Sam Bonderoff '97 wrote a column yesterday in which he stated "But Dartmouth, thy sororities are also near to my heart -- Kappa much missed how you call to me, call to me -- and most of all I love thy rush process that sets back feminism 20 years confirming every chauvinistic instinct men have ever had about the shallowness of women."
Sets back feminism? Maybe in the midst of Bonderoff's Shakespearean bitching session yesterday, there was a line that was worth seriously contemplating. For now that we have both joined different sororities at Dartmouth, certain aspects of the social atmosphere for women have become much more pertinent to us.
Let's follow Bonderoff's lead and begin with the rush process.
It would be a lie to say that the rush process for women does not possess aspects of shallowness. Yes, we have to worry about what we wear and what we look like. Yes, we have to engage in hours of potentially meaningless conversation. And, yes, we have to be agreeable even when all we want to do is disagree. Is Jane Austin the head of the Panhellenic council? Could very well be. But is there really another alternative?
The social atmosphere does not allow freshmen women to hang out in sororities and get to know older women, but many freshman men are taken under the wing of certain fraternities and given a place to belong. (Yes, freshmen women are of course more than welcome to go to fraternities, but it's not their space.)
Thus when the rush process rolls around, men don't need to endure the notorious week of superficiality because they already have a house that they can call home. Women, on the other hand, have no other choice but to cram into a week what the men have had for a year.
But enough about the rush process. What does actually being a member of a sorority do for women? In theory, the idea of a group of women supporting and encouraging each other and providing a place where they can freely express themselves, is a great notion. But after reflecting upon this a little longer, one might ask why Dartmouth women need such an institution in the first place.
A possible answer might be that women need it because of the strong dominance of fraternities over the social scene. It's not that women can't go to fraternities on the weekends and have a lot of fun. In fact, you've probably seen P and C busting a move to DJ Jazzy Jeff or lurking in the basement of AD. However, you'll never see us playing pong or feeling 100 percent comfortable.
So, does a sorority remedy this?
Not really, for two reasons.
First of all, the sororities will never be as popular as the fraternities in terms of social options because there are less of them, because half of them can't hold open parties, and because the half that can, only do so very infrequently.
Second, a large part of being comfortable in a house is having friendships. For men this is not an issue because they can choose to join the same house as their friends. However, women's sorority experience is subjected to a computer program which gives them one bid that they can either accept or reject, thus pairing them only with a sorority and not necessarily with their friends. So already there is a disparity between the bonds existing between the members of fraternities and the members of sororities.
The point comes down to this: Think about why people feel such a strong need for a Greek system at Dartmouth. Think about the positive aspects of the system, but also consider whether these are solely dependent upon fraternities and sororities or whether they could exist in a different environment. And finally, do fraternities and sororities benefit us as men and women, or do they bring us down as a whole?
