@bay “Much2Learn is saying that either sororities must have parties or the U should ban them. That is not forced?”
I am not saying that it is forced. I am saying that it has to be the free decision of each local chapter and not constrained at the national level. The women of a local chapter do not have to have parties, but the rules have to allow the chapter to have parties if they want to.
If the greek rules allow local fraternity chapters to have parties if they want to, then they have to allow sororities the same privileges.
The guys should show up clean, sober, buff, scantily clad and in the right ratio. In exchange, the women will provide them free alcohol. If they get too drunk, they may end up servicing one of the homely sisters in the house.
As a former sorority girl, I know that the national organizations making sorority rules have nothing to do with the national organizations making fraternity rules. Each sorority has a national group giving out directives to individual sororities. And then there is a council of all those groups. I have no idea of the fraternity national governing set-up but it is completely separate from sororities as far as I know. I am happy to be corrected on this. Individual campuses seem to have joint fraternity/sorority oversight groups sometimes. But the national organizations trump campus groups.
In the 70s, in my house, we had overnight male guests after consulting our sisters. It didn’t matter it was against the rules. We also had alcohol. And we had parties with alcohol, but the drinking age was 18. We didn’t have “open” parties.
We were fined (or given demerits) for missing some fraternity parties. It had to do if they were some kind of joint fund raiser.
Boo hiss. As a social psychologist I’m frequently skeptical when people try to apply pure economic analysis to social interaction, because it often assumes that people are completely rational actors when social science has proven time and again that we are not. Humans do all kinds of stupid, irrational things - sometimes even against our own self-interest - and 18-22-year-olds seem like they would be most susceptible to this.
First of all, the gender essentialism of sex being a commodity that women supply and men demand is kind of silly. [Both men and women want sex](Turns Out Women Have Really, Really Strong Sex Drives: Can Men Handle It? - The Atlantic), and there’s no real reason to believe men want it more than women. It is less socially acceptable for women to openly express a desire for sex, and less socially acceptable for men to openly express desire for emotional intimacy, so straightforward questions don’t always uncover a woman’s true sex drive (or a man’s true desire for companionship).
The article they cite as backup that men have higher sex drives than women is one by Baumeister et al., 2004. Without getting into the specifics too much (so this comment doesn’t become a book), Baumeister uses articles that have nothing to do with sex drives and in fact were not intended to uncover sex drives as evidence that men have higher sex drives.
But that’s irrelevant. Let us assume, for an exercise, that men do in fact have higher sex drives than women and that women by and large don’t want to have sex unless they get something for it in return (ew). Let’s also make the economic assumption that humans are usually rational actors that make rational economic exchanges. Why on earth would women trade sex for alcohol and parties?! Alcohol and parties are easily obtainable by sorority women for a much lower cost than sex they don’t want to have. They always have the option of throwing their own off-campus party, or even a party in the residence halls or apartments where the members who don’t live in the house live. They can go to off-campus parties and non-fraternity parties that have alcohol and music. The problem with this breakdown is that sex isn’t a commodity like bread or cheese that you give away with little effort; it’s a physical part of a person, with real physical consequences.
I think most ridiculous is their twisting of this outcome:
If his theory was correct, then the sex of high-status young women should be worth more and thus they should get more for less: in other words, they should be having less sex even as they go to the same amount of parties. They did not find that: girls at the highest-status sororities had MORE sex than the girls at the lowest-status ones. The most parsimonious conclusion for this finding is simply that young women want sex as much as, or almost as much as, young men - and being in a high-status house means that they have more access to the high-status young men on campus. But no, this is their conclusion:
That doesn’t even make sense.
That’s because the answer has nothing to do with “market power” of exchanging alcohol for sex. Hooking up doesn’t increase sexual assault anyway, so even if alcohol and parties were the currency for consensual sex (again, ew) it wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with sexual assault. It’s about sociological power that men have over women in these systems. The men control the social scene because they host the parties, and they control the configuration of space in the houses because the parties are on their turf. The predators* also knew, until recently, that there were few repercussions for their actions - their brothers would protect them (either actively or passively by not saying anything) and they were unlikely to get expelled or suspended; indeed, it was unlikely that their victims would even report on them (most college rapes and sexual assaults go unreported).
*Also, I believe that the predators make up a tiny minority of fraternity men. The fraternity does not turn them into predators. They join the fraternity BECAUSE they are predators, and because they know or figure out that the system gives them access to women in alcohol-fueled situations. That’s why I don’t think banning fraternities is the answer.
juillet: What a great post! Some of us are discussing this on the Emma Sulkowicz thread. I really wish you would re-post this there and join the discussion, if you have time and interest. Thank you.
I’ve been reading through this thread, and I reread the article as well. I’m still trying to see where someone said that fraternities should be banned. I don’t think anyone is going that far.
And I haven’t gotten to it (and haven’t figured out how to), but @ucbalumnus put a link to the Sean Hernandez’s thesis if you are interested
@CaliCash - I wasn’t responding to a specific comment on this thread, but there have been people who have commented on other threads on similar topics that fraternities should be banned. There have also been several articles on the topic whose authors think fraternities should be banned or moved off-campus. I was responding to the sentiment.
@alh - LOL, I’ve been more or less avoiding the Sulkowicz thread, but I’ll take a look.
@juillet Ahhh I see. Okay I think that would be such a drastic measure. A measure like that implies that by default, if you are in a fraternity, you have commit assault at some point in your life. This definitely is an important topic that is worth addressing, but we still must keep this in perspective. This is a very small portion of male college students.
CaliCash is very obviously ignorant about how sororities operate. This is not an “ad hominem attack,” it is a fact.
I am appalled at some of the things women on this thread are proposing that other women be forced to do (like host parties with alcohol), as a result of some perceived danger.
@juillet “As a social psychologist I’m frequently skeptical when people try to apply pure economic analysis to social interaction, because it often assumes that people are completely rational actors when social science has proven time and again that we are not.”
True but they are also not entirely irrational actors either. The analysis may not be perfect, but that does not mean there is nothing to be learned from it.
“First of all, the gender essentialism of sex being a commodity that women supply and men demand is kind of silly. Both men and women want sex, and there’s no real reason to believe men want it more than women. It is less socially acceptable for women to openly express a desire for sex, and less socially acceptable for men to openly express desire for emotional intimacy, so straightforward questions don’t always uncover a woman’s true sex drive (or a man’s true desire for companionship).”
How can you think there is no evidence that many males are happy just having sex with no strings attached, but females are more likely to prefer to have sex within a relationship. This is true in many species not just people. You have to know that.
“so even if alcohol and parties were the currency for consensual sex (again, ew) it wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with sexual assault.”
It wouldn’t necessarily, but it does because reducing a woman’s ability and capacity to control her environment lends itself to both hookups and rape.
"1. Either allow women to have parties too, or end them all. A University can easily say that the only greek organizations allowed to have a presence on campus will be organizations where the rules are the same for men and women. If you can not abide by those rules, you will banned from campus and not recognized by the school. Maybe the national organizations need to realize that they need to change. "
For the hundredth time, they are SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS. Not one organization with different rules for men and women.
It is both insane and stupid to suggest that a college could TELL a national sorority that they must allow parties with underage drinking. I’m sorry you know nothing of Greek life but then maybe you shouldn’t participate in offering solutions.
"I am not saying that it is forced. I am saying that it has to be the free decision of each local chapter and not constrained at the national level. The women of a local chapter do not have to have parties, but the rules have to allow the chapter to have parties if they want to.
If the greek rules allow local fraternity chapters to have parties if they want to, then they have to allow sororities the same privileges."
You really have no understanding of the structure you’re talking about. It is not that the Greeks unfairly “prohibit” women from doing what the men do, it is that the sororities are beholden to their nationals.
" Either allow women to have parties too, or end them all. A University can easily say that the only greek organizations allowed to have a presence on campus will be organizations where the rules are the same for men and women. If you can not abide by those rules, you will banned from campus and not recognized by the school."
Good grief. How can my national sorority “have the same rules for men and women” when it doesn’t HAVE rules for men because it doesn’t have or oversee any male members? What part of “all these national fraternities and sororities are independent, separate entities who don’t oversee or control one another” is difficult here?
This is like arguing that the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts should have the same rules for their members and being ignorant of the fact that they are separate organizations.
“The argument for sororities not having parties with alcohol would be that it costs money to supply the alcohol, to insure the house, and to clean up the vomit afterwards, and the sororities don’t want to do that, especially since their members are already spending a lot of money on their appearance. The argument for having parties with alcohol would be so your sisters don’t get raped at fraternity houses.”
I would be beyond furious if my sorority national decided to say “it’s ok for our houses to serve alcohol to our underage guests.” We are supposed to stand for protecting our sisters and encouraging healthful behaviors, not serving alcohol to them. If our sisters are getting raped at frat houses, our job is to ensure they are not left alone. Not to move the party to our house and trash our belongings and get the underage girls drunk.
""1. Either allow women to have parties too, or end them all. A University can easily say that the only greek organizations allowed to have a presence on campus will be organizations where the rules are the same for men and women. If you can not abide by those rules, you will banned from campus and not recognized by the school. Maybe the national organizations need to realize that they need to change. "
For the hundredth time, they are SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS. Not one organization with different rules for men and women.
It is both insane and stupid to suggest that a college could TELL a national sorority that they must allow parties with underage drinking. I’m sorry you know nothing of Greek life but then maybe you shouldn’t participate in offering solutions."
You can’t tell the organizations what to do. You can tell them that if they can’t agree to common rules with fraternities then they lose their privileges on campus. They can then decide what they would like to do.
I think the real problem with your suggestion is that it is actually against university rules, as well as illegal, for fraternities to serve alcohol to underage students. The university could enforce the rules the fraternities are breaking. I don’t think they are going to suggest sororities break those same rules.
True, alh, but the university can play hardball too. Say that the sororities piously say that gosh, they don’t want to serve alcohol to underage people because it’s illegal, so sorry. The university could then say, “Glad to hear that you’re so concerned about underage drinking! So are we. Good thing we won’t find any sorority sisters when we start busting fraternity parties for underage alcohol. Glad you’ll back us up when we start closing down fraternities for serving alcohol… Do you want to rethink this stance, sororities?”
Since I am advocating banning fraternities, it is okay with me to start busting them for underage drinking and I don’t particularly care if sorority girls are caught up in that crackdown. I am actually okay with enforcing the drinking prohibitions on campus.
and I agree banning fraternities is not the answer.