Discrepancies in the way we view rush

[sugar and spice]

Something I've found interesting while reading through this forum on GC is the hypocrisy inherent in this forum. We are constantly assuring people that sorority rush is not a shallow process, that what you wear or how attractive you are doesn't matter as long as you make an effort to put yourself together, that every girl should give each sorority an equal chance and not listen to rumors, that you don't have to have money or connections to get into a sorority.

Yet there is a sick sense of pride in the amount of cut-throat-ness of rush at certain Southern schools (okay, let's not discriminate -- certain Northern schools too, although not to the same extent). Plenty of y'all seem to take pride in those big SEC schools with the giant, competitive Greek systems -- without acknowledging that the shallowness of the system is what makes rush so competitive. Whenever there is a post about UGA, Ole Miss or Bama, there are flurries of posts about how your Lilys and your Louies do matter, how hot you are does matter, who you knew in high school and who wrote your recs does matter, blah blah blah.

Yet nobody denounces these systems for that, even though we whine constantly about how "Everybody thinks sorority rush is shallow and we're shallow, and we're really not! Money and looks and clothes don't matter!" Like I said, there are many, many GCers who not only don't attack the way rush is conducted in these systems -- they venerate it! It's no wonder that so many people don't believe us when we say sorority rush is not a shallow process. Certainly, at many schools and within many chapters, it's not -- or at least not to the same extent. But to worship big Southern rushes for how "competitive" while ignoring the fact that it is partly (if not primarily) the shallow criteria the PNMs are judged on that makes things so competitive . . . makes us look like shallow hypocrites.

Can we stop talking out of both sides of our mouth and just pick one view or the other?



PS: Play nice in this thread, please.