“Alpha Beta Kappa Gamma Epsilon Pi Phi Omega! We are your future sisters and welcome home!” The chants shouted from inside the old establishments lining the street. If it was not recruitment season, you would think the scene welcomed a horror movie rather than the hundreds of women who anticipated the overpowering energy and fluff conversations that followed. Young women dressed in slightly deviant leggings and a cozy grey coat knocked on the doors synchronously. For a moment the indoor shouts dimmed as the grey-coated recruitment counselors announced “DOORS OPEN”. You felt a push, shoving you into an entirely different world brimmed with positivity masking the tremulous history these sorority women fail to hide.
~what’s after that step.~
For those that belong in a sorority or fraternity know what Greek Life is all about. The socialization, the parties, the guaranteed on campus housing, the philanthropy all gift another connection to campus. Greek life holds a long history, too, student groups even dating back to the early 1700s at William and Mary. Though it wasn’t exactly our stereotypical image of a fraternity, it was secret society with similar ideology that college men were able to cling to. A few decades later, a professor at Syracuse University coined the term sorority, which gave an elite social space to the ladylike women of academia. Centuries unfolded and the darker side of Greek life came to light. If you are not lean, pretty, bubbly, and white you will not end up in a top sorority. Sororities pick women that increase their collective social image whatever they deem that to mean, and historically their preference is an upper middle class white woman.
With the times, we became more aware of the historical trauma past generations caused and how its’ affects linger today. And still,
sororities are slow to adapt.
Women continually use fun events to promote unjust ideas as a theme even today. For example, dressing as a stereotypical prisoner with tattoos, ripped clothing, and fake drugs. Or during recruitment mandating all women straighten their hair and dilute their personal attributes to display their preferable woman.
Even through the fun of recruitment, meeting new sisters, and gaining the benefits of Greek life, Panhellenic sorority sisters must understand the messed up background of their institutions.
“Greek life is not a broken system; it’s exclusive because it was built to be exclusive,” Maya, a member of a sorority at Washington University in St. Louis who is now leaning toward the abolishment of the Greek system, tells Teen Vogue. “Birds of a feather flock together. You end up breeding these groups of people that are predominantly white and predominantly wealthy that are going to inherently exclude people of color.”
Teen Vogue
The only true solutions sororities could do is fill the embedded cracks with a new cement. Meaning, lowering dues to be more inclusive, undergoing bias training for sorority members to increase self-and-others awareness. Though individual councils have repeatedly attempted to implement such actions, the National Panhellenic Council and National Chapters are dismissed the pleas. Instead, they recommend increasing the number of scholarships the university may give,
aka a band-aid for a bullet wound.
Some women are optimistic of the potential implementation of reforms to implement post-COVID. Meanwhile, others are pessimistic of the rebuilding Greek Life without tearing the systems in place to begin with. How can you fix an unfixable system when many higher-ups hands mutually contribute and benefit from? Crafting a toxic entertainment advertised to young women eagerly waiting to find their ‘forever home’?
And so. The Abolish Greek Life Movement is born.
Hidden in the corners of student population, even quieter those members apart of Greek Life that wish for its end. Greek Life is too entangled with institutions financial interests, the abolish Greek Life movement remains impossible for the majority of institutions that profit from fraternity and sorority alumni donations.
That’s it. The bottom line. Universities profit on alumni’s money, which is why Greek Life continues to remain regardless of the repeated instances of racism, hazing, and exclusivity. Without a change on an administrative level, there will be little progress fully eradicating to rebuild Greek Life.
~You take another step~
into the sorority house memorizing every detail of your potential future home. The thoughts fly, out of your mouth for your own sake, “Woah they’re so pretty.”, “They look cool.”, “I want to be apart of them.”, “I need to get them to like me.” A sorority sister approaches you in line and ushers you into their basement to sit you against a wall for your times conversation. Hope you convince her because that arbitrary conversation about your hometown will be the rational of whether you are invited the next day. And the next day. Until you receive an official bid from a group of women and told to pay up. Perpetually being enticed to stay apart of the group for the social connection and feelings of goodwill through philanthropy. You become sucked in, with little room to breathe unless you break free to create your own friendships.