrounds. Yeah, and I remember when the last couple

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Speaker 1: of years that I was at college, UM, there were

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Speaker 1: a number of Latina sororities and fraternities that we're just

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Speaker 1: starting to take off as well. So it's kind of

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Speaker 1: interesting how it's become a larger and more diverse type

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Speaker 1: of thing, because I think when we're talking about whether

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Speaker 1: or not sororities get a bad rap, a lot of

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Speaker 1: it kind of goes back to that idea of, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're very stereotypical, white, upper class, very elitist organization.

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Speaker 1: So yesterday Christen emailed me and she was like, isn't

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Speaker 1: it cool that sorority started as these uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: female empowerment things in the midst of all this uh

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Speaker 1: male dominated university atmosphere, and now they're just segregated heterosexual

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Speaker 1: mating clubs and uh the g D I coming out.

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Speaker 1: And that was the point when I had to reveal

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Speaker 1: to her that I actually had been a member of

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Speaker 1: the so called heterosexual mating clubs. But you know, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of labels you can put on it, that

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Speaker 1: they are elitist, that it is racist, that Foster's problems

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Speaker 1: like alcohol abuse, date rate, poor body image, needing disorders.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna go through all of these controversies one

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Speaker 1: by one. I think that we should start out molly

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Speaker 1: with the this idea of whether or not sororities are

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Speaker 1: are racist, because to me, that is kind of one

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Speaker 1: of the strangest things about sororities, both white sororities, Black stories,

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Speaker 1: Latinas sororities. You know, they're all kind of racially divided.

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Speaker 1: It seems like you would choose to self segregate yourself

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Speaker 1: that way. It seems a little antiquated. There have been

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Speaker 1: headlines about black women trying to win white sorority some

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Speaker 1: facing discrimination. That was a famous case at the Mercy

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Speaker 1: of Georgia saying that sorority members are coming for and

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Speaker 1: saying that this one female had been rejected specifically because

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Speaker 1: she was black. And then in two thousand seven, UH,

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Speaker 1: the Delta Zeta chapter at DePaul University UH conducted a

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Speaker 1: membership review and they acted twenty two women from membership

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Speaker 1: because they were trying to get their numbers up and

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Speaker 1: they thought that these women were holding the sorority bag

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Speaker 1: and they just happened to kick out not only all

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Speaker 1: minority members of the sorority, but all overweight members of

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Speaker 1: the sorority as well, which caused a huge uproar, right,

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Speaker 1: and you know, the national group said, oh no, it

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Speaker 1: was just you know, we needed girls who really wanted

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Speaker 1: to help us recruit girls, and the more active girls

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Speaker 1: just happened that they were all the slender white ones. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then even in black sororities, there have been accusations

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Speaker 1: of them using brown paper bag tests um in the past.

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Speaker 1: Uh like if if if a girl was darker, if

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Speaker 1: her skin tone was darker than a brown paper bag,

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't let her in. Yeah, so apparents obviously huge factor.

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Speaker 1: And we often think about hazing. When you become a

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Speaker 1: new member, do you get haze? I think one of

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Speaker 1: the most famous examples of hazing is that you bring

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Speaker 1: a marker with you to your meeting and then the

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Speaker 1: older ones will draw circles on all the places in

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Speaker 1: which you should lose weight. So it brings about all

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Speaker 1: these things. We have to be the right skin tone,

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Speaker 1: you have to be the right size. You know, there

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Speaker 1: are all these horror stories about the sorority girls lining

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Speaker 1: up to you throw up, and I mean I never

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Speaker 1: saw any of this myself in my experience. Well and uh,

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Speaker 1: and as far as hazing goes, we don't hear about

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Speaker 1: hazing in sororities as much as we hear about fraternity

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Speaker 1: is because just from the anecdotal evidence that you hear from,

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Speaker 1: like the horror stories of girls being haze and stories,

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Speaker 1: a lot of it is more psychological abuse than physical abuse.

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Speaker 1: That that fraternities are more notorious for, like you said,

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Speaker 1: like making girls um, pointing out girls areas of fat

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Speaker 1: on their bodies and and things like that. But there

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Speaker 1: have also been accounts of uh, girls forcing new members

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Speaker 1: to binge drink, or making them do degrading tasks, or

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Speaker 1: telling making them tell painful secrets and uh and other

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Speaker 1: other horrible things. Yeah, and it's something that I think

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Speaker 1: that because it lands in the newspapers so often, because

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Speaker 1: someone dies, schools are now very, very sensitive to the

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Speaker 1: problem of hazing. This is the definition of hazing that's

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Speaker 1: used by a lot of schools. It's an action taken

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Speaker 1: or situation created as part of initiation to or continued

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Speaker 1: membership in a student organization which produces or could be

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Speaker 1: expected to produce mental or physical discomfort, harm, stress, embarrassment, harassment,

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Speaker 1: or ridicule, and so, like Kristin was saying, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to point to, you know, something that just kind of

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Speaker 1: is messing with your mind, as opposed to being forced

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Speaker 1: to binge strength for five hours. But I do think

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Speaker 1: that because it shows up in the headlines, it's just

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's too sensitive for people even consider

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Speaker 1: doing it some schools. Right, Um, although there has been

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Speaker 1: I think we should point out even though we we

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Speaker 1: usually hear about, um, you know, the hazing gone wrong

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Speaker 1: stories with fraternities, there was two sorority pledges did die

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Speaker 1: in two thousand two. They were students at California State

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Speaker 1: University in Los Angeles, and they were pledging the Delta

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Speaker 1: Sigma THET Authority, and they blindfold the girls and took

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Speaker 1: them down to the beach, and it didn't seem like

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Speaker 1: they were really making them do anything that dangerous. They

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Speaker 1: were having them like walk into the water. But then

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Speaker 1: a huge wave came up and the two of the

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Speaker 1: girls were um kind of swept under and ended up drowning,

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Speaker 1: which is completely tragic, but I think it also goes

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Speaker 1: to show that, um, you know, it's not just a

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Speaker 1: boys game, right, it's not just a boys game. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's good to be aware of when you're

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Speaker 1: going into a sorority situation. Um, to know that might

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Speaker 1: be a little bit more psychological. Um. But you know,

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Speaker 1: in my experience, all of my new member education was

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Speaker 1: about making new friends and team buildings. So uh, like

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Speaker 1: I said, I just think that it's something that schools

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Speaker 1: are very sensitive about now, and I think that parents

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Speaker 1: are sensitive about it. And to the point that I

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Speaker 1: did have some storty sisters who asked if there was

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Speaker 1: gonna be any hazing because it was getting a little

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Speaker 1: little tame for them too, boring. Um, which brings us

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Speaker 1: pretty nicely into alcohol use. Um, that's something you often

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Speaker 1: hear about in relation to hazing. And uh. There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of studies about Greeks and alcohol use, and

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Speaker 1: usually those studies will ask the question, do Greek organizations

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Speaker 1: make a person drink more? Or do the people who

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Speaker 1: want to drink a lot just join a Greek society

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Speaker 1: because they know that they can drink a lot. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about alcohol. We we do know and um,

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Speaker 1: this is I'm studying this from a New York Times article,

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Speaker 1: but there have also been other studies that have um

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Speaker 1: come to the same conclusion. But Greek houses do have

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Speaker 1: the highest rates of bens drinking on college campuses. Yes,

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Speaker 1: makes sense. Greeks drink more frequently, more heavily, they show

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Speaker 1: more alcohol dependence symptoms, UM, They're more likely have abuse

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Speaker 1: of alcohol patterns. I'm getting this oftim a study in

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Speaker 1: the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors Journal. But like I said,

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Speaker 1: is it correlation, is it causation? We're not quite sure.

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Speaker 1: And the study I read did go on to say

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Speaker 1: that Greek status does not predict post college heavy drinking.

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Speaker 1: So it really does appear that people come in I

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Speaker 1: want to have a good time in college, but aren't

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Speaker 1: you know, taking their toga parties out into the real world. Well,

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Speaker 1: and to me, it would make sense that people in

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Speaker 1: a Greek house would drink more because let's say you're

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Speaker 1: like me, you stayed in the dorm your freshman year,

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Speaker 1: You're mostly surrounded by other people who are eighteen and

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Speaker 1: nineteen years old, Whereas if you were to join a sorority,

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Speaker 1: there's a greater chance that your big sister might be

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Speaker 1: older or have some easier way of curing alcohol. Just

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Speaker 1: seems like you would have more older friends and more

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Speaker 1: opportunities there for them to be alcohol around. Well, I

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Speaker 1: think that's somewhat true. I will say, Um, at the

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Speaker 1: school I went to, we didn't have sorority houses. You

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Speaker 1: really couldn't live with a sorority. But I understand that

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Speaker 1: those who do there are pretty strict rules about having

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Speaker 1: alcohol in the house. So yes, you might people to

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Speaker 1: go out with people or go to a party where

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Speaker 1: there's more alcohol. But I would say that I bet, um,

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Speaker 1: if you're in the house, you're probably not going to

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Speaker 1: have a lot of access to the alcohol. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: but maybe that's just my my rose colored glasses spin

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Speaker 1: on it, Kristen. But I do think that the problem

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Speaker 1: when you start bringing up alcohol, particularly for women, is

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Speaker 1: if you get a lot of young, immature guys drunk,

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Speaker 1: then they might start acting in an untoward manner. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for college women, college age women in general, UM, drinking

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Speaker 1: and boys are sometimes a bad a bad combination. Um.

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Speaker 1: Sexual assault on college campuses is a pretty rampant problem.

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Speaker 1: There's a pretty common statistic out there that one in

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Speaker 1: four college women are at least uh um victims of

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Speaker 1: at least attempted sexual assault. And then when we start

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Speaker 1: talking about the Greek system. There's there's a book called

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Speaker 1: Inside Greek You that came out a couple of years

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Speaker 1: ago and it's by Alan de Santis. And from a

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Speaker 1: survey that he did, UM, he found that seventy of

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Speaker 1: reported cases of gang rape occur at frat parties. And

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Speaker 1: the important thing there is reported cases. A lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of sexual assault that goes on in college

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Speaker 1: campuses also goes unreported UM. And then he also found

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Speaker 1: that almost half of sorority women experienced some form of

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Speaker 1: sexual coercion and experienced attempted rape, and then seventeen percent

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Speaker 1: were victims of completed rape. So those are pretty terrifying.

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Speaker 1: Statistics are pretty terrifying. So so far, we've got the

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Speaker 1: fact that sororities might be racist, not really a great

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Speaker 1: situation for a woman. Uh, they might get hay psychologically,

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Speaker 1: they could drink too much, have a lot of health problems,

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Speaker 1: stuffer bad grades. And then you've got the possibility of

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Speaker 1: date rape, sexual abuse. And when you talk that all off, UM,

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Speaker 1: you know, getting back to Christian's heterosexual mating club, you

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Speaker 1: know there are a lot of formal state nights mixers UM.

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Speaker 1: So at least this perception that the serrity girls are

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Speaker 1: just there to find a husband. And in fact, there

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Speaker 1: was a study conducted by researchers researchers at the State

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Speaker 1: University of New York at Plattsburgh that found that Greek

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Speaker 1: students were more likely to buy into traditional gender stereotypes

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Speaker 1: of men being dominant and women being submissive, and that

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Speaker 1: really their top priority was a good heterosexual relationship. So

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Speaker 1: how can this antiquated viewpoint of womanhood ever be a

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Speaker 1: good choice. Well, there has been some research that shows

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Speaker 1: that having these uh kind of established groups of of

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Speaker 1: strorities and fraternities does help uh these young adults in

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Speaker 1: you know, eighteen to twenty two navigate through these early

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Speaker 1: years of um dating. You know, you have more established

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Speaker 1: ways to get to know some get to know people,

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Speaker 1: learn how to interact better with people of the opposite

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Speaker 1: sex UM And while these established institutions don't necessarily challenge

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Speaker 1: these traditional male female dynamics, it is a means of

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Speaker 1: support for a lot of kids. I think that's true,

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Speaker 1: and I think also one one point I mentioned to

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Speaker 1: Kristen is that that same sort of thing, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the desire for a heterosexual relationship above all else is

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Speaker 1: nothing more than what you find in a Saturday night

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Speaker 1: in a bar. Now, so it might, let Kristen said,

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Speaker 1: be sort of a good practice grounds for that. Um,

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Speaker 1: the question is our sororities so catty and so mean

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Speaker 1: that you even sort of establish any sense of womanhood?

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Speaker 1: I would disagree with that, Yeah, because there are lots

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Speaker 1: of opportunities for leadership. UM storties do a lot of

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Speaker 1: philanthropy work. They do a lot of organizing of fundraisers

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Speaker 1: and events, and they're all sorts of positions and posts

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Speaker 1: that members can take, and you meet so many people.

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Speaker 1: And I remember at my college a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people in the Greek system who are very active in

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Speaker 1: the Greek system were also very active in student government. UM.

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Speaker 1: They seem like the ones who were the contributed the

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Speaker 1: most to those aspects of their stories and fraternities were

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Speaker 1: kind of just the go getters, you know, who could

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Speaker 1: probably be very good role models for younger students coming in. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think there have been stays that show that Greek

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Speaker 1: students do tend to be more involved all over campus.

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Speaker 1: They usually have to meet a certain g p A,

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Speaker 1: so it's not like you're just allowed to party all

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Speaker 1: the time and have your grade slide. Uh, and that's good.

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Speaker 1: I would just say from my own personal experience, it

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Speaker 1: was nice to walk into any class on campus and

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Speaker 1: know someone because you met them through your sorority. Um.

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Speaker 1: And I know that's how a lot of people find

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Speaker 1: their first job. So, like you're saying, really good networking

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Speaker 1: is there. Um, And I do think it's what you

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Speaker 1: make of it. We obviously are talking about kind of

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Speaker 1: extreme examples of things leveled at sorority's tends to make

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Speaker 1: headlines when things go bad as opposed to when things

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Speaker 1: go good. Um, So it's what you make of it.

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Speaker 1: Probably depends where you are in school. But we did

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Speaker 1: find this really interesting example of a sorority at Trinity

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Speaker 1: College in Hartford. Yes, this sorority is labeling itself as

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Speaker 1: a feminist sorority, which might seem like an oxymoron at

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Speaker 1: first glance, but what they're doing, it's a it's multi racial,

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Speaker 1: and they even have two male members at the time

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Speaker 1: that it was written. And uh, they're basically trying to

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Speaker 1: kind of redefine what a sorority is. Yeah. One quote

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Speaker 1: I really liked is that they wanted to reclaim the

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Speaker 1: word sority. In the same way that many feminists feel

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Speaker 1: the word femine. This needs to be reclaimed. You know,

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Speaker 1: people have all these stereotypes that we've talked about what

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Speaker 1: feminism is, and so they wanted to show that the

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Speaker 1: in the same way the word sorority really could mean

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Speaker 1: a band of people working together to support each other. Right,

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Speaker 1: And that kind of reflects the entire history of how

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Speaker 1: sororities were founded because um, women decided to start calling

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Speaker 1: themselves sororities instead of fraternities, because they wanted to differentiate

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Speaker 1: themselves as a sisterhood of women. Right. So, Molly, we've

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Speaker 1: got some high points now and some low low points,

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Speaker 1: and some pretty low points. So where does that leave

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Speaker 1: us with this question of whether or not sororities get

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Speaker 1: a bad rap? You know, probably any stereotype is a

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Speaker 1: bad rap. I think when you throw the word bimbo

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Speaker 1: after sorority, that's a pretty incorrect thing to say. Um,

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Speaker 1: so I'm going to go behind every generalization is bad. Well,

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Speaker 1: and another thing to think about is I think if

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Speaker 1: you ask any girl who has been a member of

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Speaker 1: a sorority, you're going to get a for an answer

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Speaker 1: from every one of them. You know, some people loved it,

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Speaker 1: some people hate it. Some people like you, liked it

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Speaker 1: for two years and then didn't like it for the

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Speaker 1: two years or just got really busy or just or

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Speaker 1: just really busy of course, Molly, Um, But I think

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Speaker 1: it's just like you said another you know, one of

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Speaker 1: those things that's going to be unique for everyone. But

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Speaker 1: I think there is a lot to the girls should

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Speaker 1: take into account before they decide to whether or not

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Speaker 1: they're going to rush, because there is there's a lot

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Speaker 1: that goes into it. There are a lot of social

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Speaker 1: dynamics at work and a lot of things that women

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Speaker 1: need to be smart about in general. That's true. So

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Speaker 1: on that optimistic note, do you want to do some

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Speaker 1: listener mail? Yes, I'd love to do some listener mail, Molly.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we change gears for a minute and talk

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Speaker 1: about Amy's booklist? So far as summer, Amy is reading

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Speaker 1: the entire Robot series and Foundation series from Isaac Asthma,

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Speaker 1: and then she has read all of the year like

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Speaker 1: homes she can get her hands on. Then she started

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Speaker 1: reading Agatha Christie uh, and she's read a bunch of

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Speaker 1: other stuff. And on top of reading all of this,

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Speaker 1: she is a big fan of video games. She plays

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Speaker 1: World of Warcraft, which is hooked up to her computer

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Speaker 1: that is hooked up to a fifty one inch TV

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Speaker 1: with surround sound and wireless mouse and keyboard, which sounds

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Speaker 1: pretty awesome. And she just started playing a rereleased revamped

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Speaker 1: version of the original Monkey Island. And she also plays

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Speaker 1: around on her PS two PSP games on her iPod

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Speaker 1: iPhone and even Facebook games like Mafia Wars. And then

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Speaker 1: on top of all of her book reading, game playing

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Speaker 1: and podcast listening and full time job, she also throws parties,

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Speaker 1: goes to parties, ghost movies, goes out to eat, and

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Speaker 1: takes vacations as much as possible, and tends to her garden.

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Speaker 1: And when I wrote Amy back, I told her that

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Speaker 1: if there was a Mom's Stuff gold Star of woman Excellence,

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Speaker 1: well Roundedness, well Roundedness, Renaissance, gal Amy, you would get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is a It's a pretty pretty impressive list of activities,

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Speaker 1: books and video game It makes me feel very lazy.

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Speaker 1: But we're not that lazy, Molly, because you and I

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Speaker 1: have a blog do we do? It's called how to

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Speaker 1: Stuff and you should check it out. It's on how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And if you have any thoughts

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Speaker 1: on sororities. If you are in a strority or a

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Speaker 1: fraternity and would like to give us your insight on it,

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Speaker 1: feel free to email me or Molly at mom stuff

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And and you can

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Speaker 1: also read How Sororities Work by Katie Lambert, star of

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Speaker 1: Stuffiness and History Class podcast. And that article is on

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you