Too fat to recruit: or, DePauw, the Sequel

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Motivating a sister to lose weight may be even better for her in the long run than motivating her to raise her GPA.

Or it may cause her to develop an eating disorder.

But hey, as long as rush goes well, that's what's important!

[kathykd2005]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Or it may cause her to develop an eating disorder.

But hey, as long as rush goes well, that's what's important!

True--motivating is different from telling someone to stay away from recruitment altogether. Motivation is like: Hey, I'm going to the gym, want to come with me? I love our conversations! Being callous is like: Stay away from recruitment, because we don't want any new girls to think we're the oinkers because of you.

[banditone]

How about if you get together and move the "house treadmill" so it is sitting right outside the offending sisters room?

[kathykd2005]

Originally Posted by banditone

How about if you get together and move the "house treadmill" so it is sitting right outside the offending sisters room?

[Tom Earp]

OMG, what a neat non fat compared to fat people being wanted.

Would really want me want to be in a Female GLO!

Frumpy may not be for life. The point should be what can this girl do to help our Sorority!

Does she have more inside her than just the exterior trappings. Noooo, if no looks you suck attitude. To sad.

I am so sure that each poster fells drop dead gorgus of course!

Good luck in the future when your waist line is bigger than the IQ you think you have?

[banditone]

Earp. You outdid yourself sir.

[Tom Earp]

Originally Posted by banditone

Earp. You outdid yourself sir.

Why thank my friend!

What do you drink and what kind of Cigar do you desire.

Come visit KC, BBQ, toddies, and a fine smoke!

Oh well, it must be a girl thing from all of the swell feelings? Oh, FAT people do not have those from what I am seeing here!

[33girl]

You're completely missing the point.

Maybe they can "hide" women during rush, but then all of a sudden the sorority that had 50 skinny girls during the parties has 50 skinny girls and 20 fat girls at bid day.

If you were a new pledge, wouldn't you feel a little bit like someone was trying to pull the wool over your eyes?

[BetteDavisEyes]

Originally Posted by 33girl

If you were a new pledge, wouldn't you feel a little bit like someone was trying to pull the wool over your eyes?

Yes. If I were a new member, and all of a sudden I saw a bunch of girls who were mysteriously missing throughout recruitment, I'd probably wonder why they weren't around and if all the missing girls happened to be bigger than a size 6, then I'd downright get pissed...but that's just me. Obviously, everyone else would react differently.

[adpiucf]

I realize I come from one of the "larger" chapters, but in all honesty... recruitment is a blur. You maybe meet 10 women in the chapter during the week, and prob. only remember half of them. Come Bid Day, there are a lot of strange faces.

If it's as drastic as 30% of the chapter disappearing and reappearing on Bid Day, and those members looking drastically different than the rest, ok, that's weird. At that point I'd call shennigans.

But in a typical recruitment, there are several sisters who can be missing from the floor for several reasons: behind-the-scenes work, study abroad, medical, emergency, conflict with athletics/band, etc. I don't think anyone can legitimately feel cheated on Bid Day-- you still have a couple dozen sisters and a couple dozen new members to get to know.

As far as the heavier women in your chapter-- I don't think it's a weight issue-- it's an issue of how you carry yourself.

At the end of the day, recruitment is a very superficial process-- you are having the most basic surface conversations, after all. If you are bidded, you have a 6 week period (approx) to determine if you're in the right place or not. Granted, you may not have an opportunity to re-rush in the future, but you're not locked in if the sorority you thought you were joining turns out to be something else.

And if anyone finds that unfair or horrible-- well, don't rush at those schools. It's not going to change-- you're trying to bring in 18-20 year olds as your members and you're trying to appeal to what's important to them. Sad as it sounds, while many are in it for the academics/sisterhood/service aspect, the look of a chapter can heavily influence someone of this age.

Those of us who are a little older may find the whole process silly or disturbing, but we aren't their target demo.

[33girl]

There are ways to "take one for the team" other than telling someone to not come to rush at all. From what I'm getting, the national consultant didn't even suggest kitchen duty or ask the women of the chapter what a good way to deal w/ this would be - she just said DON'T COME TO RUSH AT ALL.

And if this chapter IS ALREADY APPRECIABLY SMALLER THAN THE OTHERS, which apparently is the case, the rushees are going to notice that anyway. I'm sorry, but if anyone, national consultants or chapter officers or advisors, think the rushees won't notice this chapter has 80 girls while the other chapters have 200, they are too stupid to exist. That in and of itself is "different" enough to scare rushees away from the chapter, if we're operating on the principle that different = kiss of death.

Bottom line, if your chapter's numbers are a lot smaller than the other groups' to begin with, keeping the "image impaired" ladies away from rush isn't going to help your recruitment. You have to explain it in some way and it would be better to use your time thinking of a positive spin to put on that than figuring out who's skinny enough to rush and who is not.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by SECdomination

Here is why the overweight girl MUST be "hidden":

At a school with a competitive greek system, image is everything. All the sisters of all the sororities dress their best and look their best during rush. So you end up with most girls looking good and wearing designer clothing. Because they all do that, there is a level playing field.

The rushees don't care about what the girls are wearing because it's all expensive. One element of superficial rush is gone.
All the sisters spend so much time getting themselves all done up, so they are lookin' good! Another element of superficial rush is gone- all the sororities have attractive girls!

But, WAIT!

This one sorority has some fat girls. There must be something undesirable about them because this house is DIFFERENT from the rest.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes necessary.

This post actually really put the situation in perspective for me. I'm not from a highly competitve recruitment school, so it's hard for me to understand why there would be pressure to hide girls who are large. It seems as if in order to compete, the playing field must be completely level. If you are on a campus full of huge chapters, and you are already smaller, it seems to me like you can't afford to be "set apart" from the other sororities by the size of the women in your group.

Not saying that this practice is something that I agree with, but this did help me to understand the rationale behind it.

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by SECdomination

Here is why the overweight girl MUST be "hidden":

At a school with a competitive greek system, image is everything. All the sisters of all the sororities dress their best and look their best during rush. So you end up with most girls looking good and wearing designer clothing. Because they all do that, there is a level playing field.
The rushees don't care about what the girls are wearing because it's all expensive. One element of superficial rush is gone.
All the sisters spend so much time getting themselves all done up, so they are lookin' good! Another element of superficial rush is gone- all the sororities have attractive girls!
But, WAIT!
This one sorority has some fat girls. There must be something undesirable about them because this house is DIFFERENT from the rest.

Would you NPC women drift away from the norm for first round parties and get all emotional about your sisterhood? No. Because it would be DIFFERENT from the others.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes necessary.

SECdomination, you make great points here, ones that us SEC women (and women from other competitive schools) will be able to totally grasp... and maybe even some women from non-competitive schools, too, who can realize the big gap between everyone-is-PC-and-nice-to-everyone recruitment and competitive RUSH. I get the idea that a lot of posters live in Fantasy Land where this isn't the way it is and they can't seem to understand that no matter how much we don't like it and don't think it's "nice," it's not going to change (at least no time soon). Women outside of competitive recruitments like to post about how it "should" be, but they haven't experienced it from the inside so it's hard for them to see how unchangeable these attitudes are on these campuses.

[ΑΓΔSquirrelGirl]

Originally Posted by dgdramadawg

SECdomination, you make great points here, ones that us SEC women (and women from other competitive schools) will be able to totally grasp... and maybe even some women from non-competitive schools, too, who can realize the big gap between everyone-is-PC-and-nice-to-everyone recruitment and competitive RUSH. I get the idea that a lot of posters live in Fantasy Land where this isn't the way it is and they can't seem to understand that no matter how much we don't like it and don't think it's "nice," it's not going to change (at least no time soon). Women outside of competitive recruitments like to post about how it "should" be, but they haven't experienced it from the inside so it's hard for them to see how unchangeable these attitudes are on these campuses.

I'm sorry that some of us just soooooo out of it and dumb and can't understand...but some of us have a value system that doesn't allow us to degrade people we made promises to. As long as people continue to use your excuses it will not change. It will not change in one year, five years, maybe not even in ten years. It could take twenty, fifty, one hundred years. But it is possible to change it if someone will someday have the guts to stand up for what is right. As far as I'm concerened it's a total in-your-face disgrace to what the organizations stand for to be so shallow.

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by ΑΓΔSquirrelGirl

I'm sorry that some of us just soooooo out of it and dumb and can't understand...but some of us have a value system that doesn't allow us to degrade people we made promises to.

Honey, I'm not saying those outside the system are "too dumb" to understand what's going on... nor am I saying that I would actually DO this to a sister or allow it to be done. The chapter I came from wouldn't have done it. I would be glad to believe that there aren't chapters who do it and there aren't reasons it could accomplish something positive numbers-wise in recruitment... but I know for a fact that isn't true.

What I am saying is that, having been through an SEC recruitment as a PNM (and hearing all the talk about chapters, good and bad), I am disillusioned enough to get why a chapter would make this choice. Yes, it's mean to do it. No, I wouldn't personally do it, because sisters are sisters and I believe that part of pledging a girl is knowing that she'll be a recruiting sister for the next three years. But I understand the reasoning behind it.