Living-in vs Living-out

[fantASTic]

Originally Posted by 33girl

FWIW, back in the day it was encouraged for women - as in, "if you wear your sorority letters you get into the fraternity party free and don't have to be on the guest list." #1, the guys didn't have to worry about offending a sorority woman they didn't know well by saying "who the eff are you?" #2, it was good publicity for women to meet rushees. #3, it's winter and it's effing cold, and letter sweatshirts are far more sensible than dry clean only hoochie wear. I mean, chapter consultants saw us go off to parties in letters and said nothing, in fact wore letters to parties themselves. But off that tangent. I still say all these "OMG NOT IN LETTERS" rules came about when pledging got easier. Whether they're related or just a coincidence, I'm not really sure.

fantASTic - I thought your campus was similar to mine and the houses were smaller? Anyhoo, I do think the "a 21 year old can't drink A beer" is stupid in any size dwelling, but I can understand the no shacking rules in a large house. It's one thing to have 16 girls and all know each other well enough to know what is and isn't permissible. It's another to live with 60 girls, not all of whom you are close to. The way I look at it is...that's like a dorm. We were allowed to shack in dorms, but only on certain nights and we had to keep an eye on our male guests (and vice versa) at all times.

Then again, there seems to be a lot less understanding going around these days. One of my dorm-mates basically had her boyfriend living in her room - I can't remember why, but I think he had some sort of issues with his living situation. They were always respectful and no one on the floor complained or told the RA because we felt bad that he was stuck. I just can't see that happening today - people are much quicker to fink on their fellow man.

I've no idea if it's related to the new pledge rules; I wasn't around during the change. But I just think we should be treating ourselves and our collegiate sisters as adults - not as small children.

As for the shacking, I think it should be left up to individual chapters to decide based on living arrangements. Example: if all girls have their own bedrooms, or their roommate is out of town and does not mind, I do not see the problem. I also don't see a problem with the "certain nights only" or "only so many days a month" rule; I think those are actually good peacekeeping rules.

My campus is medium-sized. Average chapter size is around 80.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by fantASTic

I've no idea if it's related to the new pledge rules; I wasn't around during the change. But I just think we should be treating ourselves and our collegiate sisters as adults - not as small children.

As for the shacking, I think it should be left up to individual chapters to decide based on living arrangements. Example: if all girls have their own bedrooms, or their roommate is out of town and does not mind, I do not see the problem. I also don't see a problem with the "certain nights only" or "only so many days a month" rule; I think those are actually good peacekeeping rules.

My campus is medium-sized. Average chapter size is around 80.

I think it depends on the school. Since our chapter house was campus housing within the Greek quad, campus rules overrode sorority rules. As I've mentioned before, my college is notoriously lenient and there weren't any shacking rules since it was technically a dorm. We did have a stipulation saying that men weren't allowed in chapter-specific rooms, which I still don't understand. No one complained about shacking, even in the case of the chapter president my sophomore year, whose boyfriend basically lived in the house.

[PiPhiERDoc]

Rules about men not being in the house also have some very practical safety reasons behind them.

If you live in a chapter house that holds 50+ women, good chance that you will not know everyone's male friends/boyfriends ect. So you will think nothing about some random guy wandering the halls, right? And what happens if that guy is actually NOT a guest, but has broken into the house with the intent of assaulting a woman?

This has happened at many campuses, including a series of sexual assaults that happened at Washington State University exactly because of this scenerio, ie women not complying with their man-hour rules, women in the house becoming used to seeing random guys around, and not being able to recognize someone who shouldn't have been there until their sister was assaulted.

There are also all kinds of theft and property damage issues...plus insurance premiums...