Well, at least they smell good, I said, shrugging my shoulders as the umpteenth costumed sorority gal pushed past our table. This last group smelled like vanilla.
The waiter rolled his eyes. Too much of a good thing, he’d said before taking our dessert order. It seemed everyone dining around us had to agree. As the restaurant filled up with SMU coeds in chicken feathers and Indian headdresses, it steadily emptied of its non-pledged patrons – folks who probably hadn’t counted on sharing the family-friendly joint with so much cleavage.
As one young family filed by us, I overheard a man attempt to explain to his daughter who the scantily-clad revelers were.
The little girl stopped and tilted her blond head up, “Daddy?” she asked. “What’s a sorority?”
As the man let out a long, grumbled sigh, our table erupted in laughter. He shook his head and looked at us as though to say, “How do I answer that?”
I grinned back from our booth. “Tell her to ask her mother.”
Now, lets not give ALL sorority girls a bad name… Not all of us put on the smallest amount of clothing allowed by law to go out. Sure, some do – but most dont!!
Great clothes, good grades, great parties and spring breaks. Life for these young ladies is probably fabulous. The difficult real world will begin after graduation. Let them enjoy.
Sororities have changed a lot since my days. No way would my sorority have allowed us to stay in if we acted like some of the girls I see now. I didn’t get wild until after I graduated college. Used to be that sorority girls were the goody-two-shoes girls. Now…not so much
Hey Fish,
I remember when me and my girlfriends went out together. We were nauseating to anyone over 25(according to my older brother). These were my same friends from elementary to college, so it was probably even worse. When I look back on footage of us together I most certainly agree
.
As for the poor Dad, it’s tough having a daughter when everywhere you look some girl/woman’s chest, stomach or butt cheeks are showing!! My parents gave me guidelines, Dad was much stricter than Mom and I’m glad for that. Especially coming from the age of songs like “Baby Got Back” or Video Vixens molesting a sports car in a rock video. LOL.
It seems to me that “a girls club” would have been a perfectly acceptable answer. I don’t know if kids really have clubs now, but I think even clubs for small kids have requirements for entrance and are like special societies of siterhood (or brotherhood or everyone hood). The priorities of the clubs change, that’s all.
It’s great when sororities are about sisterhood and friendship, but all too often these days it seems to be about getting half-naked, drunk, and being bulimic together. Oh, and having pledges stand in the living room in their underwear while fraternity members point out the “problem spots” on the plegdes’ bodies.
OMG, Alyssa, do they really DO that??
LOL I flirted w/ the idea of joining a sorority but when I went to the first party and they told me that this party’s theme was “booty booty booty rockin’ everywhere” I quickly nixed that idea.
I stil went to the party but and rocked my booty but it wasn’t something I wanted to be known for.
Ahh young life when you can make a girls gone wild tape for your grandchildren to enjoy!
I forgot 1 thing in response to Alyssa’s comment
It’s true they do that. My roommates were in a fraternity in college and their “sister” sorority would take their pledges to their frat house, in only their bra and underwear and they would give them a number 1-10 from hottest to not so hott, and that number would stick until you crossed your pledge line. the 8′s and above girls would get VIP access to all the parties and would go on the guys party bus to Vegas and Mexico. while the 7 and under would be the clean up and set up crew for their sorority’s parties and would be have to be designated drivers for the sorority and fraternity, I guess the same would happen w/ the fraternity….. Don’t you love College
Yeah, but then doesn’t Domino Harvey break the nose of the head sorority bitch, restoring a healthy, loving environment?
Wait…movie’s lie?
Oh and you just KNOW that image of what a sorority girl looks like (even if she didn’t quite get what it means to be one) is forever stamped in that little girls mind…
Oh, just imagine wanting to pledge and being told that you are too dark skinned and your hair isn’t long enough!!! Yes that how cold black soros are. DISCLAIMER: (some)
I was in a sorority in college and never experienced any of the humiliation tactics that LOLA or Alyssa described. I also kept my tatas covered in public.
Love it!
I’m from that area. Have you ever seen a spring break at Padre?
INSANE.
I gotta saw, I was totally anti-sorority when I was in college because of the stereotypes, but now, I wish I’d tried to pledge one. The women I meet who were in sororities (my cousin was a Zeta Tau Alpha) grew up to be really great women, and the social training they got was priceless.
My cousin used to tell me about how they trained the pledges for socializing: they had to go into the living room like they were visiting friends of their mothers and then they had to carry the conversation with no help from the ones in charge. Talking with total strangers about things without preparation and pulling it off – REALLY could have used that skill earlier in my life and career!
That said, the scantily-attired parade of chorus girls through a family-friendly restaurant, the hazing/identifying of flaws, the bulimia/eating disorders would NOT have been part of the training back in those days (according to my own acquaintances)…..
Your blog has become so trite and tedious. I really miss your older posts, even if you did use that fake Bridget Jones ‘voice’ when you wrote.
I also was in a sorority not too long ago (2000-2003), and we never did anything like what Alyssa and Lola mentioned. Nor did any of my friends in different sororities across the country. We were much more accepting and diverse.
Regardless of that fact, your post gave me a laugh. I know we must have driven the wait-staff of bars and restaurants crazy when we paraded around in matching t-shirts for bar crawls, etc.
I just graduated from college so my sorority days are recent. I also never experienced the things Lola and Alyssa say-nor did any of my friends in other sororities. They are Greek urban legends-that rumor has hit every college that has a Greek System. I also feel this is a bit of a double standard. If there had been a mass of fraternity guys in there and the little girl had asked what a fraternity was-I doubt the same concern would have been taken in revealing what exactly a fraternity is even though the actions of those men are typically far more controversial than those sorority women.
I imagine some sorority girls in do dress scantily and act obnoxious but most DO NOT. Sororities were founded on friendship and philanthropy and are still run with the same purpose that they were founded on. Every sorority on my campus has a minimum requirement for grades, and every chapter GPA on campus as well as the combined all Sorority GPA is well above the all womens average and the campus average. Also over $400,000.00 was raised on campus for a Pediatric Oncology Clinic a few weeks ago in a single event-run and participated in mostly by the Greek Community. Every student body president has also been Greek because we were the only ones who cared enough to get involved.
Research found 43 CEO’s of the top 50 U.S. companies are Greek and all but 3 of the U.S. presidents since 1825 were in fraternities.
You shouldn’t over generalize a group you don’t know anything about. Being in a sorority creates a special bond among a group of women trying to better themselves and the community. I can see why that would be such a heinous thing to tell a child. So this man should have told his daughter that she should aspire to achieve what most women in sorority’s do-even if she decides against joining one.
hey fish. i was in a sorority in college (graduated almost 2 years ago). we never did any of that while i was there, though i know other sororities on campus did. my bf’s fraternity would meet with one of the sororities on campus in an apt and haze their new members together. he said the women were more awful and demeaning than the guys.
anyways, theres a book called ‘Pledged’ and it’s eye-opening, to say the least.
I rushed, and didn’t get a bid from a sorority that I’m a legacy of. I’m overweight (not size 12-14 overweight, bigger I admit). There were three of us that were large during that year of rush and none of us got into any of the sororities on campus. Makes me feel great. My sister was upset too, because she said that even though they were a different chapter than hers, they still represented her sorority and thus her. The great part about all of it, tell me one frat that would not accept a guy just because he was fat. (I’m allowed to use that word because I am
Don’t you just love being female, so many standards…
I tried to pledge a sorority in college, but they turned me down flat. I think they were suspicious of my motives.
To the little girls dad…tell her it is a way to buy friends after Highschool …..I refused to join a sorority even though many of the “popular” ones on campus asked me to join… I view it as a way to be 100% sure you’ll have friends because you had to pay money to be in it..therefore you are buying your friends. oh and we call them Sorostitutes sorority+prostitution =sorostitutes….enough said.
K- Paying for your friends is one of the most illogical arguments for not joining a sorority. Just because you pay money to be in a sorority doesn’t mean the girls in it have to be friends with you. You pay money to go to college and live in the dorms and usually become friends with people in your dorm– so by your logic, that’s paying for your friends too.
Very true..but by paying to live in a dorm dosen’t mean you are required to spend time with the people there if you dont like them you avoid them in the elevator and do not talk or spend time with them at all…in a sorority you are required to spend time with these people (example:socials,meetings,charity)hence the major difference. but you cant get past the fact that 90% of sororitys are exactly what the sterotype says they are.
I love this – we dont really do sororities out here and I will admit I find the entire concept hysterical.
Loving the writing style…
Lara
My impression of sororities and frats is overwhelmingly negative. Sororities seem to be all about enforcing some kind of tacky conformity. Women whose minds have not yet developed enough to think independently, and may never. And frats? Ugh, just look at the news lately…brotherhood my ass. A friend of mine went to university in Illinois on a soccer scholarship and one year we went to South Padre. The sorority girls were the cheapest, dumbest sluts I’d ever met.