As already state, AOII does not allow members to drink in their letters.

Nu Beta Chapter members at Ole Miss are not allowed to smoke in public, use profanity, or do anything un-ladylike in their letters. I also tell members to watch what they do in their cars if they have their letters on their cars, no giving someone the birdie or cutting someone off if you have AOII on your car. Basically, I remember the best thing my New Member Educator told me back in 1996 when I was a new member was, "You have AOII in Neon Lights above your head at all times. They flash, they glow, and everyone will know if you do something rude, un-ladylike in your letters or out of your letters." I know on my campus just about all of the Greeks know who is in what GLO.

I also think it's disrespectful to lustfully make out with my boyfriend in front of my exboyfriend, or my parents. But I make out with him plenty when we're alone! So I'm a hypocrite?

Location????
 

Does it matter to people where the drinking occurs? IE will drink in letters at an off campus greek event, but not at a bar?

The whole my letters arent supposed to see alcohol is used at your own judgment. I would wear letters to TGIFridays if i was going out to dinner there with my sisters, I wouldn't drink in them and none of my sisters would drink at the table with me wearing them. But there is a bar/resturant down the street from my school called Wood and Tap, which is a nice classy resturant, but I won't wear my letters there because the "bar" aspect is to prominent. And for my chapter drinking in letters is a never, doesnt matter if it Spring Weekend, Homecoming, Greek Week or just a night in our apartment drinking with my sisters, we still don't do it.

I believe it is a national rule for AEPhi... no drinking in letters. I don't know if we had a rule about smoking because I don't smoke. We don't have a specific rule about swearing while wearing letters, just more of a general emphasis on being ladylike.

My local's rule was that letters shouldn't see alcohol... AT ALL. We couldn't wear letters anywhere alcohol was being served - whether we were drinking or not. Bar, restaurant, party, didn't matter. That included jewelry, so if you went out to dinner before the semiformal, you didn't put your pin on until after you left the restaurant.

we were told the smoking/drinking thing was a national rule. let me dust off the bylaws and see if its true.

ETA: If I followed the car rule, I'd be screwed. Driving in the NYC metropolitain area w/out flipping the bird at least once during your drive is against the law.

I rember that from ole miss but I thought that you could smoke it just had to be while sitting down. If i didnt smoke in my letters I would be awful to be around and have to buy all new tshirts cause all of my tshirts say AZD.

SHIMS are allowed to drink in our letters, but not smoke. I found smoking gross and unacceptable.

Gamma Phi Beta policy varies from chapter to chapter, and I am not sure what the official party line is. I don't drink in my letters, nor do I plan to when I am legal. I also will usually take off my lavalier when I'm in a party type environment, even if I'm not doing anything unladylike, on the off chance somebody would get bent out of shape about it.

I have also had plenty of smokers ask to leave the room during the middle of the interview to have a "smoke"

I agree with you honey. I doesn't always make my hiring decision but it is a good tie breaker for sure.

I just want the SHIMs to have a "proper way to cross legs" rule. **shudder**

Seriously....

ISUKappa - you said "So what if some think it's hypocritical" - I personally think hypocrisy is one of the biggest things that makes people anti-Greek. Smart people - the kind we want in our orgs - can smell it a mile away.

HDIAPM, I don't think making out with your man in front of your parents is quite on the same level as wearing a shirt. You know they would be offended by it. However you have no clue what other people think if they see you drink in letters. They could be saying "hey, a sorority drunk!", they could be thinking "her hair looks really good" they could be thinking "I can't believe she's drinking Budweiser." Believing everyone you encounter has the same outlook on this is just not realistic.

So you're wondering what I DO think is disrespecting my letters? When I see, hear or read about my sisters being unkind, snobbish, rude or closed-minded, THAT is disrespecting my letters and my sorority. We promise as sisters to be our best selves and be kind to others. Violating those tenets is what's truly wrong, not drinking a beer while wearing a shirt with some Greek letters on it.

As I stated earlier, wearing letters while drinking was common my freshman year. It was how people got into bars and parties sometimes. That didn't mean everyone drank until they were puking drunk and randomly hooking up. It was common practice and not a big deal to have a couple of drinks in letters. Within a few years the sororities stopped doing it, but the fraternities still drank in letters especially if it were a party they hosted or sponsored.

I agree that there is a world of difference between a 21-year-old having a glass of wine at dinner with her parents while wearing her lavalier, and a 19-year-old falling down drunk and puking in the bushes outside Sig Ep while wearing a date t-shirt.

I think the main issue, if you're the type of person who is so concerned about anti-Greek stereotypes, is just always try to act classy when you could possibly be associated with your sorority. Too many girls think "OK, no drinking in my letters -- I've got it covered." And then they go into class the next morning and say to their friends, "Ohmigod, I got SOOO trashed this weekend at SAE" -- while wearing letters. Or they stumble back to the sorority house on Friday night and they're clearly so drunk it takes them five minutes to figure out their keys. Or a group of drunk girls and their designated driver leave the bar and head to the car with the ABC bumper sticker on it. Or, to share an example from my past that will fortunately never be replicated, a bunch of my friends and I were in my room last year when we got written up for being too noisy and drinking -- and the Bid Day decorations were still on my door. The RA who wrote us up asked, "Hey, so who's the Tri Delt?" It turned out that one of her friends was in the chapter and we bonded as she helped me pour out our beer, but it could just as easily have been someone anti-Greek who used this incident to fuel their fire.

If you know how to be responsible, I don't see why alumnae should feel guilty drinking while wearing a lavalier or her badge. OF course, she must know her limits! I think the whole purpose of such a rule is to discourage underaged drinking more than anything else. That is, of course, assuming that the no drinking laws apply to actives only (like it does at AGD).

While we were at SEPC, one of my DZ friends noticed a DG smoking outside in her letters. She was absolutely apalled, and asked me why I didn't go up and say something to her. I told her that the girl wasn't in my chapter and I didn't feel like it was cool of me to go up and reem out a girl that I didn't know, but it posed to interesting subjects... one, is it your business if you see someone not in your chapter behaving inappropriately to talk to them, and two, if this DZ noticed and said something about someone not even in her sorority, than that means that most greeks have the same thought when they see it, so even if it's not so that anti-greeks think well of you, but maybe more so other greeks, because they are obviously looking for the same things you are.

Hmmm....while she was wearing DG letters, she may not necessarily have been a bonafide DG. Just a thought. (Thinking of that thread from way back when where there was a homeless man wearing an AXO or a Phi Mu shirt...can't exactly recall which).

That being said, I don't know if I would ream someone out if I didn't like what they were doing whilst sporting letters. I might not like it, but I would probably keep it to myself.... after all, whoever is without fault (that "ain't" me! :o ) can cast the first stone, right?

No, of course not. Human sexuality is natural (although I think it should be done with a modicum of privacy, which I am reading that you are, in fact, doing).