A recent Verbum Ultimum ("She's Nice, But...," Oct. 17) decried the cumbersone sororirty rush processes of thePanhellenic Council, which apparently don't work well in our community as they end up denying bids to 24 percent of the rushees. Panhellenic Council President Jessica Lane '09 soon shot back with a letter to the editor ("Stop Blaming the Computer," Oct. 21) writing, "Blaming it on the computer is often a way of avoiding a harsh truth: Sometimes an organization does not like a [potential new member] as much as she likes them."
I think this is something we can all agree on. A Greek-affiliated senior girl once told me that the meetings where they determine who they want to let in are "the cattiest things imaginable," and the discussion focuses mainly on looks and clothing. Face it: Sorority rush is just a somewhat more refined version of neighborhood kids not letting other, less-cool neighborhood kids into their totally sweet treehouse. More local sororities would solve this problem, but only in the same way that a greater proliferation of treehouses would solve the analogous one.
Despite popular myth, I've found that unaffiliation is not a fate worse than death. It's kind of like living in a Stalinist gulag except without forced labor and slightly better weather. You can find the sunny side (the same as the gulag's, incidentally), which is that you are sharing your exile with all sorts of disgraced chess masters and dissident artists. Interesting conversations happen, and the occasional trip back to Moscow is not entirely frowned upon either. Nonetheless, Dartmouth girls are prodded into throwing themselves at the mercy of this arcane sorority system, and their balance of happiness over the next three years is held in a few days' false procession of forced chitchat and fashion. Why does this even exist?
It's almost like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." In a crucial scene, Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson's character in the movie) tries to get out of the insane asylum -- which he faked his way into -- only to find that he is unable to do so because he was committed by the state. When he complains to the "Big Nurse" at a therapeutic meeting for the relatively stable inmates, he tries to rally the others to his side. Yet he finds that they are all voluntarily committed. McMurphy then tries to get them to realize that they are not crazy, but to no avail. (Not that I'm setting myself up to be the McMurphy figure in this case, as you may have surmised).
So I guess choosing to participate in sorority rush is kind of like choosing to be crazy, except without being crazy. But if you choose to be crazy, doesn't that make you actually crazy? To use another literary reference (not to pile them on), sorority rush is almost the exact definition of a Catch-22. If you didn't get a bid, you should probably be happy, because at least you don't have to remain crazy. But if you're not happy, I imagine that means you still are crazy. Oh, well!
Not to compare sororities to apartheid, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, "We used to say to the apartheid government: You may have the guns, you may have all this power, but you have already lost. Come: Join the winning side." All of the girls who didn't get bids this term are actually on the winning side, whether they are aware of that salient fact or not. And awareness makes all the difference. The play of earthly phenomena and human emotions has enough substance to constantly touch our heartstrings and make life infinitely interesting. It is possible to be aware of this whether you're in a sorority or not, but it's easier if you're not hung up on some artificial institution that doesn't really matter. By being excluded from the neighborhood kids' treehouse, these girls have a whole world to explore on their own.
Although this is more difficult than with a support group of dues-paying sisters, the benefits are ultimately gratifying. A treehouse can get a little confining after a while anyway. You may lug up a mini-fridge and a TV, but eventually you stop spending time there. You get older, do other things and accidentally break the ladder the next time you try to climb up.
