Why is Greek life more popular with women than men?
 

On almost every site for colleges/universities or Greek life which includes statistics, the percentage of women who join sororities is substantially higher than the percentage of men who join fraternities. In some cases it is a large difference. To what do you attribute this? I have some opinions but would love to hear from some of you who are much closer to the current situation.

Chicks like joining things.

The End.

I think the alumnae involvement is more prevalent and more consistant in women's groups which makes for a more stable organization. Look at the contrast of numbers of alumnae who attend their National Conventions vs. the alumni for the men's groups.

Maybe Panhellenic as a whole does a better job of attracting women to the Greek Community?

Maybe because there are all these complex mechanisms (like the release figure method) designed to maximize the number of registered women matching with a chapter?

On my campus, more women than men are involved in many of the campus activities. Student government, Student Activities Committee, all sorts of things.

As my oldest son gets closer to going off to college, I've been wondering if he'll want to join a fraternity or not, so I hope some of the guys will weigh in on this one.

For the girls, we do like joining stuff, being part of a pack, structured social activities we can put on our calendar...and we don't mind the getting dressed up to go to meetings or following all the rules that much.

I'm kind of interested to know whether some of these "balanced man" or "man of principle" type programs really work. Because if being a fraternity man now means you just hang out with a bunch of guys who want to get high or drunk and what have you, I don't think my son will be all that interested.

I think that depends on the chapter...whether they are really doing it or just filling out the paperwork to make it look like they're doing it. Sorority chapters can be the same way, as far as that goes.

This is somewhat of a tough question.

I can tell you that when I was in high school there was absolutely no talk of sorority/fraternity life. There were no "teas" or "introductions" by an alumnae association in my area. The whole idea was just not there growing up in the area that I was from. I would say based on what I know and what was mentioned above is the fact that women overall do like to join organizations. Women seem to be excited to be a part of multiple organizations/events and they tend to multi-task quite well. It just all works nicely together.

at my campus it seems about even. But that could be because not many women here approach greek life and many fraternities seem more open to membership. I personally think it has something to do with the desire of really wanting to be apart of something beneficial. I heard that women are instructed at young ages to be more attracted to sentimental things. And i consider greek life very sentimental; the rituals, the retreats, the meanings of a specific brother or sisterhood. So perhaps, some guys just find fraternity life un attractive.

It may also include that males are into sports or ROTC. They feel more independent than Females.

Oh, of course, this must be it.

Because there are no female athletes in college or females in ROTC.

I won't deny that male nature may be more "individual" (not independent) while female nature may incline them more toward groups, but the way you said it and tried to support it sucked, Tom.

How could members of sports teams and ROTC feel independent?

You mean, they feel like they are already a member of a "brotherhood," of sorts? That would mean that the women on sports teams and ROTC already feel they are part of a "sisterhood," of sorts. Neither may be too eager to join a GLO on some campuses. That's a possible explanation for some campuses.

Men's nature doesn't incline them more toward individualism. All humans, in general, have an innate desire to connect with others. Variations wouldn't be based on biological sex.

It is gendered expectations that tell women which types of groups they should aspire to as compared to those that men aspire to. However, both men and women are socially inclined to associate with groups. It's just a matter of which ones they associate with (e.g. sports teams versus hanging with buddies versus joining a GLO, etc.)

Also consider that there are more women than men in college, in general. This gender gap is even greater for African Americans as compared to other racial and ethnic groups.

Combine this gender gap in enrollment to the different activities, such as sports scholarships, that many men are involved in at a larger percentage than women on some college campuses (on some campuses GLOers are also on sports teams while on other campuses the student athletes tend not to join GLOs/or join in lower percentages).

Then combine that with varying social expectations of joining GLOs versus other associations.

Ok, then change "nature" to "nurture" in my statement. I was responding more to Tom and his usual diminution of women in general, the topic of the thread itself doesn't particularly interest me.