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As a member of the Northwestern Greek Community, I was appalled first of all at the comments made by these particular girls and secondly that our campus newspaper, which is widely considered one of the best in the country, would actually print this letter. Worse than the fact that they printed this letter is the fact that they printed this letter in the issue that came out on the first day of Sorority Recruitment. It served only to perpetuate unfair Greek stereotypes and further hurt a system. This is the second issue of its kind this year; at the beginning of the year, some boys in a certain fraternity released a book entitled "Purple: The Must Have student companion for happy, healthy living at Northwestern." While Purple was in some respects an excellent guide to life at Northwestern, it also served to publicize and perpetuate greek stereotypes, and it didn't help that many freshmen girls used this book as their Bible when it came to making judgements about Northwestern sororities.
In the section on Greeks, they provided some basic info about each house (when founded, history, etc) and then offered two perspectives on it, one from a "fan's" perspective, one from a "haters" perspective. What follows is a quote from the book, changed only to omit the names of organizations:
A fan of [XYZ] might say:
Being one of the more prominent sororities at Northwestern, XYZs have a great social presence. Much like any other mainstream house, the girls of XYZ can be found anywhere, the arts, athletics, campus organizations, and always around the social scene. Although they are a mainstream house, XYZs generally do not posses the elitist behavior exhibited by other top-tier houses. Rumor has it that there exists minor divisions among the girls in the house, and that this leads to cliquish behavior. But regardless of such trivial and rumored characteristics, XYZ remains a forerunner among the Northwestern sororities. THe girls are beautiful; the house is immaculate; and the sisterhood is strong; overall, the best sorority on campus!
A hater of [XYZ] might say:
ALthough these girls have conned the university into perceiving them as good girls, at least in comparison to ABC, DEF, and GHI, the women of XYZ have the unique ability to screw over anyone who gets in their way, especially men. If you like wearing the pants in relationships, and using your power as an attractive woman as a cruel weapon in your search for fame and fortune, this is the house for you!
(Nucutiepie again)
Between the article and this book, there have been some real problems with Greek stereotypes at NU this year, and I think its really unfortunate, especially given that I think the NU greek scene is incredibly diverse and inclusive and that NU greeks have a tremendous amount to offer. To my sorority's credit, the email the article was written about was NOT sent out to my sorority's listserv, as our emPOWER reps were disgusted by the negative quotes (which mostly came from members of one or two houses - its so unfortunate that those people make all of us look really really bad!) Also, our recruitment chairwoman was the last one quoted in the article, and she attempted to put a positive spin on recruitment.
Nevertheless, I am truly ashamed that members of the Greek community of which I am a part made such terrible comments, both in the email and in the book, because comments like that reflect badly on each and every Greek at Northwestern. By and large, NU Greeks, like Greeks everywhere, are a spectacular group of ambitious, involved, hardworking and caring people, but like Greeks everywhere we are forced to confront a tremendous amount of negative publicity. I feel like if there is a lesson to be learned from these two examples, it is that as Greeks, we need to be careful what we say and how we present ourselves, as both the email and the book originated within the Greek community. Bad publicity from the outside is one thing, but bad publicity from within is entirely another, more serious issue.
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