Okay, the military is far worse than the greek system. But you will never see that in movies, will you? The greek system has a few incidents every decade. The Army alone had 3,000 that were reported. Who know how many actually took place.

Sterotyping seems to run rampant when it comes to any organization with greek letters! Nothing is said usually about any hazing out side of glos, but of course it happens. But again it seems glos are the ones who get the most press.

I would be curious to see research or hear ideas on how this stereotype got started? A lot of people say it started with "Animal House." But, where did the writers for that movie get the idea? Why has it continued to be portrayed that way in movies and the media?

I guess "real fraternity/sorority life" must not make for good ratings/blockbuster hits.

As far as that's concerned, Animal House actually REVIVED fraternity and sorority membership. It was languishing during the 1970s. And Chris Miller has said the movie was tame compared to the real thing. I would argue that everything that happened in that movie has happened at every college, with or without Greek life. IMO that movie does a very good job of showing fraternity bonds - even when the Deltas lose their charter and are kicked out of school they still stick together. To me, it's a positive advertisement for Greek life.

This is going to sound snotty as hell, but I think a lot of the Greek stereotypes are advanced - and have been since Greek orgs existed - by people who are just plain jealous they aren't part of them and want to bring them down. Think about other groups that have certain stereotypes - cheerleaders are the first one that come to my mind.

You see it with male sports teams as well... I think it's more of a "when males congregate in groups" problem, than a "fraternity / military / sports teams" problem.

Are you certain this story is correct? I am 100% sure one of the men involved is registered on the Florida Sex Offender website (I am not giving the name) and was a member of the fraternity in question. This fraternity on campus still has this situation haunt them today.

RU OX is mostly correct. It was two brothers from that house and a brother from a different chapter. They did not write their letters on the girl but wrote the letters of a different (rival) fraternity. Unfortunately, the actions of those brothers (out of a huge 150+ member chapter) resulted in the suspension of the chapter for a very long time. I'm amazed that it's still being discussed over 20 years later and that current students are looking up one of the perpetrators on the sex offender registration site. I don't mean you in particular FlaGirl - I just think it's sad that out of all of those fraternity members that guy's name is still remembered.

You're right in that the reputation proceeds "Animal House." For my senior thesis in college, I wrote about my college's attempt to calm the fraternity men down by building them their own quad. Just after World War II, there were all sorts of crazy things happening in our Greek system--knife fights, fraternization, etc. This wasn't just my college, either--this was going on all over the East Coast, if not the entire country. University administrations felt that by getting the fraternities out of their houses and into brand new quadrangles, that the nonsense would stop. I think by the time "Animal House" came out, that the schools figured they couldn't stop it. Also, changes in college life--mainly the elimination of in loco parentis in the 60s--led to loosening of some rules.

I didn't personally look it up myself. It is something that happened LONG before I got there, but wanted to accentuate the fact that it is still very much still talked about today and still affects the reputation of that chapter.

These are perhaps a little more academic and research based.

Schwart, M. D. & Nogrady, C. A. (1996). Fraternity membership, rape myths, and sexual aggression on a college campus. Violence Against Women, 2, 148-163.

Bleeker, E. T. & Muenen, S. K. (2005). Fraternity membership, the display of degrading sexual images of women, and rape myth acceptance. Sex Roles, 53, 487-493.

People are right about the "men in groups" thing - its not just fraternities by any means. However, fraternities do fall into that category of men in groups, hence the association.

It might have been a smiliar case, but yeah, I remember what I was taught. I hated that "class." Basically an hour and a half of "if anyone accuses you of anything you're at fault because you are the house manager."

ETA: Gaah. I just read angel love's comments/your discussion. Glad it didn't happen twice. That's so awful.

They're also the group which these researchers are most likely to have easy access to, hence the reason we come up more than, for example, the military.