I did not. I said they “seemed to have no problem taking credit” when you said it “shouldn’t be about who gets credit”.
I guess it’s OK if the guys take credit but the girls need to not care about it.
All I see are leaders in the ONLINE fundraising event. Maybe I missed the list of sororities etc who did the lip sync or whatever else.
There is nothing stopping the sororities from including information about their participation in Derby Days on their own sites, and perhaps they do. I don’t understand the big deal here. The UVA Sigma Chis acknowledge the participation by the sororities (athough not by individual name) in a fair amount of detail on their webpage, and the national site includes money donors by sorority name. The national site doesn’t mention Derby Days as far as I can see, but perhaps the Derby Days money goes to local charities and not the Huntsman philanthropy and that is why it is not included.
boolahi,
Have you seen the UCLA cheerleaders outfits with the crop tops and short skirts? Those were meant for the camera, I’m pretty sure. So much for setting an example, huh? 
It’s not a big deal, as I said in my first post, I don’t really care. Girls can not join sororities, be in sororities but not participate in DD or whatever if they don’t like it.
Or maybe Sigma Chi helps the sororities out with their charities in return.
It seems the national has some concerns about it all, “demeaning” women, financial burdens placed on sororities, etc http://www.sigmachi.org/sites/default/files/Derby_Days_Manual.pdf
Well it’s the context. Swimming suits for a water polo game raises no eyebrows, but go to your poli-sci 101 class and folks will gawk…
No, it seems like national is just reminding the guys to keep it on the up and up. Why, should they not do so? They don’t publish standards- oh it’s so awful they have none. They publish them - oh, they must have major concerns.
Any organization with a lot of “arms” is going to have some kind of position / policy on major events they do.
This is all a mountain out of a molehill.
As for WW(Marissa or Sheryl) do? Marissa is supposedly on the spectrum so whatever she did or didn’t do seems irrelevant to me. As for Sheryl, I don’t really know - but alh, you keep talking about sororities as so all encompassing that they preclude achievement in other campus activities and that’s just not the experience of those in normal, less over the top systems. I had a roommate who was a sweetheart of Sigma Chi, and she’s now a senior executive at HBO. Other girls went to top business, law and med schools and were / are accomplished. I don’t see the issue here. I didn’t do that kind of thing because it wasn’t my style but that’s frankly because I was too introverted and should have let my hair down more.
How are these activities any worse than a bunch of non-Greeks hanging around an off campus apartment, going to bars, etc?
PG: that comment was about not getting/ taking credit for your work product. 
nothing else.
Yes. They do seem to have major concerns, in that same doc:
Well, then, don’t participate I suppose. Really. You’re not forced to. Learn how to say no. It’s not required.
Right. No one appears to be forced to. Some peer pressure maybe.
The comment about credit is interesting. The only person who is going to get any “credit” is the philanthropy chair of Sigma Chi who can put on a resume “in this capacity, raised $xxx for X philanthropy via spearheading xxx.” But every little activity one does for charity doesn’t usually get “credit” in any significant sense other than personal satisfaction.
And half of you would think it silly to see any Greek reference on a resume anyway. So what’s the point?
PG: From here on out in every discussion of greek life, let’s assume I concede that greek life at North Western is different and better than greek life at every other school. North Western is an aberration. 
I wholeheartedly support spending some college time on silly fun and looking for romance.
In Paying for the Party the sorority time suck was discussed. Years ago I experienced this and received demerits for not attending events like Derby Day. In post #17, Bay wrote
So there is a limited amount of hours to spend on outside activities. Is spending that time on Derby Day the best use of time? That will obviously be an individual decision. If you meet your future husband at Derby Day, probably it is a good one.
Although I don’t have daughters, some female relatives have recently entered the work force in male dominated fields. This makes me think about how we teach and model behaviors for young women. (yes - I know you don’t have gender discrimination issues because your company is run by women) I am starting to wince when it seems like young women are not given adequate credit for their work, whatever that work happens to be. These days some workplaces seem to be all about teams. Derby Day is sort of a team experience. It just makes me wonder what experiences and lessons young women may take away from Derby Day other than silly fun. It’s just kind of interesting to me. I don’t really care all that much about Derby Day.
adding: I am going to read the new Anne Marie Slaughter book this next week if anyone wants to discuss it.
FYI, it’s Northwestern (one word). Interestingly enough, I also had my sorority experience at NU like Pizzagirl. DH was also Greek at NU, but not a Sigma Chi.
It’s NOT an aberration, alh. People I know who have had Greek experience at schools such as Rochester and MIT report a very similar situation to what I’m describing. That’s the whole point.
“So there is a limited amount of hours to spend on outside activities. Is spending that time on Derby Day the best use of time? That will obviously be an individual decision. If you meet your future husband at Derby Day, probably it is a good one.”
If it falls under the category of light-hearted fun that doesn’t harm anybody, I don’t see why it needs to be justified in any other way. Lots of people spend lots of time attending and cheering on college football teams. I hear tell that in some parts of the country, they hold beautiful elaborate tailgates that obviously take a lot of planning and prep and the college football games are the must-see event of the fall season, crowding out other activities. Is that the “best use of time”? It’s not how I’d spend my time, but that’s merely personal preference, not a value judgment.
I am very sorry about misnaming Northwestern. No excuses, just apologies.
No worries.
“Derby Day is sort of a team experience. It just makes me wonder what experiences and lessons young women may take away from Derby Day other than silly fun. It’s just kind of interesting to me. I don’t really care all that much about Derby Day.”
I think in systems where we don’t overthink the meaning of Greek life (because it doesn’t matter all that much, and it certainly doesn’t matter what house we were when we get into the “real world”), it’s just easy to conceptualize it pretty much at face value - oh, here’s a group of guys, who want to achieve the twin goals of philanthropy and meeting as many girls as possible, so they came up with the idea of having girls participate.
The girls, of course, have agency - they can participate, and they can participate for whatever reasons they like (whether it’s the noble philanthropic, hanging out with their girlfriends, or meeting guys), or they can choose not to participate, and again because this isn’t the Meaning of Life, it just isn’t fraught with any more meaning than deciding to go see a movie with a group of students you met in chemistry class, or read your assignment for French lit class on the quad with a picnic lunch. Sometimes an occasion is just an occasion.
The reason it’s hard to get all worked up over this is that there’s nothing preventing these young women from rocking whatever other extracurriculars or interests they have.
We had Derby Days at my alma mater. And we had Sigma Chi and my sorority sung some pretty raunchy songs including their letters.
It was a two-way street, and I think the only issue is whether there is a public decency issue or not. And considering many billboards and what they show, let the kids have their hah hah jokes.
And OMG!!! Gender insensitivity!!!
Horrors!!!
You mean like professors and students who say girls don’t know math and science as well as boys, sorry, CAN’T know math and science as well as boys? That’s the real horror, not saying “we sleep with girls who are easy”. If it ain’t rape, it is consensual sex, and adults can engage in that.
The fact that women contribute labor and don’t get credit for it is nothing new. Call me humorless if you will, but I was dismayed by their complicity in designing banners that portrayed them as little more than sexual objects. Given the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and in society more generally, I was concerned.