Little Sisters

[Pike_Cardinal]

Does your chapter have little sisters? How does it work? What is the point? Are they called Diamond Girls?

[Firehouse]

Fraternity little sister organizations were extremely popular from the 1960s up through the early 1990s. The Pikes called ours the "Little Sisters of the Shield & Diamond." Other fraternities had similar names (i.e. Little Sisters of the Maltese Cross, etc).

The 1990s was a decade of lawyers. Liability was the big subject. The cover story for various national fraternities banning little sister groups was liability. They said having women under the umbrella of the fraternity's name would increase expose to insurance claims. There was also concern that such auxilleries might jeapordize the single-sex legal status of traditional fraternities and sororites.

I have my own theory. The little sister groups grew so large and so popular that existing sororities felt threatened. Fraternities on our campus used to hold "little sister rush". It cost a lot of money to join a sorority; there was very little cost at all in joining a little sister group.
On my campus, the top sororities do not take non-freshmen. If they do, it may be only one or two. We have a huge influx of junior college grads - fantastic women who would make wonderful sorority sisters - but they cannot get bids to the best houses because they are too old. They don't want to pay money to be part of a group that's a fixer-upper.

The sororities didn't like their monopoly taken away. Little Sisters had instant access to the best fraternities, and paid very little money. Better still, juniors were as welcome as freshmen. I've heard that sorority alumni lobbied their national offcies to push the fraternity national offices to ban little sisters. I'm not surprised that virtually all the fraternities took this action at about the same time. The traditrional sororities got their monopolies back. They won't expand the number of chapters on a campus, and thousands of junior girls are left out. But they're happy as ticks because they've got control of the social system. Little sisters threatened that control.

[33girl]

Firehouse, I agree with you to a point, but at some schools the situation was the other way around. At my campus, sororities had deferred rush - you couldn't join until you were a second semester freshman. Little sisters didn't have this restriction. Lots of women joined their first semester. Unfortunately, lots of women also quit or joined sororities in addition because being a little sister wasn't what they expected.

Some groups had a rule (PSK & Delta Chi) that you couldn't be in a sorority and a LS at the same time - divided loyalties. Not surprisingly, these 2 groups had the most well organized LS programs and the ones who are still treated like alums of the fraternities.

Then there were the programs that were complete jokes. One of my friends was a fraternity little sister at Penn State & she can't even remember the name of the fraternity.

I never had a problem with little sisters - I never thought that they had better "access" to the fraternity men - I mean, if a guy is so lazy that he's just going to ask out someone because she's THERE, it probably isn't someone I would want to date. IMO it wasn't a better choice or a worse choice - just a different one. There are some women who joined sororities who would have probably made way better little sisters.

I'm not doubting that for some schools (and definitely for the national officers) they did feel threatened, but as we know, the agendas put forth by national offices often have zero to do with how the collegians feel.

[NutBrnHair]

Originally Posted by Firehouse

The 1990s was a decade of lawyers. Liability was the big subject. The cover story for various national fraternities banning little sister groups was liability. They said having women under the umbrella of the fraternity's name would increase expose to insurance claims. There was also concern that such auxilleries might jeapordize the single-sex legal status of traditional fraternities and sororites.

I agree -- this is correct.

I have my own theory. The little sister groups grew so large and so popular that existing sororities felt threatened. Fraternities on our campus used to hold "little sister rush". It cost a lot of money to join a sorority; there was very little cost at all in joining a little sister group.
On my campus, the top sororities do not take non-freshmen. If they do, it may be only one or two. We have a huge influx of junior college grads - fantastic women who would make wonderful sorority sisters - but they cannot get bids to the best houses because they are too old. They don't want to pay money to be part of a group that's a fixer-upper.

The sororities didn't like their monopoly taken away. Little Sisters had instant access to the best fraternities, and paid very little money. Better still, juniors were as welcome as freshmen. I've heard that sorority alumni lobbied their national offcies to push the fraternity national offices to ban little sisters. I'm not surprised that virtually all the fraternities took this action at about the same time. The traditrional sororities got their monopolies back. They won't expand the number of chapters on a campus, and thousands of junior girls are left out. But they're happy as ticks because they've got control of the social system. Little sisters threatened that control.

Let's see how I can say this nicely -- That is a bunch of hooey! (sp?)

Little Sister groups offered little or no lifetime experience and some viewed the groups as subservient to the men. I can't say I've ever heard any discussion that sororities felt "threatened" by these groups. 99% of the girls I knew who were little sisters back in the 80s were also members of sororities.

[Firehouse]

(I think you did spell hooey correctly).

With respect, I do believe that what I wrote is true. It sounds as if on both our campuses, the majority of little sisters were also in sororites. Little Sisters also gave upperclassmen women a chance to enjoy the Greek experience when they couldn't join sororities. There was no conflict between the sorority and non-sorority women; they all had a great time together. It was avantageous for the sororities to have lots of women in the best fraternities' little sis groups, but there weren't any problems that I remember.

Yes, membership in the little sister groups didn't offer the life-long relationships that sororities offer, but a lot of those women made lifelong friends with the men. As far as feeling threatened, it existed thought I don't know that it was an overt feeling. Probably the top tier sororities never felt that way, but someone did. The little sis organizations were often huge, 100-plus, and I'm certain that some women who were sophomores-and-above elected to join and enjoy that experience instead of joining a middle-tier sorority. In my opinion, there was a good deal of concern among some houses, especially the ones who might struggle, about losing customers to a "discount" operation like little sisters.

Where there's plenty of numbers to go around, no one cares or pays attention. When rush numbers are tight, then anything that takes customers away gets noticed.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Firehouse

Where there's plenty of numbers to go around, no one cares or pays attention. When rush numbers are tight, then anything that takes customers away gets noticed.

But the thing is, the dissolution of little sister programs started in the mid-late 80s - when rush numbers were UP. They were completely gone at my school by 1988.

If they had gotten rid of them in say 1995-6, your theory would make more sense.

Or are you just saying this relative to struggling chapters? I know something that did happen (again, small school) is that sometimes women used little sisters as a stepping stone to a sorority...almost all our Sigma Chi little sisters were ASTs...the ones who weren't ASTs when they became little sisters got AST bids shortly after.

[Firehouse]

Ha!
Well, you're right. Guess I tried to slide that one by and got caught.
Memberships overall were down in the 1970s, way up in the 1980s, down again in the '90s and up big again now.

I just don't like a system that prevents upper division women from joining. It's none of my business what PanHel does, and they don't care what I think. But...I know that if I came to campus and started a sorority from scratch, I could plow right into the top tier in just a couple of rushes.
You and I have talked about this before. Women value stability and "fairness" and the security of the system more than they value aggression and competition and the drive to be #1.
I do believe that sororities saw a threat, real or percieved, in the large, well-organized little sister groups. In the overall scheme of things it probably never amounted to a big issue. I'm very supportive of sororities, and even helped one re-colonize here. I just wish they'd expand the number of houses and allow more women to join.

[Pike_Cardinal]

Thanks for all the insight. Does Pike still have active little sister groups?