No, I don’t buy any of this. It’s a damn game. It’s a damn social event. She has no business policing how attendees go about having fun. People get to cheer for whomever they want without having to submit to some social chairperson. People get to talk with whomever they want. People get to admit to having friends and boyfriends on other teams with whom they plan to socialize.
What’s offensive about this is the idea that women, just because they happen to be members of this club, all of a sudden aren’t allowed to act like normal people. Suddenly, the pride of their assigned male escort is paramount. And that IS a step on the road to social submission, sexual submission, and date rape. Just because someone has pulled this sorority’s name out of a hat, suddenly, they have to submerge their individuality and put on a fake personality with the sole purpose of making this group of men feel like they are the only men in the world. And that is exactly what the job of a prostitute is.
No, I’m going to keep saying “frat.” It’s a perfectly ordinary contraction.
And if you believe that the word “frat” carries with it unsavory connotations, let me just add that you haven’t done anything to dispel any such reputation.
She is definitely not the type of person that I’d want to live or work with, but for a half hour at a bar after work? I’d be there! I knew this one guy that had a pathological, flaming hatred of referendums. Every so often, usually after having a bit to drink, we would nonchalantly bring up a referendum that we thought might be nice to vote for. The ensuing fireworks were usually pretty entertaining.
However, my point was to the people that think Rebecca was encouraging her sisters to whore themselves out to the menfolk. To be fashion accessories to the men. True, she does use some sexual imagery such as “cock-block” and such, but I think she is mainly using it to express her anger. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she also wanted to bang one or more of the guys)
[QUOTE=Acsenray]
No, I don’t buy any of this. It’s a damn game. It’s a damn social event. She has no business policing how attendees go about having fun. People get to cheer for whomever they want without having to submit to some social chairperson. People get to talk with whomever they want. People get to admit to having friends and boyfriends on other teams with whom they plan to socialize.
What’s offensive about this is the idea that women, just because they happen to be members of this club, all of a sudden aren’t allowed to act like normal people. Suddenly, the pride of their assigned male escort is paramount. And that IS a step on the road to social submission, sexual submission, and date rape. Just because someone has pulled this sorority’s name out of a hat, suddenly, they have to submerge their individuality and put on a fake personality with the sole purpose of making this group of men feel like they are the only men in the world. And that is exactly what the job of a prostitute is.
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In my bygone days, if we weren’t competing in the event, we were always expected to be there - unless we had a class at that time - cheering our brothers on to victory. But we got non-trival rewards (key membership on the recruiting committee for Greek Council and other perks) for winning, so it was a big deal.
Due to the lopsided gender ratio at my school, there weren’t enough sororities to pair up with the fraternities, but if we had and any of the brothers were caught cheering for an opposing team or just not being supportive of the effort, they would have gotten a lot worse than what Rebecca said in her email. Most likely everyone has to compete at some point, so the golden rule applies.
[QUOTE=Acsenray]
No, I’m going to keep saying “frat.” It’s a perfectly ordinary contraction.
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Doesn’t really bother me. It is a fairly well known saying that just happened to fit with the whole “cunt punt” theme. I thought it was funny.
[QUOTE=April R]
Uhhhh, I was being sarcastic.
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I will be away from my computer for the weekend, but I wanted to clear up one more thing.
First: I have no first hand knowledge of how this Greek Week was run. I make no claim to know exactly what the circumstances were.
Secondly: When I was involved in the interfraternity council, I was pretty passionate about it and talked to many other people in similar councils across the nation (we actually had seminars and conferences on this stuff) and in other chapters of my fraternity at other schools.
Most Greek Weeks that pair up fraternities and sororities will require a mixture of men and women on each team and every active member must compete in at least one event. Therefore, if the sororities are just about as big as the fraternities, there is about a 50/50 mix of men and women.
So the women in the sorority are not escorts or submitting to the men in the fraternity, they are literally teammates.
Yeah, they are just stupid games of little consequence to us with more life experience and hindsight, but this is their life right now. I don’t know what kind of issues Delta Gamma is facing but winning is obviously very important to the lady.
I am unfamiliar with any sane person who believes that this can or should be enforced in a social situation.
If the team is a professional team and you are a paid employee of the team, then it makes sense for your boss to tell you not to cheer for the other team in front of people during the game when it’s obvious you work for the team.
In a recreational or social situation, if you have a brother, boyfriend, or BFF on the other team, only a raging asshole thinks it’s okay to police your loyalties.
(Who doesn’t think the Yankees’ accountant was an asshole for trying to force Elaine to take off her Baltimore cap? So what if it’s the owner’s box? It’s a fucking game. Grow up.)
And that’s not even covering the other points of order. The “you are not allowed to talk about your boyfriend or other frats’ parties” and “you must talk to boys even if you don’t want to or are uncomfortable.”
When you join up with one of these groups, don’t you forfeit some of your rights to individuality and non-conformity?
I totally dig individual and non-conformity, which is why joining a sorority never crossed my mind. But it seems to me that by joining up with a sorority, you are pledging allegiance to their agenda. If you don’t like agenda and you lack the power to change it, then you need to get the hell out of there.
If people sign up for an organization where cunt punting is the penalty for non- conformity, they deserve to be cunt punted.
More seriously, I don’t think anyone should be cunt punted. But Ascenray’s outrage only makes sense to me if we were talking about young women who had NOT voluntarily entered into a social organization with specific rules and expectations. People join sororities and fraternities to conform to a certain way of life. They don’t usually join so they can do their own thing. If a person feels entitled to engage in social behavior that her “sisters” disapprove of, she can be as offended as she wants. But the sisters are not obligated to accommodate any ole behavior either. Their house, their rules.
Ugh. I can’t believe I’m defending sororities!
Seriously? I have no trouble imagining a impresionable pledge feeling pressured, drinking too much and having bad judgement sex or being flat out assaulted.
Uhh … No. Shitty and evil is shitty and evil, regardless of whether it can be dressed up as voluntary. My complaint isn’t that it’s unfair to enforce the club’s rules. It’s that it seems to be promoting anti-social social values.
That’s nonsense. Everyone at every age has a social life. But no one’s social, recreational activities should subject them to this insane level of personal control.
She made very clear that what was important to her was the club’s image as a group of girls who when you picked this name o it of a hat would treat you as if there were no other men in their lives and that you were the center of their world. That they would flirt with you regardless of whether they enjoyed it, that they would not bring up having relationships or intended in other men outside your groups, that they would pretend that they would socialize with only you, etc. These are the requirements of a paid companion.
If it’s anything like the Greek events at my University, I think the “teams” are the matchups. That is, they play a bunch of silly, often somewhat non-sober games and at the end of the week, whoever won the most (or whatever) gets stuff (but mostly bragging rights). In this way, all members of Sigma Nu and Delta Gamma are official “members” of the team they’re cheering against. I, personally, might make an exception for cheering for your boyfriend (not the house your boyfriend is in, but your boyfriend if he’s participating), but seriously, it’s kind of weird to cheer against your team, even at a silly social event.
I know, monstro, I’m defending Sororities/Frats, what the hell went wrong in my life?
I don’t care if it was for 10 minutes, you don’t speak to me like that ever, especially if you haven’t even met me. I could understand if the people who got this regularly dissed her like this but I’m telling you if I were an employer and this person applied for an interview? She would get a copy of this back with a resounding NO, to even a chance at an interview.
in addition, I remember people telling me in grade school bullying goes away as people grow up. The whole greek system was one of many reasons I didn’t do college, and I didn’t even know about the expected prostitution aspect of it ( all though since it appears to be the next level for cheerleaders and jocks so ends my surprise.)
what happened to going to school for education being the primary focus? I saw a creative writing paper from a college student who gets" good grades" and was horrified. I could have done better in 5th grade, and she scored high on this.
no wonder our country is fucked up if the requirements for getting a better job is getting massive debt and participating in this type of behaviour as opposed to hiring people with self respect, respect for others, the capacity to focus on work rather than flirt and socialize, and able to improve work skills with or without guided direction. Guess this why I had trouble keeping jobs this is what my parents told me would get me a good job and career.
“Prostitution aspect”? They’re not getting paid! In fact, they’re usually paying quite a premium for the opportunity to be date raped by the frat boys. These fine young men don’t rape just ANY chick. One must maintain standards, after all.
Did I say she should have said it like that? No, she shouldn’t have, and she absolutely deserved to be kicked out of the organization for it. My point was that if she were, y’know, civil, “hey, guys, just a reminder, during matchup week and other greek events you guys have a responsibility to represent our organization, that’s one of your duties as a member of this sorority. Some of you have been neglecting our matchup. I know it sucks because many of you have friends and boyfriends in other fraternities, but just for this week do your best to spend as much time as you can participating in the event. Thanks.” isn’t a terrible point.
And, yeah, she went beyond it, there was a bit of a subtext there (intentional or not, probably intentional) that they were supposed to be flirts or put out for them, but the basic point that greek organizations are social organizations – and ones with a reputation at that. I find “greek culture” sick (not all greek organizations are like that, some are just honor societies or networking organizations that ignore stupid stuff like Rush and parties, but most are), but at the core – if you’re part of a social organization you do need to participate in the events they organize, and not do it in a way that undermines the organization’s image. It sucks, which is why I’m not part of one of them, but it is a duty you have to undertake if you join one. They didn’t deserve to be abused for it, and college greek culture really needs to change, all I’m saying is that as members (and thus reps) for the organization they need to hold to those duties.
There are shittons of people in college – a large number of which have not and never will be involved with greek orgs, and don’t go to huge parties every night. Sure a lot of people (especially in popular majors like psychology) just get a piece of paper and leave, but plenty of people get real education at universities. Please don’t think that drunken frat boys and sorority girls represent what it means to be a college student or graduate. And don’t underestimate the importance of “knowing a guy”, you can’t know every field, knowing people increases your chances of knowing somebody who can do you a favor when it’s needed.
Again, you’re missing the point. It’s not that the enforcement of these “Greek” values is the only being criticized. It’s those very values themselves. The manner if enforcement in this case merely exposes in a dramatic fashion how morally corrupt those values are.
So the whole “they’re just doing what they’re supposed to be doing, they just should have done it in a more diplomatic manner” doesn’t fly with me.