the greek system – or, ugh.

I hate the Greek system in general, for so many reasons. I hate it for the reasons that most anti-Greeks hate the system, along with a few weird reasons of my own.

I hate the Greek system because I watched my freshman year roommate break down in hysterics after pledging the sorority she felt the best fit with. Why? Because she pledged Tri Delt and her mother had been Pi Phi. Her mother wrote her a letter saying that she was cancelling her upcoming trip to Chicago because Roommate had hurt her so much by pledging a different sorority. She wrote, and I quote, “I had always looked forward to the day when we would be not just mother and daughter, but sisters as well. Now I will never have that chance.” As much as I disliked that roommate, it broke my heart to see her so upset over something like this.

I hate the Greek system because of the way it changes people for the worse, the way it becomes such an important thing that it can destroy a young woman’s self-worth in a heartbeat. I have watched lovely, vibrant young women wilt like week-old flowers because they were rejected by a bunch of girls they thought they connected with. I have witnessed intelligent, funny, gorgeous women get rejected from Greek House X because their daddies didn’t make enough money, or because they wore a shirt from Target to the last rush event.

The reason that you can’t go to the bathrooms on X floor in sorority houses during rush is because that’s where they post the pictures and “pertinent facts” about the girls who will or will not make it. Most of these decisions, of course, are made ahead of time.

I have watched sweet freshmen turn into raging bitches as sophomores after pledging to a sorority. I’ve seen some of the smartest girls I know turn into vacuous pits of superficiality after spending enough time with their new friends. It makes me sick.

The weirdest thing of all? At the college where I work, they have “underground” sororities and fraternities. They were created, allegedly, to be the exact opposite of above-ground Greek houses. The problem? They’re exactly the same, just without the community service component – the one thing, in my opinion, that makes the Greek system worthwhile.

So these fake sororities do all the same things that real sororities do – basically, all the bad, annoying, obnoxious things, like date parties and rush and binge drinking and hazing – and completely ignore the part where you give back to your community.

Not to mention the whole ridiculous kindergarten nature of it. “I don’t like their club, so let’s start our own. Except let’s make it exactly like their club. But with a different name.” A bunch of my students are in these “underground” houses and it’s literally all I can do not to mock them. Shit, I have a difficult enough time refraining from mocking the REAL Greek system around my Greek students.

Gah. The whole system can go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.