more anti-Greek "journalism"

[angelove]

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/03/18/sorority-hazing/

Looks more like a book report on "Pledged."

[ree-Xi]

She mentions (twice) being upset because no one offered her 18 yo (underage) self a drink, once after sending her to get them a Diet Coke chaser. Chilling.

I would come over to the house to help other girls get ready to go out: curl their hair, help them choose outfits, suggest lip gloss colors -- just to be left at home with the other freshman. I would run to the store because someone forgot to get Diet Coke for a chaser, even though we were never offered a drink. It sounds miserable, but I let it slide because every once in a while, it got me invited to the parties, and I was favored by the older girls...

...I was always one of those on the fringe of being accepted. Never the first girl called to go out with the older girls' group, but somehow included in their social outings in the end, which was a big deal. If you tried to go to a party without your older sisters by your side, you'd be ignored, probably not served a drink, and no one would have your back in case you had some kind of emergency.

[DrPhil]

Another loser who thought that Greekdom was a one-way flight out of Loserville.

[33girl]

Time to do some translations!!

I had been very comfortable in my high school clique

Translation: I was a meaner mean girl than Regina George and Heather Chandler combined.

I by no means look as though I have an eating disorder -- I've been a competitive figure skater and an avid skier my entire life, leaving me with lots of muscles.

Translation: The only place those muscles exist are in my legs, as I would have gotten railed on by my skating coach if I gained too much weight, and my collarbone looks like it could cut glass.

[ForeverRoses]

God Forbid someone is worries that someone else has an eating disorder! Maybe the way she was confronted wasn't the best, but isn't it better to confront someone about eating disorders rather than just keep letting it go? Maybe this was their way to stage an intervention.

[33girl]

This is now on the effing AOL home page!!!

At least she didn't name the sorority or school, although I'm sure it'll come out soon.

[ISUKappa]

It's really difficult to take her seriously when her bio line on Twitter is "I'm kind of a big deal."

[AnotherKD]

I'm really bad at finding what schools people are in, but within two minutes, I found what university and what chapter she is in. 100%.

[PsychTau]

Usually, girls who are comfortable with a certain "clique" in high school will either try to seek out that same status (if it was a "high ranking" one i.e. Mean Girls) or will try to seek out a higher status (if they felt left out in high school). Birds of a feather flock together you know. The behaviors that she described can be attributed to any group of women...not just sorority women. Athletic teams, female res halls or floors, people who sit together in the cafeteria, any women who feel as though they belong to a group (whether officially "defined" or not). In her article, she fully admits participating in these behaviors, which tells me she sought out the same type of status/clique that she was a part of in high school and then discovered that the playing field wasn't the same as HS. She couldn't attain that same status (look at all the references to what she did for the older sisters, and how the older sisters snubbed/excluded younger ones...I'm reading a sense of "Why can't I be on their level?" there) even though she tried by running errands, etc. to win their favor.

We can't deny that there are sorority women out there behaving this way. But I doubt that their behavior started as soon as they joined a sorority. It's also not a sorority specific problem, and it doesn't start on the college level. Maybe her future articles could look into that.

She did this by measuring girls' self esteem -- comparing the levels of body dissatisfaction of girls who went through sorority recruitment with girls who had opted not to, and found that those who rushed were more likely to have a poor self-image.

I can tell you, maybe some freshman girls who aren't in the Greek system DO have poor body image, but the ones going through sorority recruitment ALL think they're too fat, too tall, too short, too flat-chested -- and not hot enough to go to the frat parties.

I'm going to have to read this study to be able to fully comment, but I'm seeing some faulty logic here. First of all, she can't say ALL freshmen going through recruitment have body image issues because statistically that can't be true (and we've seen threads here on GC from PNMs who apparently think they're the shiznit). But you'd also have to look at scads more data to develop a cause/effect relationship between body image and recruitment. If the women were in the middle of recruitment at the time they were surveyed, they were at a heightened sense of being judged as well as judging the chapters, and therefore may have judged themselves more harshly. Recruitment also brings up insecurities of being rejected, which could have affected their responses. Also, you have to look at the sample pool...one university. Could that university have a freshmen class that rank higher in body image issues as compared to the rest of the United States? I don't think recruitment is the variable here (but I'll stop geeking out now).

(Plus, her article linked not to the actual study, but an article on a website called "The Frisky, who wrote a very short article about the study. If you're gonna talk about the results of a scientific study, don't read an article about it. READ THE ACTUAL STUDY and then interpret. The end.)

PsychTau

[33girl]

Originally Posted by PsychTau

Usually, girls who are comfortable with a certain "clique" in high school will either try to seek out that same status (if it was a "high ranking" one i.e. Mean Girls) or will try to seek out a higher status (if they felt left out in high school). Birds of a feather flock together you know.

Disagree.

My chapter was not at the top of the college "pecking order" yet we had many sisters who HAD been in that place in high school. They were done with that isht. This is why girls who are still in a high school mindset (i.e. incoming freshmen who haven't even attended a class) shouldn't rush.

This is obviously a girl whose popularity in HS had very little to do with HER or what SHE actually was or accomplished...she was most likely riding on the coattails of a popular older sibling or a well-established family name in the community. Unfortunately she was too stupid to be aware of this fact and thought it really was her.

[MaggieXi]

She said that she was 5'3 and 100 Lbs.

According to the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Obesity Education Initiative- 100 lbs. is underweight for a female who is 5'3. So while not handled properly, maybe they had a right to be a little concerned about her?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Another loser who thought that Greekdom was a one-way flight out of Loserville.

Yep.

[ree-Xi]

Originally Posted by MaggieXi

She said that she was 5'3 and 100 Lbs.

According to the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Obesity Education Initiative- 100 lbs. is underweight for a female who is 5'3. So while not handled properly, maybe they had a right to be a little concerned about her?

Agreed.

Especially if she has "so much" muscle, because muscle is much more dense than fat, and takes up less space. People with higher lean muscle tend to weigh more than they "look". At 100 pounds, her body fat percentage was likely lower than the suggested healthy range for a young woman her age, even adjusted for athletes.

Not having enough body fat can indirectly and directly lead to all sorts of problems, from vitamin deficiencies to osteoporosis to infertility.

[angelove]

Originally Posted by AnotherKD

I'm really bad at finding what schools people are in, but within two minutes, I found what university and what chapter she is in. 100%.

Me too. Why would she use a picture of herself with her former sisters in front of their house if she hated them so much?

[AXID2006]

I could chew this article apart. I was screaming after every period. This girl is SO insecure, and she wants to be a writer but doesn't like people judging others or talking about them? Well hunny, don't be a writer.