New Book on Greek Women

[BCNUQT]

This weekend, when I was at the library, I found this book called, "Girls on the Verge," by Vendela Vida. The author of this book, who was 26 at the time, posed as a college student and went through Rush at UCLA. At the beginning, the majority of her comments were pretty stereotypical - sorority sisters don't ask personal questions during rush because (and I quote), "...conflicts have been known to arise when a sister asks a rushee who her boyfriend is only to discover that they're both dating the same guy." Vida also quotes active sisters as saying things like, "I mean, you're seeing us at our most sophisticated, like, I mean, we're TALKING and everything." Basically, at the beginning of the book, she makes greek woman look like superficial snots.
The book was a look at initiation processes (debutantes and the like), but my interest was mostly what she had to say about greek life. It was interesting, and happily, ended better than anticipated. Worth checking out.


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Sigma Sigma Sigma
Zeta Eta - formally
Beta Kappa - presently

[This message has been edited by BCNUQT (edited September 18, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by BCNUQT (edited September 18, 2000).]

[PenguinTrax]

The book is about all sorts of 'rites of passage' that teenagers participate in, including debutante balls, pageants, and gangs.

See:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...108335-3864949

[Siobhan]

Our Rush chair had my chapter read the portion on rushing at UCLA as part of our rush preparation. I found it very interesting reading on different levels. First and foremost it outlined the rush process at a major American school. This is always interesting to see going to a Canadian school. It was also a good case study to see how the houses reacted to the rushees and the rushees to the sisters and their rush rites of passage.

[Kdbruin]

I am late to the party reading this book. In fact, I did not even know it existed until a couple of days ago. Because I had gone through rush at UCLA in the 90s I was curious as to what the author had to say on the subject. I purchased it on my kindle and was a little upset for spending $9.99 on this book.
For a woman who had a graduate degree and as she claims, is cultured, I was surprised at how biased and shallow the chapter on sorority rush was! The part about the rush process was spot on, I just could not believe how shallow and sometimes mean in her explanation for prefing Delta Delta Delta and Kappa Delta was. I am of course biased towards KD but the way she described my chapter was that my sisters were a bunch of socially awkward, insincere freaks and as such, NO one would intentionally want to join KD!! Was KD a lower tier house during that time? Yes. But there were amazing and beautiful women both inside and out. I am proud of my chapter for really stepping up their game over the last 20 years to earn the respect they deserve. I also think it is in a way ironic that she decided to accept at bid form tri-delt (because they are on the other end of the spectrum from KD) and yet, tri-delt has closed at UCLA. This is no disrespect to tri-delta either. I am curious as to why they went from an upper middle tier sorority in the 90s to having a problem recruiting new members and eventually closing (if anyone has any info- I would love to know). I hope tri-delt comes back to UCLA!

It also reminded me of the PNMs coming on GC with questions about being in a house that may not be a 'top tier.' My opinion
in college was the great thing about not being in a 'top tier' house was I did not have the pleasure to always be perfect. It was about the sisterhood and having fun than it was about competing for frats attention. It was rare that I ever felt the pressure to fit in. I was with the ladies that from day one during rush I bonded with and their were no awkward conversations. I guess I feel like this book is just 'feeding the machine' of creating unnecessary stereotypes and drama around the greek system.

Thank you for letting me rant!

[Sen's Revenge]

What are the odds that someone would bump this thread on its 20th anniversary? lol

[ChioLu]

Kdbruin, the Tri-Delta chapter at UCLA went from pledging quota to pledging 1/5 of quota, in only a five year time span. While a lot of sweet women joined Tri Delta, they didn’t have a lot of members who were strong recruiters so their numbers dwindled. They are the next chapter to return to UCLA when ALL existing chapters are healthy and are at/near quota. Of The 11 chapters at UCLA, eight are at chapter total, three are not. Of those three, one is approximately 20% under total (200), the other two are about 25% under total. AZD had been selected several years ago to be the next group to come back to UCLA, but that was under a certain time table. That time frame has elapsed. When DDD does come back to UCLA, I hope they pull out all the celebrity alumnae, bring the really strong chapter at USC to recruit and start out with a bang!

Kind of want to know what this author said about my chapter at UCLA. I’ll wait till the libraries re-open and maybe check the book out of the library.

[Kdbruin]

ChioLu- The author talks about one rush party she went to at Chi Omega where the girls were doing a Batgirl skit. She said the skit emphasized Chi O spending 50-75% partying and also spends her time doing philanthropy and “scholasticism”. She also makes a comment that due to the term “scholasticism” being used, that the girls Must not be good at it.
The author likes to depict UCLA sorority girls as unintelligent. I find it funny being a top university!

I read your posts on UCLA Fall recruitment numbers! I really enjoy keeping up with how things are going on Hilgard! If you can either post or pm me the numbers after this up coming recruitment I would appreciate it.

Are you able to share which houses are currently under total?

[*winter*]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004S...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

There is an excerpt printed at the bottom of this website...turns out, it’s the whole section of the book about recruitment.