See: http://jezebel.com/welcome-to-derby-days-the-most-spectacular-con-in-all-1733644115
Yah or nay?
YK something? I think the posters depicted in the article are pretty funny. And double entendres / puns aren’t anything new. Or scandalous.
IDK if concern is warranted on my part as neither i nor my kids are involved in Derby Days or Greek life at all. It’s kind of gross but not surprising to me.
@Pizzagirl I take the article to be more about the sororities doing all the work for the fraternity’s event. To which I give a big shrug because it seems totally typical of that mindset to me, to try to please fraternities. Isn’t that what some of this is about, being popular, access to the cute guys, etc etc?
Its perfectly fine. I wish people would stop viewing women as helpless victims all the time.
This seems just like Derby Day in the 70s, so seems less an aberration and more just same-old, same-old to me. I vaguely recall getting sorority demerits for refusing to participate after the first year. Half way through my sophomore year, I wasn’t dating fraternity guys any longer so I had no interest in their events.
It isn’t an aberration in many places. It’s one of those things many will have to learn how to deal with, it’s not the kind of thing that a simple administrative action can stamp out. It will take a lot of awareness raising and fights to convince people to stop.
A lot of my sorority sisters liked Sigma Chis - they were the Big House on Campus, especially since their national was headquartered nearby - and a lot of them spent a lot of time going to their parties, participating in Derby Days, etc. I didn’t participate simply because I already had a boyfriend in another house and had no interest in hanging around Sigma Chi to try to pick up guys - NTTAWWT as far as I’m concerned. Of course I wasn’t “punished” with demerits - how very odd; of course there were absolutely zero consequences to not participating. I see this whole thing as really no big deal and this is faux-Jezebel clickbait outrage.
Pssst … The guys fall all over themselves to help with / partner with the sorority philanthropies and events since obviously they want to meet and greet too. It works both ways.
DG has Anchor Splash – which involves both fraternities and sororities. Like Derby Day, there are all sorts of competitions to raise money for DG’s philanthropic cause. It involves both genders though so I guess it’s not troublesome to Jezebel.
Look, if the sororities don’t want to participate they don’t have to. My sorority back in the 80s didn’t and it was no big deal.
I was a Sigma Chi “little sister” back in the day. The guys were great. I participated in Derby Days with my sorority and remember it being fun.
As for the signs, I don’t remember Derby Day signs like that. But I remember the spirit signs we painted for Pep Club in HS and they were loaded with double entendres. They were mostly for the football and basketball games…use your imagination.
A local high school mascot is the Trojans and there were all kinds of t-shirts with obvious double entendres / puns (“we don’t break under pressure,” you get the idea). Newsflash - young people are interested in sex, the opposite sex, and are experimenting with how to be flirtatious, saucy, suggestive, whatever adjective you wish.
“Look, if the sororities don’t want to participate they don’t have to. My sorority back in the 80s didn’t and it was no big deal.”
Of course not. But as usual let’s all generalize from the over-the-top systems.
I remember Derby weeks fondly and never felt exploited or “used” for fundraising. Of course, my sorority also had fraternity guys jumping through hoops for our “Mr. (fill in name of university)” fundraisers, so it was all pretty equal as I remember. In fact, since they were parading shirtless, I’d say we exploited them more than they exploited us since we were never required to dress scantily. All for a good cause, of course 
Really, some people just love to get outraged anytime sororities or fraternities do anything.
AKA another SJW crusade.
Yep, lets all be the same and not let anyone have fun that falls outside your definition of behavior that doesn’t offend anyone, even if they are not participating and don’t have to.
Takes me back to Sigma Chi house at MIT, circa 1975. Visiting bros from USC describe Derby Day. MIT brothers say “No way would the women around here do that.” USC bro responds, “All brains and no body, huh?”
^On my southern campus, Derby Day began with the bros painting their greek letters on the butts of the sorority girls cut-off jeans. I said, “no way” anyone is painting on my butt. When I think back, I’m kind of amazed at my 18 yr old self. No one else even questioned it, that I can remember and I certainly didn’t make a big deal about it. But I opted out the next year entirely.
Freshman/pledge year I also walked out of a fund raiser where we were sent to fraternity houses to polish their shoes, while they wore them. I didn’t care how cute those guys were, no way I was sitting at their feet and polishing their shoes. Maybe, just maybe, if we could have carried them home and then returned them, but polished shoes didn’t seem the real point of the exercise.
All I can say is I am grateful there was no internet and no FB when I was in college.
We were never “sent” to do things at fraternities, with one exception - a pledge-related thing where we went and sang slightly risqué songs. There were fraternity parties, events, and weekly mixers with different houses and you went if you were interested and you didn’t if you weren’t. You know, a normal college situation. No subservience.
At one of my D’s sororities, they had a point system which required attendance at X number of events, in order to retain active membership status. This was instituted because the members were so heavily involved in outside activities that they weren’t supporting sorority events. D said a couple women voiced their “offense” that mixers with fraternities were included on the point-earning list of activities, as apparently this was insulting to their womanhood, along the same lines as the Jezebel article.
if I were to look back and say what I should have done MORE of, it would have been silly light hearted fun, flirting and activities with fraternities and other groups of guys.
I agree with Ohiomom in post #2. The article says the boys get the girls to do all the work for their fundraiser and then take credit. We expect at least some of these young women to be future CEOs and the like. So this is an interesting college dynamic. jmho
We could discuss that issue without getting into what constitutes light hearted fun.
Why don’t these women just concentrate on their own fundraisers where they get all the credit? Why give away their time?