NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/college/4872

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-16 | 3.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!skybridge!garvey
From: [e-mail] (Heather Garvey)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Fraternal Bashing
Date: 16 Nov 1992 16:22:25 GMT
Organization: Smith Undergraduate Lab, CWRU, Cleve. OH, 44106, USA
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: solarium.scl.cwru.edu

[e-mail] writes:
>Attention on all net users, I am wondering what in God's name prompted this
>debate on Fraternalism.  Why all the Greek bashing?  I have a nagging suspicion
>that someone did not get a bid to pledge and thus decided to bash the Greek
>system, displacing his rejection.

    Actually, no, this is never how it starts. Nice try, though.

    I don't start discussions about frats here and try not to ever
join them, but I dislike the Greek system for a few reasons...

    Greeks get special privileges. I would have been kicked out of my
home of two years (that I had squatter's rights to) because some sorority
wanted to move Southside. They had to have a floor all to themselves
and since our floor was mostly empty, they were going to remove all four of
us from our suite. Southsiders are very GDI and we don't particularly
like frats in our dorms. This eviction incident sparked a wave of
anti-frat-privilege posting that can still be felt at times. The entire
quad was posted with "100% frat free" signs.
    Sorority women seem to be airheaded morons. When I first came
to CWRU, I was open to the idea, willing to reject the media image for
the reality of frats. The first sorority woman I met asked me if I was
interested in frats; I said yes, but I don't really know what frats do,
etc. She kinda squeeked and said the equivalent of "Gee, I don't know,
what *do* we do? Gosh, it's so hard to explain..." I almost wept for
the future of women in America. *gack*
    That and it always took four of them to take notes in a 100-level
Anthropology course. I used to have fun sitting in the middle of their
usual seating arangement and watch them scramble in shock to form another
formation that they could sit there and look off each other's papers
and hiss to each other "Did you get that? He goes so *faaaaast*..."
    Recently, some flighty little sorority game ("Hide the Gavel"
or somesuch) during which the pledgettes steal the gavel in some juvenile
game of theirs, ended up with the pledgettes drawing "Hey, Karen, we've
got the gavel!" on the sidewalk by the stairs. Which wouldn't be so bad
if they weren't writing directly on top of an announcement for another event
that was still to come. Just another spiffy example of frat rudeness
and attitude towards dorm events.
    And I also don't like that the first warning I got about walking
alone was not about  the fact that we live next to East Cleveland, a truly
scary place, but about walking alone at night past one of the frat
houses on my very own campus, noted for rapes.
    And if I hear one more time that I have to be a bitter, rejected
frat-hopeful not to like that, I'm going to scream.
    I'm not even against all frats. Some of my best friends from band
are fraternity members and their frats are decent (though frat houses
do tend to be pretty disgusting. Men don't clean up after themselves
in the kitchen much. :)). I do realize that there is both good and bad
in fraternites, but I also see that the situation itself can lead to
very bad things, while the good can be achieved just as well without
the system. As long as they don't go bad, though, I don't really care
whether they exist or not.
--
                        | Heather "Moose" Garvey
    "CHAD BLUNT, the BALL carrier!"        | Biochemistry - CWRU '93
        -- The entire band after     | <[e-mail]>
           any given running play    | "Wooooooah, PIZZA!"