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Originally posted by prophet
Why would you want to hurt a person? Unless, your a bully, that makes the only sense to me.
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I wonder the same thing...why would you want to hurt someone, especially someone you're spending a lot of time with, getting to know, and who likely will become your brother or sister? Hazing doesn't seem to make sense, but I had it explained to me by my ex-boyfriend who was pledging at the time (he was never beaten or hurt physically that I know of) that if they were not forced to prove themselves they would never earn the respect of the brothers. He said that next year he plans to be the good guy and not be too rough on the pledges, but that he understands that each new pledge class must go through what the previous classes had been through. An eye for an eye, if you will. Or you can call it tradition, if you support it.
For the sake of argument, ok, you do it because it was done to you. But where did this cycle of useless viciousness begin? How did a group of guys decide one day, "Hey, you know what would be really fun? To torture and humilate our soon-to-be brothers!"
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In a way no wonder why sorority girls I have met always talk shitnik about their sisters behind closed doors. When national puts those type of rules out there, that sorority becomes more like a club, and more like the statement, "buying your friends."
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That's an unfair assumption, that just because most NPC sororities do not haze that is the reason girls do not always uphold the sisterly ideals. I am so glad that sororities at my campus do not haze (again, this is just to my knowledge) because if they did, I nor probably 99% of the girls in the Greek system would not be initiated right now. I'm not saying the fraternity men who did get hazed and put up with it were weak in any sense, but they had to deal with the status quo and their own personal pride.
The girls I go to school with would NEVER let their fat be circled or whatnot. There's no way I could know for sure how we would really react in a hazing situation, but I just know that more headstrong girls would be like "Peace out" the first second hazing reared its ugly head. But with guys it's different...more guys will stay and do it because it's a part of the culture sometimes, that they need to do it to earn their letters.
My sisters and I do not "talk shit" about each other. We chat about who we're dating, what so and so was wearing, etc., but when it comes to voicing disapproval about something, we don't just cattily gossip about each other. We either tell our closest friend something is bothering us and they offer ways to not obsess over it and let it die, or we go to the source and tell her what is going on. We are sisters. There is no need to sugarcoat everything if someone is doing something we really really don't approve of...not only do they have our letters at stake, but we love each other and care about each other's well-being.
I'm not saying sorority women are ALWAYS more mature than gossipy 6th graders, but to say that we are merely a club and buy our friends is totally ridiculous. When I was in high school I already had it in my head that I wanted to join a sorority, even though I knew all of my best friends were going to college with me and there was technically no need to join a social organization. I wanted the sisterhood, the campus involvement, and the lifelong bonds.
The dues are not set to provide a system that will set apart the "haves" and the "havenots" but for practical purposes such as meals at the house, social fees, national and panhellenic fees. You're in a fraternity yourself, you should realize that the money is not used to make people like you. They liked you to begin with and invited you to join their brotherhood and as a result now you are paying dues for things that have nothing to do with buying friends. If you stopped paying dues tomorrow and had to turn your letters in, would your friends stop being your friends?
To say that I "buy my friends" when I am in a non-hazing sorority is like saying that in my 9 years of Catholic school I was buying my religion. The true friends you have and your spirituality have absolutely nothing to do with money.