Oh no she didn’t!
Just this past Tuesday, a column right here on these pages stirred up some serious gossip on campus. The article was a full-on massacre of all Binghamton University sororities — no letter of the Greek alphabet was left unscathed.
My first thought was, “Wow, people actually read this section? I better start watching what I say.” My second thought was, “This girl has some serious balls.”
The article went something like this. The author takes on the “clone army” of what she calls “North Face- and Ugg Boot-equipped drones,” also known as sorority girls. To stick with the Star Wars’ theme, I’m going to picture her as Anakin Skywalker, the good guy. She’s fighting evil sorority clones, one carefully crafted ‘dis’ at a time.
According to the author, these sorority clones lack proper nutrition (they only eat “iceberg lettuce”) and basic motor skills (due to excessive binge drinking and general lack of wit). Some other main characteristics of these evil beings are that they use glitter glue pens, wear animal print and are really, really bitchy.
But I think the author’s intention to fight the “keg-filled, backstabbing” ways of Greek Life is severely misguided. Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side and eventually became his own worst enemy, and I think the same thing happened here, although I think it is a stretch to compare a Pipe Dream writer to Darth Vader.
Instead of exposing the “high school cattiness” of sorority life, the article only encourages cattiness through its use of broad stereotyping. Instead of providing a fair account of this often misunderstood group of women, we’re given the quite unoriginal and close-minded picture of the slutty, stupid sorority girl. Is it really the sorority girls who are judgmental, or the other way around?
I’m not in a sorority. Could you tell by my use of Star Wars references? Kidding. But out of pure chance this semester, I am living in a house full of sorority girls — more than 20 of them.
So I come to you all as a fairly unbiased source — one who has seen these glittered up clones in their natural habitat. And I’d like to take a moment to clear the air.
First of all, if you’re going to put down Uggs and North-Face jackets, that’s a slap in the face to half of the school’s female population. That’s not sorority attire, that’s just Long Island attire. Hell, I have Uggs, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make me the anti-Christ.
Sure, some girls in the sorority have some scandalous outfits, but not any more so than my non-affiliated friends. I’ve seen sorority girls and non-sorority girls alike falling on the icy sidewalks of Downtown Binghamton in their 4-inch stilettos and miniskirts.
The article also described sorority girls as cycling through frat guys, hookup after hookup. In reality, half of them have long-term boyfriends.
Iceberg lettuce? Pah-leez. I’ve seen these girls down Rat wings and Chinese food like champs. I came home Tuesday night to a whole kitchen filled with girls satisfying their drunken munchies. One girl was heating up pizza bagels. Eating disorders my ass.
Of course you have your stereotypical sorority girls, but they are a minority. It’s just like any other stereotype: the shy Asian, the Guido Italian or the pompous hipster.
Isn’t college supposed to be a place where you get to know people different from yourself? Judging a girl as a bitch just because she’s in a sorority is just like judging someone as a dirty hippie just because they have dreads. First impressions are the worst — trust me, never go by them.
Everyone wants to feel as if they belong to something — isn’t a sorority just that? I’m not telling you all to go join a sorority or frat. I didn’t — different folks, different strokes. But I’ve known plenty of girls and boys who joined Greek Life and never looked back.
I’m not writing this as an insult to the last article. I’ll leave that to the sorority girls themselves. The article was pretty funny, and the author does have some serious guts. It was also pretty offensive — but no more than your average “Tosh.O” episode.
But the truth is, if you go into the college experience so closed off, blinded by the stereotypes of movies and TV, you’re going to miss out on so much.
If you see a girl with Greek letters on her shirt approaching you, please resist the urge to throw holy water on her. Most of them are really cool, just give them a chance. I did.