Conduct Becoming of A Sorority Girl

[AOII Angel]

I love how reasonable debates get turned into soap boxes for people who can't see past their own ideas. Anyway, I find it completely disingenuous that you think image is nothing, 33 girl. You keep harping on these little, inconsequential rules that I mentioned which I already stated will not get you kicked out. It's not about being superior to others. It's about not thinking yourself above rules you agreed to follow. What if you decided that you don't need to go to your chapter's mandatory study hour? I personally think it is stupid to require adult women to study at a set time. My chapter didn't do study hours. What if you didn't want to wear the ugly, pink, polka-dot dress that the chapter voted in for a rush party? Can you just elect not to wear it? Why is image important? Image is everything in a sorority. See how many sisters you can intice when you have a bad reputation. Many closed chapters can answer that one for you. The rules I mentioned may be silly, but I guarantee that my drinking, smoking sisters didn't break them because the chapter meant more to them than exercising their rights to do what ever they wanted when they wanted. The real issue is making sure sisters follow the big rules. No....smoking in public does not make you a bad sister. My point was that people who continually break the rules (because the ones who are on the verge of being kicked out usually are this type) don't make good sisters.

[honeychile]

The entire concept of etiquette, good manners, class - whatever you want to call it - is to conduct yourself in a way to make others more comfortable and to make yourself more likeable.

If you buy something to eat from a street vendor, fine. Find a bench, a wall, or someplace to stand and enjoy it - no one's saying you can't! But, if you decide to stroll while eating your taco, hot dog, coke, cotton candy, or whatever, think of what can happen. The crowd might be flowing just fine, until there's an obstacle. Then everyone stops suddenly - and the person in front of you is now wearing your ice cream, or whatever. Is that fair? Would you want that to happen to you? What if the person in front of you discovers that the pizza he just had sat out for too long and his stomach rebels before he can get to a inconspicuous spot? Do you want to deal with his upchuck?

Artists at street fairs aren't exactly thrilled to find mustard or cotton candy on their wares, either.

Same with smoking - I can't possibly be the only nonsmoker who has a burn mark from a wildly gesticulating smoker, whose lit ash landed on someone's clothing or skin. What if it had landed in someone's hair, especially in the highly lacquered big hair days? Do you want to be responsible for someone's disfigurement?

I could go on and on, but you're intelligent adults - figure it out for yourselves.

[Drolefille]

If I couldn't walk at a street fair with food.. well let's just say my hometown has the largest free street fair in Illinois. You don't buy Dippin Dots and sit down! And why do you think they put the alligator on a stick? Or the deep fried Snickers bar? They even have Calzone's on a stick. All for walking around. And never once have the craft booths complained about it.

Mishaps can occur while sitting or standing. I'm not sure how you can't gesticulate wildy while sitting. If you talk with your hands, you'll do that standing up or sitting down.

I don't think eating while standing makes one less classy or in poor taste if the situation is appropriate.

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by honeychile

The entire concept of etiquette, good manners, class - whatever you want to call it - is to conduct yourself in a way to make others more comfortable and to make yourself more likeable.

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I don't think eating while standing makes one less classy or in poor taste if the situation is appropriate.

I beleive y'all are on the same page.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by TSteven

I beleive y'all are on the same page.

If the rules say no eating while standing up at all, then I disagree. Particularly since she was suggesting not standing and eating at a street fair.

[JWithers]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

If the rules say no eating while standing up at all, then I disagree. Particularly since she was suggesting not standing and eating at a street fair.

I have to say, as the mother of small children, if didn't occasionally eat while standing, I would starve to death.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by JWithers

I have to say, as the mother of small children, if didn't occasionally eat while standing, I would starve to death.

My mom would agree There were four of us and swears she didn't sit down for about 15 years

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

If the rules say no eating while standing up at all, then I disagree. Particularly since she was suggesting not standing and eating at a street fair.

Unless I am mistaken, I believe that honeychile was addressing the "eating while walking" comment. Not standing and eating.

Originally Posted by honeychile

If you buy something to eat from a street vendor, fine. Find a bench, a wall, or someplace to stand and enjoy it - no one's saying you can't!

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by TSteven

Unless I am mistaken, I believe that honeychile was addressing the "eating while walking" comment. Not standing and eating.

My error, though the same rule applies... it's on a stick for a reason.

My opinion will always be that it is ok to eat while walking, if that's a hot dog at a ball game in the park, X on a stick at a street fair, or a pretzel while walking around the mall. Not a big deal. It's a context thing.

[Hopeful_Bubbles]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

You don't buy Dippin Dots and sit down! And why do you think they put the alligator on a stick? Or the deep fried Snickers bar? They even have Calzone's on a stick.

Now I'm hungry for fair food. Thanks

[Drolefille]

You're welcome. Anything that can be put on a stick, those guys will do it. And it is wonderful

[JWithers]

Originally Posted by honeychile

The entire concept of etiquette, good manners, class - whatever you want to call it - is to conduct yourself in a way to make others more comfortable and to make yourself more likeable.

If you buy something to eat from a street vendor, fine. Find a bench, a wall, or someplace to stand and enjoy it - no one's saying you can't! But, if you decide to stroll while eating your taco, hot dog, coke, cotton candy, or whatever, think of what can happen. The crowd might be flowing just fine, until there's an obstacle. Then everyone stops suddenly - and the person in front of you is now wearing your ice cream, or whatever. Is that fair? Would you want that to happen to you? What if the person in front of you discovers that the pizza he just had sat out for too long and his stomach rebels before he can get to a inconspicuous spot? Do you want to deal with his upchuck?

Artists at street fairs aren't exactly thrilled to find mustard or cotton candy on their wares, either.

Same with smoking - I can't possibly be the only nonsmoker who has a burn mark from a wildly gesticulating smoker, whose lit ash landed on someone's clothing or skin. What if it had landed in someone's hair, especially in the highly lacquered big hair days? Do you want to be responsible for someone's disfigurement?

I could go on and on, but you're intelligent adults - figure it out for yourselves.

I am sorry, but I HAVE to ask; are you for real or a caricature of what someone told you a Southern lady ought to be? My mother was Saint Cecelia's(that's Charleston) and Tri-Delta in the 1950's and I never heard such foghorn-leghorn stuff come out of her mouth. It's like you picked up some primer (Or Rebecca Wells book) and copied the language and are projecting it as your own.

I was raised by real women of substance and they would say your manner is 'putting on airs'.

I am probably banned now, but after reading your posts, I just couldn't keep it in anymore. It's simply ridiculous.

[SWTXBelle]

honeychile is the LAST person I would accuse of putting on airs. She wrote a reasoned response detailing why certain rules of polite society are not nit-picky, but are instead considerate of other people. Those of us "raised right" as the expression goes would never put on airs - but we also know rudeness and crassness when we see it. It is a free country, as they say, and you may do whatever you wish. However, you do not get to dictate my response to it, and if you chose to belong to a sorority you do have to consider how your actions reflect on that sorority. If you think that a rule is silly, if you are an active bring it up for discussion at your meeting and vote on it would be my suggestion.
JWithers, if your mother attended or debuted at the St. Cecilia's Ball, she followed many rules that may have seemed nit-picky - but I would suggest reading C.S. Lewis' wonderful discussion of ritual and formality in his Introduction to Paradise Lost to understand why the rules do matter, and why your own dear mother undoubtly followed them.
I think it is important to distinguish between rules particular to a certain group, campus or region, and those actions which would be rude, immoral or illegal anywhere. While I do not think anyone would get kicked out of a group for eating her hot dog while walking, participating in a wet t-shirt contest with your letters would seem to warrant a talking to by the standards committee. (I have personal knowledge of the wet t-shirt incident - and the member had trouble understanding what the problem was - "But I won!" she said !!!)

[AOII Angel]

In all seriousness, I think the issue of expelling sisters is a very difficult one. If you read other threads...like the Legacy one, people advocate kicking out people because they're annoying or trouble makers. I think for most chapters the decision is very tough and is usually preceeded by some very egregious actions by the member. I'm sure there are those very judgemental, uptight chapters out there, but I'm hoping they are few and far between. One thing I learned from living with many sisters in college, taking courses in psychology in college as well as my psychiatry courses in med school is that you'll never get along with everyone! When you gather 50 or a hundred women together there will be many with personality disorders or poor upbringings. You can't bond with everyone, but you can show them respect. In general, I think most chapters do a good job of balancing the need to preserve a good campus/national or international reputation with accomodating members whose values may be slightly different. But, I'm sure anyone can think of at least one action that would be contrary to everything their ritual teaches that would warrant discipline.

[susan314]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

participating in a wet t-shirt contest with your letters would seem to warrant a talking to by the standards committee. (I have personal knowledge of the wet t-shirt incident - and the member had trouble understanding what the problem was - "But I won!" she said !!!)

You have got to be kidding me. How could she not realize that doing that in her letters would be a huge problem?

After a group of sisters went to Florida for Spring Break one year, I recall hearing very vague details about an "incident," but the 2 women involved were mortified and everyone was completely discreet about the whole thing. Although some of us heard very generally about the fact that there was an "incident," no one was told specific details. (Not even me - who was very close to both women, both were my roommates at one point or another and also from my pledge class.) Apparently, as the story goes, they were running very low on money and ended up entering a wet t-shirt contest - they assumed that no one there would ever see them again. They won the contest...and then saw that 3 guys from a fraternity at our campus who we did a lot with were right there in the audience. The gory details were never released, but supposedly they had to get pretty wild to win and were horrified to find out that fraternity guys from our campus who recognized them were there - these 2 women were typically very reserved and conservative while at school and under normal circumstances. The situation was never brought up before a standards committee, because it never became common knowledge (I only knew b/c one was my roommate), the fraternity men were kind enough to be discreet about it when they came back to campus (if they did share the story w/their other brothers when they came back, they at least all had the decency not to discuss it openly or spread the story around campus), and the sisters were genuinely upset that someone they knew from our campus was there.

Now, if they had participated in a wet t-shirt contest near our campus, while wearing our letters, and didn't care who saw them or how it would reflect upon our chapter...heads would have rolled!