There are few topics at Dartmouth that can stir up as much passion as the question of gender equity and the Greek system.
At a school where fraternity parties dominate the social scene, meaning parties are inherently on men's "turf," some women say it is difficult to find their own social space on campus.
And the issue of whether women are equal members of the campus social scene still remains unresolved after 23 years of coeducation.
In the near future, the College must face even more controversial issues, including whether there should be more sororities and whether those new sororities' houses should replace fraternity houses.
And of course, always hovering in the background of all these discussions is the larger issue of whether it is best for the College to continue having a single-sex social system.
Greek sex equity
With 15 fraternities, six sororities, three coed fraternities, two coed undergraduate societies, two historically black fraternities and one historically black sorority on campus, there seems to be no doubt that women at Dartmouth have fewer social options than men -- especially in the Greek system.
"The Greek system does not reflect sex equity in terms of actual resources available to men and women students," Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco said. "The fact is that we have 15 fraternal organizations and only six sororities, even though we have a huge number of women wishing to be in sororal organizations."
Part of the problem is the history of the College itself. Psi Upsilon became Dartmouth's first fraternity in 1842 -- 130 years before coeducation.
The first women joined fraternities in February 1974, when six of the College's 22 fraternities allowed women to join. Sigma Kappa sorority became the College's first Greek society exclusively for women in 1978.
Turco, who has been at the College in one capacity or another for the past 20 years, was working in admissions at Dartmouth Medical School at the time sororities were introduced to Dartmouth. She stressed the College did not "create" the sorority system -- female students requested it.
"Initially it was to say, 'Men have fraternities, where is our social organization?'" she said. "I can remember ... watching the development of the sororities and thinking, 'My gosh, there are so many fraternities, where are they going to get the resources to meet the demand if all the women want what the men have?' Now, it continues to be a question."
Sororities have become an increasingly important part of the social scene during the past 17 years.
Most of the sororities were originally affiliated with a national organization, but found many of the restrictions oppressive, so they broke free of their nationals.
Sigma Kappa was the first sorority to go local, breaking free from its national to form Sigma Delta sorority in November 1988. Kappa Alpha Theta became Epsilon Kappa Theta in May 1992, and more recently Kappa Delta Epsilon was founded as a local sorority in September 1993.
Since these sororities are local, they can encroach on the fraternities sacred ground -- late-night social parties.
Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma and Delta Sigma Theta are still affiliated with their national organization.
There currently are about 650 members in the six mainstream sororities, and about 850 in the 15 mainstream fraternities. The average fraternity has about 55 members, while the average sorority has more than 100 members.
"If we look at what is available to men for their culture and social experience ... we will see that there are more resources available to men than there are available to women, just at that level. So I think there is work to be done," Director of the Women's Resource Center Giovanna Munafo said.
Changing the system
In the past 20 years, committee after committee has called for the examination of the Coed, Fraternity and Sorority system. Most recently, the Committee on Diversity and Community at Dartmouth said the "CFS system tends to encourage excessive drinking, anti-intellectualism, sexism, racism and homophobia."
Now, administrators say if the College is truly interested in achieving gender equity, it will eventually have to take a good, hard look at the College's Greek system.
"I think if the College chooses over time to sustain and reform the Greek system, it must address the question of sex equity," Turco said. "I've spoken with male and female leaders in the Greek system and they agree that something has to be done about sex equity in the Greek system."
Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia said it is hard to have any conversations about reform in the Greek system because "immediately the flags go up."
But at the same time, administrators say the College must, at some point, examine the system.
"I think we need to talk about whether or not at a first-rate academic institution, the social systems that are in place support the full academic and personal achievement of every student," Turco said.
Sateia said she thinks there are people on campus who want to reform the system and would work for change, but said "it's hard to get that conversation going."
Even though administrators admit Dartmouth would be well-served by more sororities, there simply are no available physical plants on campus.
And some students even say there really is not enough demand on campus to warrant a seventh sorority.
"In theory, I think it would be a great thing but I'm not convinced that our system could support it right now," Delta Gamma President Abbey Henderson '96 said.
But Panhellenic President Dani Brune '96 said she thinks the College needs a seventh sorority. "The sororities are so large that its hard to meet all the women's needs in each chapter," she said. "By making the houses smaller, it would make the women within each house more cohesive and make the sisters feel more comfortable."
Brune said Panhell is going to wait a year, however, before it begins pushing for a seventh sorority, because "we want to be sure all the houses are strong. We don't want any of the existing houses to fail because then we would shooting ourselves in the foot."
Claire Unis '95, who depledged Sigma Delt to help found Amarna undergraduate society, said the sorority system would be more supportive if there were more sororities with fewer members in each house.
"I think the situation could potentially be different if there were smaller houses which were better able to define their own identities and address members' concerns," Unis said.
Sigma Delt President Lauren Currie '96 said the current system does not provide a "unique place for each woman on campus. My goal is that women who wanted to find their space at Dartmouth would have the opportunity to do so. I think we have the potential to offer each woman a space, but because of our small numbers we just can't."
Top administrators such as College President James Freedman and Dean of the College Lee Pelton have long predicted that some of the smaller fraternities will go under and be replaced with more sororities or more coed organizations.
In a Student Assembly-sponsored referendum in November 1993, more than 80 percent of students voted for the continued existence of single-sex organizations.
"I think the College really needs to sit down and decide if its going to be fully coeducated, fully cognizant of the needs of both male and female students and how they mature socially, mature and emotionally, it has to decide what systems are the best systems," Turco said.
"If the College is really moving toward sex equity, it can't let this issue remain unexamined," Turco added. "It isn't just a matter of the six organizations and the 15. It's a whole philosophical fundamental question about what type of social organization you want in place in the 21st century and why, and do they support the academic mission of the College."
"It may be that the best systems are all coed, it may be that some are coed, some are single sex. That's a debate that hasn't taken place yet," she said.
The role of sororities
Turco said she can understand why so many students on campus desire single-sex organizations.
"There are men and women on this campus that believe that single-sex social organizations are helpful to them personally and academically," she said.
Turco said some of the most avid supporters of single-sex organizations on campus are women. "There's a lot of research to support the notion that women thrive in single-sex social organizations," she said.
But Turco also said there is no sweeping generality to describe what the sorority system means for individual women.
"Some people will argue that one of the reasons that they did very well at Dartmouth -- academically, socially, emotionally -- is because they joined one of those organizations," she said. "Some people will argue the exact opposite, that the organization undermined their ability to succeed."
Members of the sorority system said they think the system provides a way for women to have leadership positions on campus and to meet upperclass women.
"It's really meant a lot to me," said Kelli Whealan '95, a sister in Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority. "I'm an engineering major, so I don't meet a lot of women in my classes so it was a good opportunity to meet other upperclass women."
Julie Kanarowski '95, a member of Sigma Delt, said last year that she thinks the sorority system offers a lot to women on campus.
"A lot of people think all the Greek system is about is having parties," she said. "But it's so much more. I think that Sigma Delt offers something for anything."
Unis said she does not think the sorority system completely supports women.
She said she has some "not-so-great recollections of sorority formals at which everyone checked out each other's dates -- there was a lot of pressure to bring someone good-looking, because everyone would be watching."
"It was that kind of superficiality that I really couldn't stand, and which was really very unsupportive of normal interactions with members of the opposite sex," Unis said.
She said she was slightly worried about giving up her sorority for the new undergraduate society, but those fears have since subsided.
"I feel much more supported at Amarna, actually," she said. "And it's kind of nice to have real conversations with men too -- that was lacking from sorority life."
Munafo, who has been at Dartmouth since September, said she thinks there are several reasons why women enter the sorority system.
"I think there are women who are very happy in sororities. They have very positive experiences. They like going to fraternity house for different functions, and that's fine," she said.
"I think sororities can be places where women have radical transformative experiences and turn into feminists," she said. "But I don't think they're necessarily that, and I don't think that's the rule."
But Munafo said there also are women who participate in the sorority systems simply because there are no other options on campus.
"I think because there are so few options it's like, 'Yes I know this is something I don't really agree with, I don't like the way a lot of things happen, I feel uncomfortable when I go to fraternity parties, I know that for me it feels unsafe, but I want to go drink a beer. I want to hang out with a lot of my friends and they're involved,'" she said.
Turco said because Dartmouth has only been fully coeducational for 23 years, sororities fill a different role on campus than fraternities.
"I think that many women joined sororities as a way of finding their niche at Dartmouth, finding a way to ascend to a leadership position at Dartmouth that was not open to them otherwise," she said.
"I know women who joined sororities to empower themselves academically," she said. "That's the way they built networks to find out which majors ... where professors were, and majors were and what were the off-campus program opportunities."
Some sorority members also say they use their house as a way to get involved in community service.
Mariann McKeever '95, a member of Tabard coed fraternity, said she did not join the sorority system because of its stigma.
"I see [sorority sisters] as overly conservative women who for the most part want to appear as though they are liberal and feminist ... and have no idea what they are talking about," she said.
But McKeever did not say that there should be more coed organizations on campus. "I think the people who are going to join sororities belong there and wouldn't get along in a coed house anyway," she said. "It's the type of college we are."
Greek leaders also said all of the ills in Dartmouth's social scene should not be blamed on the Greek system.
"Because we don't have more social outlets, everything gets blamed on the Greek system," Delta Sigma Theta President Lischa Barrett '95 said. "It puts a lot of stress on the Greek system to fill everyone's need."
Delta Sigma Theta is the College's only active historically-black sorority. It does not have its own physical plant.
Questions of 'turf'
Both administrators and students say one of the fundamental problems with the current social system is that most of the parties are held in fraternities, or on men's "turf."
"Women do not have enough social options based on the fact that there are only three sororities on campus who can have parties, which means there are only three social spaces on campus controlled by women," Currie said.
The fraternities still continue to set the terms of the College's social structure, Munafo said.
"I don't think there are enough social options for anybody at Dartmouth, but I think women are a little bit more likely to be left out because so much of the Greek social life is really established by the male part of system," she said. "The terms are established by the fraternities, the parties are at the fraternities -- space belongs to the men."
Sigma Delt member Erika Meitner '96 said one of the reasons she joined the house is because it is one of the few social spaces on campus not controlled by men.
"I feel the atmosphere at Sigma Delta is significantly different -- and more tolerant -- than that found at the fraternities on campus," Meitner said.
The importance of controlling social space and being comfortable in that space is an issue that seems to be debatable.
Brune said it is "very egocentric to say women feel more comfortable in a sorority."
KDE President Beth Shugert '96 said she does not think there is a lack of social options for women on campus.
"Women have just as many social options as any other person," Shugert said. "There are no gender barriers on where you can go."
Sateia said the "turf" problem is exacerbated by Dartmouth's isolated location, because women have no choice but to go to fraternities for their social life.
"I think having the Collis Center has been terrific," Sateia said. "I think it has been good because now it gives women another place to meet people."
Sateia, who was the driving force behind the construction of Collis, added, "Women can go into Lone Pine Tavern and meet their friends and talk and stuff like that and it's not on somebody else's turf, it's on everybody's turf, and I think that's been a real positive thing."
Sateia said she thinks women still feel like "guests" at the College, which she attributes to the fact that women go to all-male fraternity parties.
"When you go like that, you're the invitee and when you're the invitee you're in a different power situation, you're in a different position than you would be if it was on your own turf," she said.
"That hasn't changed since 1974. What has changed is that women have gotten their own social spaces," Sateia added.
