Before I start, I want everyone to be very open-minded to my thoughts. I am NOT anti-fraternity in ANY WAY; I am Greek afterall(a music Greek, but still a very proud Greek!). I have close friends in many Greek organizations on my campus. However, I've made some observations and such.
As far as the stereotypes go...unfortunately, some groups (well, I should say certain individuals in the groups, not the group as a whole) DO live up to the stereotypes. I will not name any groups in this post, but here's some things I've noticed.
Stereotype #1: "fraternity guys are all jerks/stuck up". Well TOTALLY depends on both the group and the individuals. There are a few groups here that are totally cool, open-minded and friendly. However...the other groups, you can go to their parties, but they don't talk to you or even notice you're there, unless you're one of the girls in the sorority they associate with. This has also happened to me in classes I've had with some of the more stuck-up guys. Please, GreekChatters, I'm NOT trying to stereotype them; but this has been my personal experience. I've gone to parties at every house on campus many times and this has happened to me at a few houses.
Stereotype #2: "fraternity guys drink 24/7." Depends on the guy...and besides, I know plenty of non-Greek people that drink 24/7, so that's just stupid.
Stereotype #3: "fraternity guys do drugs all the time." Well...one of the fraternities here do.....the others...not that I know of.
Stereotype #4: "fraternities are date rapists." This is NOT always just a rumor or a stereotype. A close friend of mine who is in one of the top fraternities on campus has an older sister who was date raped by a particular fraternity on campus. My brother's best female friend was ALSO date raped by a member of this group. And a friend of mine went to one of their parties and drank something that one of them had put a date rape drug in. A mutual friend of ours realized she had been drugged and got her out of there.
Now, this may only be one guy there doing that. But this has happened, by members of this fraternity, NUMEROUS times here. How can this be allowed to go on?
Another fraternity on my campus has their house directly across the street from my dorm, and my hall faced their house directly. These guys would be drunk EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and be yelling and screaming so loud that they woke up EVERYONE in my hall. We would yell out the window for them to shut up, and they'd get louder. We'd call the police on them, and they'd shut up for maybe 5 minutes, and get louder again. One occassion, I drove past their house and about 5 of them threw beer cans at my car. And these same guys wonder why a lot of people don't respect them.
I don't want any of you to think I am anti-fraternity; I'm not. I think GLOs are wonderful, and raise lots of money for philanthropies as well as doing service projects for the community, etc. However, many fraternities get upset when they get stereotyped when they very clearly live up to that particular stereotype. I mean, if you want people on campus to respect you, you have to be respectable.
THoughts? Similar experiences?