Originally Posted by FSUZeta (Post 1553559)

please don't take my comments as verbatim. i was just speculating what those womens organizations affiliated with fraternities in the olden days could have been. i do not know what they actually were, but thought that the nearest thing we might have(or have had) would be little sister groups.

Originally Posted by FSUZeta (Post 1553545)

i found my old pledge manual (1975)and will quote directly from it :

"zeta tau alpha is known as a fraternity, not as a sorority. a "fraternity" is an organization whose members have banded together for reasons of common interest and mutual benefit. there is usually some element of secrecy in its design. the terms "sorority" and "fraternity" are often used interchangeably and it is frequently necessary to do so. some women's organizations prefer "sorority", while others designate the use of "fraternity". current usage seems to favor the latter to distinguish collegiate organizations from high school or business clubs using Greek letter names and calling themselves "sororities." it was the intent of the Founders and confirmed by action at two early conventions that zeta tau alpha be designated as a "fraternity". this was done to distinguish our organization from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men's fraternities, called "sororoties."

i would venture to guess that at the time of our founding, there were women's auxillary organizations linked to fraternities, much like little sister organizations of my era, and they were calling themselves sororoties.

honest to goodness, all those years ago, it never crossed my mind that fraternity and sorority could not be used interchangeably. everyone referred to the girls as members of sororities.in fact, i thought it was odd that we are a women's fraternity.

to me, it is "you say potato and i say po tah toe." we all have strong sisterhoods and do good works. enough said!

Originally Posted by scbelle (Post 1553563)

Is "sororoties" a direct quote from the manual or a typo? Because if it is the word used (versus sororities), that explains a lot to me. ZTA would definitely want to use fraternity opposed to "sororoty"... and then SthrnZeta's comment shouldn't really be so offensive to Gamma Phi Beta because they coined the term "sorority"... not the word that ZTA was adamant against using. Man, that was a lot of typing if that was a
typo!! :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle (Post 1553574)

I just figured that if ZTA had it as part of the pledge manual, there must be some reason - perhaps as has been mentioned it was a local group, and thus off our NPC radars. The paragraph does seem to imply that sororities were "little sister" type groups, which we've established is not the case in terms of NPC sororities, none of which were formed as support groups for any fraternities. So, my question is what group(s) was ZTA thinking of when writing that paragraph?

Originally Posted by navane (Post 1553453)

Wow...ok.


Point of clarification - I'm not sure what you were getting at just then, but Gamma Phi Beta's colors were not selected by a man. They were selected by the sisters to honor a gentleman, Dr. Brown, who allowed early Gamma Phi Betas to use his study for meetings.

It seems just a bit out of order that you should give me and my sisters lessons on the history our own organization.

.....Kelly

Originally Posted by SthrnZeta (Post 1553610)

At first I too thought using the word fraternity was odd, but when it was explained to me that a sorority had a men's organization help them get founded it made sense to me and I was always proud of the fact that we were a "womens fraternity. That's not to deman any other group, I just thought the reason was neat.

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog (Post 1553550)

I found it odd when I was at ChiO's rush party (back when I rushed) and they said "women's fraternity", because they were the only one out of 7 orgs on my campus. ASA, AST, DZ, PhiSig, SigKap, and Sigma are all sororities, and, of course, we had "Sorority Recruitment", so I didn't quite get why ChiO kept saying "fraternity". Throw that under the "dumb reasons for cutting a group" thread...I didn't want to be in a fraternity!!! :)

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle (Post 1553605)

Not to mention that there is more to our colours than honouring Dr. Brown . . .

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 1553612)

But the reason is UNTRUE. That's what everyone is trying to get across. I am a member of a sorority and no men had anything to do with our founding.

Thanks a hell of a lot GroovePhi62 for taking us down this path for the umpteenth time, bwah.

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 1553580)

Especially since ZTA was founded at an all-female school. The only conclusion I come to is that it's referring to KD....