The reason to object to Alabama students deliberately discriminating against black students isn’t because some sorority gives any access to amazing “power” and networking opportunities - at least not anywhere outside the Junior League of Smallville, Alabama. The reason to object is because it’s not a nice way to BE - it’s rude and hurtful and behind the times.
I object mightily to discrimination against Black students. However, I have little objection to sorority girls being as glittery and twee and girly and huggy as they wish to be.
I found the criticism of conformity in the usnews article posted above, to smack of sexism. If young women enjoy dressing alike to put on parties, I don’t see anything wrong with that. It is no different from practically every man I’ve ever known to own a navy blazer for the times when a jacket is required.
Whether a white person /can/ or should speak on what the majority of black people believe, I can say awcntdb’s post is both incorrect and mainly aimed at attacking liberals.
Now, sororities definitely offer networking opportunities, but I don’t see how that’s unique specific to sororities or how it creates an issues. I don’t think black people are missing out on much as far as tangibles by not being wanted inside these sororities. I do think that the fact that there have been blatant racial issues with the UAlabama sorority system shows that there are problems that need to be corrected, but I also don’t have a problem with these sorrorities showing themselves as who they are. Really the video only confirms what most already know: they’re homogenous southern girls trying to have a good time. And while the video causes me to roll my eyes, as long as they aren’t discriminating in who they accept I’m not gonna attack them or the video.
I don’t want to criticize those young women. I do not care for that video. It has nothing to do with their looks, dress, mannerisms, etc. It has to do with what I view as objectification. jmho. I’ve been looking at a variety of these videos now as well. I didn’t even realize they existed.
I very much agree with some of the points blprof and nottelling made upthread about the video, but don’t have the energy to look them up.
I’m curious about whether you are informed about the racial history and makeup of sororities at UCLA, which I believe is your alma mater (?), in relation to the black population of CA. I have not looked at this, but wondered if whatever it is, is acceptable to you?
The more I think about it, I can’t help expressing my offense on behalf of these young women, that so many men (and some women) who have enjoyed all the riches they have been bestowed by virtue of their Ivy League (or equivalent) degrees, want to destroy the sororities for these UA women from the house with the lowest GPA because they are getting some sort of unfair advantage in life.
Re:#505, @Bay - The bland conformity would have been a complete turnoff for me as a college freshman. I joined a Greek-letter organization, but it was a co-ed fraternity, and I joined because it was an assortment of aesthetes and eccentrics. I look at pictures of my 18-year-old self, and I was pretty durned cute, but I would have been too chubby and sloppy for the Alpha Phis as they present themselves in the video. I was also too good a dancer. They clearly appeal to a critical mass of viewers, both at the University of Alabama and on College Confidential. There are undoubtedly some bright, spirited young women in that group, but I viewed it and sensed that they were only reaching out to teenage girls who would blend in seamlessly.
There are different regional and cultural aesthetics. I came from the northeastern preppy, Ivy League world, where nobody would have perceived these young women as upper-class or “preppy” in style. They all looked disturbingly old to me, which I think results from attention to hair and makeup. I did not grow up among many girls who spent that much time preening and polishing. Some looked great rolling out of bed and pulling on whatever was at the top of a heap on their dorm room floor; others didn’t look as great. We would play with makeup and fashions for parties, but it was as likely to be vintage clothing, or dresses purloined from the costume room. I can’t say that I don’t find the apparent commitment to conformity rather creepy, but that’s just me.
I don’t want to pick on these young women. I do advocate changing rush practices so there is less conformity and think the increased diversity would be a really good thing. I graduated from tailgate U, not an Ivy or equivalent. I don’t want to destroy sororities, but will be okay with them disappearing on their own, if that comes to pass. I well understand the irony of objecting to elitism in this context.
And yet things like that have been going on for a very long time. The more loyalty one feels based on a certain kind of “sameness”, the more it happens. So it has happened quite often that a Greek will be biased in favor of another Greek, especially of the same letters, just like there is some potential bias based on school attended (after all, how many discussions on CC revolve around that??!!??), etc. People are attracted to commonalities, of course. That is part of the very issue here, but the commonality being debated is one that our society has deemed unsuitable for use in decisions regarding many parts of our lives. And just like the courts said that all male clubs where business is transacted are not allowed, this is similar in spirit. Maybe the bias doesn’t always or even usually result in actually giving the person the job, but if it even gets them an interview where otherwise they would not have, that is an advantage. Do you really doubt that happens?
Saying it is dumb is not at all the same as saying it doesn’t happen, and both history and current reality says it does. After all, aren’t there postings on a regular basis for business networking based on national Greek affiliation with certain letters as well as events based on where you went to school, and sometimes even in person events? Both occur, and if you didn’t belong you don’t get invited. Here is someone that agrees with me https://lawyerist.com/21496/fraternity-sorority-networks-job-search/ and here is another http://studentbranding.com/greek-life-and-your-job-search/ I also randomly picked four sororities that came to mind and three of them had job related services, including job postings. Given that reality, I find the easy manner in which that argument was dismissed a bit troubling.
^Exactly. I have been thinking of that parallel as well, but hesitated to bring it up. It is one thing to recognize presentation matters, another thing to assume what we perceive is what everyone else perceives, and yet another to judge a book by its cover.
ETA: this thread has nothing (yet) on the sweatsuit thread that went on for weeks…
and which obviously at least Bay and I still have on our minds years later.
I think maybe we’ve been hanging around here too long
@ Bay & alh - Your disdain is fine, but please refrain from classifying the opposite of sloppy as “preppy,” when I have years of observing how students dress for class at boarding schools and at colleges which attract prep school alums. Even when young men had to wear jackets and ties, they were pulling on shirts that probably had weeks of accumulated spilled gray on the front, and girls competed to see how long they could go without washing their hair. My sons attended a school where the only dress code was that students had to be dressed. Pajamas and sweats were de rigueur there. Anyone who actually attended a traditional prep school finds Hollywood and mass-media portrayals of “preppiness” hilarious.
woogzmama: Absolutely no disdain for your post… sincere apologies if it came across that way.
I “liked” your observations and like your last post as well. Your definition of preppy is the one with which I am most familiar after living some years in the NE. If Boarding School culture isn’t the epitome of preppy, I don’t know what is.
ETA: Bay thought sweats and PJs were disgusting in public. I argued it was “eye of the beholder.” PG thought leopard print pants and cat sweatshirts tacky, so I went right out and acquired some to wear while participating on the thread. It isn’t my usual look, but I’m a little obsessed with not conforming, which I realize becomes just another conformity.
Yes, I have no disdain whatsoever for “preppy” style, in fact mainstream preppy is one of my favorites as I prefer a tailored look. But I do have a personal objection to others wearing dirty clothing when they will be seated in close proximity to me, and the wearing of sloppy or wrinkled clothing to events that deserve more respect.
I won’t deny that sororities may work to provide job opportunities for their members (although mine didn’t, and our alum group does not). I would like to see tangible evidence that doing so has made an appreciable difference over non-Greeks finding jobs through their own connections.
Other organizations are not prevented from doing exactly the same thing. There is nothing about sororities that makes them more advantageous in this regard, other than that they may actually make the effort to do this. I cannot benefit from college athletes helping other college athletes find jobs, but does that mean we should prevent them from doing so? Ivy League colleges/alums probably have the best job networks in the world, and I cannot benefit from them, because I didn’t go there. Perhaps we should abolish the Ivy League?
On the other hand, and most definelty a digression from our original topic, it is no coincidence that Gant, a rather expensive and overtly preppy line, has a shop in the middle of Yale, and they even have a line of shirts named Yale.
For everyone’s benefit, I know a non-Yalie who went on Yale’s career site and snagged one of their jobs. Not sure if you need to know a Yalie to get on there, but there are several on this thread who could help you.
@woogzmama - not sure what boarding/prep schools you are describing, but in the ones that I am familiar with the boys and girls are pretty pulled together. It is not a formal look but it is an expensive look - lots of Barbour, Vineyard Vines, Jack Wills and Patagonia. In the dorms in the evening you see the sweats and pajama pants but not in class. In my D’s school I always said the boys out dressed the girls – again all comfortable, casual clothes but very pulled together.
^^I can recall my husband saying, “college kids here in the NE don’t dress up like they do in the south” and responding, “those kids each have on more than $1000 worth of clothes.”
responding to #520,
and then there is J Press, selling Yale college scarves, which get featured in a GQ, and then purchased by those who may aspire to preppiness, or deliberately dress anti-prep but just like the scarves. Or wear them ironically. and so on…
