Non-social GLOs...do you honestly consider us fellow Greeks?

[sairose]

I am a proud sister of Sigma Alpha Iota, an international music fraterity for women. We are a professional organization but in most ways, SAI is like social GLO's. We have ritual, rushing, pledging, pins and badges, songbooks, membership manuals, etc etc. We also have big and lil sisters...socials/sisterhood activities...colors, symbols, etc...we get those shirts with the letters on them, as well as other goodies like keybhains, decals, and lisence plates. So basically, SAI is pretty much like the traditional sororities, except that it is a "professional" organization and we are only open to musicians.

When I was pledging, one of the priveledges of membership we had to learn was to be esteemed as a fellow Greek by members of all other Greek letter organizations. However, I don't feel like the social GLOs, at least on OUR campus, really consider us Greek. But we very much are. We hold SAI and its ideals dear to our hearts and we cherish our sisterhood. SAI was founded in 1903, so it is as old as many of the social GLOs. But my experience with other Greeks is that they look down on us and one girl even told me that we weren't "real" Greeks. This made me very angry.

Music GLOs like Sigma Alpha Iota, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma, Phi Mu Alpha, Delta Omicron, etc are very much true Greeks and we all hold our sister/brotherhood dearly.

My question is this. To those of you in social fraternities/sororities, what is your view on the music GLOs? Do you really consider us Greek, and why or why not? Be completely honest, because I really want to know.