When asked to picture a sorority girl, most people tend to conjure the same mental image: a blonde, sun-tanned 19-year-old party animal spending exorbitant amounts of daddy’s money at college bars and more time at fraternity houses than lecture halls. Yet in today’s modern world, where misogyny and sexism are condemned and movements like #MeToo garner unanimous support, it’s long overdue to ditch the negative stigma around sorority girls.
In popular culture, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, movies like “Legally Blonde” and “The House Bunny” portrayed sorority sisters as shallow and directionless, primarily focused on their looks and having fun rather than getting a good education and developing their careers. As a result, just the word “sorority” prompts rolled eyes and raised brows.
But this perception could not be further from the truth. Sororities provide an inviting, stimulating atmosphere for women to find themselves and create lasting friendships and professional connections.
According to The Sorority Life, there are 26 official sororities represented by the National Panhellenic Conference, with thousands of philanthropic chapters spanning nearly 700 college campuses in the United States alone.
Especially in schools with larger student bodies, joining an organization of like-minded young women from all over the world encourages members to step outside of their comfort zone and find a community of support, something that is vital in such a transitional period of life.
It’s been proven that by feeling secure socially, students will have an easier time excelling in schoolwork and improving their mental health. According to the National Library of Medicine, having social relationships in college directly correlates to improved perceptions of education and motivation to learn. By cultivating a community to fall back on when classes become stressful and life gets rough, sorority sisters set themselves up for success during their time in college.
Furthermore, some sororities even mandate stellar academic performance. For every sorority chapter at San Diego State University (SDSU), members must maintain above a 2.5 grade point average (GPA) to remain a part of the sorority. These requirements have been proven to pay off. According to an Oct. 2014 study by J. Patrick Biddix, Ph. D., 58% of sorority members graduated on a four-year timeline, compared to 46% for non-sorority members.
Arguably the biggest benefit to joining a sorority is the opportunity for career-building. Sororities often host networking events for women to build professional relationships with recruiters and alumni. Thanks to enormous alumni networks, increasingly female student bodies, and higher levels of women in the workforce, students seeking post-graduation jobs have a leg up in the job market.
Let’s say you’re a Tri-Delta member interested in pursuing a research position at a biotechnology company. It’s more than likely that someone or an alumnus in your sorority works in the field, giving you a potential connection for inquiries and even future positions. Without the community of your sorority, you may have missed out on a life-changing opportunity.
One of the most well-known aspects of sorority involvement is recruitment, also known as the “rushing process”. The hashtag “#BamaRush,” referring to the University of Alabama’s recruitment, has over 1.3 million posts on TikTok. Though a quick scroll through the hashtag’s page may make it seem like rushing is a competition of who can wear the most outrageous, expensive outfits, in reality rushing teaches young women vital networking tactics that they can use throughout life. During the rushing process, potential new members (PNMs) have to engage in several rapid-fire conversations with recruiters, forcing them to think on the spot, develop key talking points, and build interpersonal skills.
Additionally, most sororities have elected leadership boards that make executive decisions involving membership, marketing, branding, outreach, and finance. By obtaining positions like these, members build their resumes and demonstrate capacities to lead and make creative decisions for large groups of people, a skill that is completely vital in the job market.
One of the most overlooked, yet most important aspects of sororities is their philanthropy. All sororities are expected to have a philanthropic commitment and make efforts to fundraise towards a specific cause. These causes often target important women’s issues ranging from domestic violence to breast cancer.
For example, the Alpha Phi Foundation is a dedicated philanthropic effort toward women’s heart health, involving Alpha Phi chapters nationwide in raising money to fund heart health research. This not only teaches sorority sisters the values of charity and selflessness but also helps raise awareness about non-profit organizations that help save lives and address systemic changes.
However, criticism surrounding any sort of Greek life cannot be debated without addressing hazing. Hazing is a process of harsh recruitment that has been known to include suspicious and sometimes fatal activities to prove the worthiness of membership. Hazing incidents have made national headlines and have come to dominate the perception of Greek life, further contributing to the negative image of sorority girls.
However, fatalities as a result of hazing are not common, and when they do occur, are much more prevalent in fraternities than in sororities. Additionally, hazing is not a practice exclusive to Greek societies. According to a study by the North Carolina State University (NCSU), hazing is just as common among varsity sports teams, performing arts organizations, and club sports on college campuses. Hazing is an incredibly important issue that needs to be addressed, but it is unfair to solely associate it with Greek life and sororities in particular.
Moreover, 44 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia have anti-hazing laws in place. In the state of California, hazing is outright illegal and is categorized as a misdemeanor or felony depending on the scale of the incident. Those arrested on charges of hazing face up to one year in a county jail.
Sororities were created in the mid-19th century as a direct response to the presence of brotherhood fraternities on college campuses. The first sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, was a secret society at Wesleyan College founded in 1852 by student Eugenia Tucker. Tucker’s goal was to establish a women-only organization dedicated to improvement and camaraderie.
Today, Tucker’s vision lives on – sororities continue to give women the opportunity to connect and express themselves, positively changing the course of their careers and social lives in college and beyond.
*This editorial reflects the views of the Editorial Board and was written by Ayana Ganjoo. The Editorial Board voted 2 in agreement, 7 somewhat in agreement, and 4 refrained from voting.
