Quote:
Originally posted by russellwarshay
I think that your heightened sensitivity is heavily influenced by the Madison Greek System, as well as by people with whom you directly socialize. At FSU, I do not remember independents having anti-greek sentiment in any significant number. I don't believe that your perception of pervasive greek-independent hostility is an endemic trait with most Greek systems.
As for the gdigirlfriend thread, I found it to be perversely cathartic.
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I think that strong divisions between Greeks and anti-Greeks are fairly common at a lot of schools, though by no means at all of them. Of course, Wisconsin has almost the perfect setting for such a divide: a campus with a strong tradition of liberalism (which often translates to anti-Greekism), and large populations of both
1) small-town Wisconsin kids whose ideas about Greeks are generally limited to what they read and watch on TV/movies
and
2) upper-class East "coasties," North Shorers and affluent Milwaukee suburban kids who tend to go Greek and perpetuate at least the stereotype of a lot of Greeks being upper-middle class and sometimes somewhat spoiled
PLUS not only is there a division between Greeks and non-Greeks, but there is a "Coastie"/"Sconnie" divide where the Coasties are stereotyped as being very Burberry scarves/Coach purses/North Face jackets and hating on Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin kids stereotyped as dairyland hicks who drink too much beer. And since Coasties are lumped in with the Greeks and Sconnies lumped in with non-Greeks, both stereotypes are applied liberally to those groups as well.
Of course most of the time the rivalry is all in fun, but every once in a while it gets nasty.
Quote:
Originally posted by sairose
It's simple....but here's something we try to do that works as far as our image/stereotype goes:
Be so nice to everyone that no one could say ANYTHING about you.
And just remember that every thing you do, you are representing your GLO.
Think of how you would like for your GLO to be viewed and act accordingly.
It makes a big difference!  We're nice to everyone, and as a result, most everyone likes us.
People will also defend GLOs when they know of ones that are cool.
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This does its part to eradicate one Greek stereotype -- that of the stuck-up Greek -- but only furthers another -- that of the fake Greek. People can tell when you're playing fake nicey-nice and they look down on that just as much as they look down on the bratty ones. And when it comes down to either blasting a GDI for their anti-Greek drivel or just forcing yourself to shut up, you forget that both will accomplish the same thing. If you blast them, they have proof that Greeks are bad people. If you don't say anything, they go on believing their anti-Greek drivel. And, well, if you try to correct their misconceptions, unless you are friends with them or know them well, often they will assume that you're presumptuous or just as stuck-up as they might think if you had blasted them, because they KNOW Greeks are bad because their best friend's cousin's roommate as a Kappa Tappa Kegga in 1984 and they got shut down for hazing, and clearly your experience in your GLO has no relevance to real life whatsoever. People don't like being corrected by people they don't know well, especially when they're wrong.
Not to mention the fact that most anti-Greeks formed their opinion years ago, have spent years perpetuating that belief and it takes more than a chance encounter with a nice one to change their minds. I can't even count the number of times people have said this (or variations) to me: "Yeah, but you're not like the rest of them -- you're a NICE sorority girl!"
I'm definitely not saying don't bother being nice, because obviously every little bit helps. But as I said before, the only way you're really going to change an anti-Greek's mind is by becoming friends with them and showing them what Greeks are really like, and as superheroic as we Greeks sometimes are, we can't become friends with everybody. And honestly, I don't know if I would want to be friends with a lot of the anti-Greeks I meet, whose opinions seem to be based mostly on either arrogance or stupidity. I can deal with those whose opinions are based on naivete, but stupidity and especially arrogance are another story entirely.