Too fat to recruit: or, DePauw, the Sequel

[adpiucf]

I am starting to really dislike this thread.

No, national officers should not pull someone off the floor on basis of her physical appearance. Again, however, we don't know the full story. I think it would be very easy for me to scream discrimination and sexism if a male co-worker got a promotion I thought I deserved more, or if, in a series of layoffs, male counterpart was kept and I was let go-- in reality, there could be any number of reasons.

Secondly, the target demographic for the majority of undergraduate sororities are 17-22 year old women from middle class-upper middle class households. Go out and talk to a teenage girl for a few hours. It will be a conversation punctuated with "likes," "ums," rampant text messaging, a discussion about the mall, cute boys in her class, the popular girls, "Do I look fat in this?", her friends, her fears, and more "likes," "ums" and rampant text messaging.

Her peers influence her music tastes, clothing preferences, how she styles her hair and her overall body image. Teenaged girls are obsessed with body image. They tune out their parents, teachers and other adults who tell them to be themselves and to judge people for being "beautiful on the inside."

Have you ever tried to reason with an 18-year old? Have you been successful un-brainwashing her from the stereotypes she sees in people like Paris Hilton, Britney, Lindsay? Teens emulate what's popular and shun what's not.

I agree recruitment should be about picking the people who are "beautiful" inside, and the women's parents, sorority national leaders, etc., should guide them to making good decisions. And they do the best they can. But at the end of the day, we're still dealing with teen aged girls.

SEC recruitment is superficial. It's competitive. The SEC is ok with that. I'm ok with that. Got it? Can we please move on from this topic? I feel like we're all talking in circles.