I joined a sorority at the University of Georgia as a freshman in college. I never thought of myself as typical “sorority girl”, and people around me had little experience with Greek life, but I thought, why not get involved and meet new women in college right away. When I went through the recruitment process, I did not realize the foundations and issues of Greek life, but as I look back, I am able to point out some major problems just within my experience. I think my sorority has issues within it because it belongs to the entire Greek life system. Change will be brought to each individual sorority once Greek life as a whole is revamped. The question then becomes, how do you change the entire Greek life system. It relates to our entire capitalist system. Both need to be dismantled before we can see change.

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First, going through the recruitment process as a potential new member felt very judgmental. The very first day I had to visit approximately 15 or 16 houses, which had women asking me the same questions: What is your major? What did you do over the summer? What were you involved in in high school? I felt like I was being assessed on my life, yet these questions did not let them know who I really was. I also remember standing in line with the other potential new members and hearing gossip that if your father had a lot of money and connections, then you had more of a chance of joining a top sorority or “old row” sorority. On the flip side, those were just rumors and my sorority has never talked about potential new members’ parents’ jobs or money. I cannot say the same for other sororities though. After the first day, I almost did not continue the process because of the curated conversations.

 

Once I joined a sorority, I got to see what it was like on the other side of recruitment. One issue I ran into immediately was how you were supposed to present yourself during recruitment. Everyone was encouraged to get a spray tan, get their nails done, and buy all new outfits for each day of recruitment – talk about spending lots of money! Another statement my sorority put out said that nobody could have “natural hair” during recruitment, meaning you had to either straighten or curl your hair. For me, I have naturally very curly hair that I grew to love, so being told that I had to change my hair, made me feel like my features were not accepted. The way they said “natural hair” was clearly referring to black women’s hair, which made me wonder how the very few black women we had in our sorority felt about this requirement. There is so much history and storytelling within the black women’s community about hair. Representation for black women is scarce in media, and when there is representation, most of the time black women are shown with straightened hair, making them as Caucasian as possible. Black women’s hairstyles are more than a beauty issue; they are tied in with their culture and identities, yet my sorority was basically telling everyone to make your hair look as Caucasian as possible, just like the media.

 

Another incident that irked me within my sorority was a racism “scandal” that occurred. A woman in my sorority posted an image on Snapchat that used inappropriate language regarding race. It went viral on UGA social medias. Only once the post went viral did our sorority bring it up. Members of my sorority were very upset by her behavior, yet the woman who posted this image on Snapchat is still a part of our sorority. It felt more like our sorority was pulling a PR tactic with this situation by trying to make it disappear, instead of handling it a face value. Her punishment came more from the post going viral for some time, rather than our sorority making her understand why what she said was wrong and making her punishment within my sorority much more severe. There needs to be more serious reprimands for this kind of behavior, otherwise sororities are indulging racist and inappropriate behaviors.

 

My sorority always says that we are inclusive, which in some respects we are, but if you look around, my sorority is majority Caucasian. We do have women of other races, religions, and cultures, which is surprisingly more diverse than most other sororities at UGA; however, there are still issues with diversity in Greek life as a whole. If the whole system is not inclusive, then how can an individual chapter be? Our chapter prides itself on accepting all identities, which holds true with our individual members, but the institution of Greek life crushes the individual voices that would advocate for oppressed identities. One incident sticks with me. I remember my sophomore year, a member in our sorority posted a selfie showing off her bare face with some acne showing. Someone from executive board direct messaged this woman and asked her to take down the selfie. When she asked why she had to take it down, they gave a vague response. How can we say we are inclusive and accepting when this happened? Social media and societal standards of beauty already cause so many issues regarding self-confidence and self-love among women, yet when a member shows her face without makeup on social media, it must be taken down. I have a hard time accepting that my sorority made someone feel bad about their image, face, and skin. 

 

I am still in my sorority, and it has brought me so many wonderful opportunities and lifelong friends, which is why I have not dropped out yet. If I am honest with myself, these incidents did not happen to me, so it is easy to forget they happened, but this year I have been looking back on my sorority experience and there are major problems. I think it is hard for me to accept that I joined something that is simultaneously wonderful, yet so broken and harmful for women with certain identities. Another reason I have not dropped yet is because I have only one semester left. Instead, I joined our Diversity and Inclusion committee, which was created over a year ago, to try to work on improving my chapter from the inside. I know that my chapter cannot completely change until the entire Greek system does, but knowing that I tried to make some improvement with the time I have left makes me feel a little more hopeful.