Last Spring, discussions at the College's termly Board of Trustees meeting centered overwhelmingly around budgetary issues. As a result, decisions about whether to approve funding and construction plans for Alpha Phi and Kappa Delta sororities' physical plants were postponed until a later date ("Sororities' construction plans remain unclear," Feb. 1). Due to weather concerns, the Board is scheduled to hold a conference call today in lieu of a traditional meeting, and it is crucial that this time, the plans are approved. The establishment of physical plants for all sororities will be a meaningful step toward achieving much-needed gender parity in the Dartmouth social system.
Since their arrival on campus in 2006 and 2009, respectively, Alpha Phi and KD have managed to form and maintain strong sisterhoods without the benefit of physical plants. Although their examples illustrate that houses are not a sine qua non requirement for successful sororities, they have also demonstrated the challenges that sororities face without houses of their own. The disparity between sororities with houses and those without is especially stark during the rush process. Alpha Phi and KD are unavoidably disadvantaged during recruitment because they cannot offer a physical space to women who are rushing. Inequality between sororities only enhances the divisive hierarchy that currently characterizes Dartmouth's sorority system. This hierarchy, which breeds a competitive and demoralizing rush process, inhibits a campus-wide female support network.
The lack of houses for some sororities also contributes to the even greater disparities between the sorority and fraternity systems. Men in Dartmouth fraternities have ownership over a space where both male and female students socialize. Brothers make the rules, control alcohol distribution and decide who is welcome in the male-dominated basements. In contrast, sorority houses provide a space where women can feel empowered and socialize on their own terms, yet women in sororities without houses must rely on fraternities or other sororities if they want to gather within the Greek system. Any sense of ownership for these women is therefore obliterated.
The College's decisions to bring more sororities to Dartmouth were supposed to provide opportunities for an even greater number of women to join strong, female-dominated social groups and act as leaders in their own spaces. However, the Board's failure to approve funding sends the signal that creating and enhancing communities for women is not a priority for the College.
Physical structures for Alpha Phi and KD are by no means the solution to Dartmouth's gender problems they are merely a first step in a process that also depends on lifting the ban on local sororities and re-evaluating the female rush system. But while many of Dartmouth's gender-related problems are seemingly abstract and difficult to address, the Board has a real opportunity today to decrease the gender divide and allow more women a space of their own.
