Fraternity Guy Sterotype...

[PotentialPledge]

By the way, business can be a challenging major.

[astroAPhi]

Yeah it is, I'm in aerospace engineering and I wouldn't survive in business. Economics, marketing, etc. doesn't come easily to me and it puts me to sleep.

My boyfriend's an aviation management major and his classes would kill me. Law, ugh.

[MTSUGURL]

Originally posted by Betarulz!

BTW this girl was a GDI

Something I would like to point out -

Thread after thread makes statements like this. First of all, I hate the term GDI. I am independent, (for the moment) but I hate having the GD attached. To me, that is just as bad as if I called fraternity men "frat boys".

Second of all, not only independents have this stereotypical mindset about men in fraternities. When I went to the sorority info meeting last year, they were doing a question and answer session, and one of the "sample questions" was, "If I join a sorority do I have to date fraternity boys?" The rho sigma answered. "Most of us wouldn't date them. Our standards are a little higher."

My best friend is in a fraternity, and I know that intelligence and politeness are more common among his brothers than not. You'd be surprised how many "GDIs" share this opinion.

[GeekyPenguin]

Crystal, I know there have been posts on the topic before, but this is my take on the GDI thing.

You are not a GDI. Ariesrising (not Greek and not planning on it, to the best of my knowledge) is not a GDI. My non-Greek parents who support me being Greek are not GDIs. Who is a GDI?

• The girls on my dorm floor who asked me how many fraternity boys I had to sleep with to join, and asked if I liked buying my friends, but were at the ABQ house partying it up every weekend.
• The people I worked with on campus who said "I have to work with a sorority girl?"
• The boy in the library who calls me a sororistute because I was wearing lettered flip-flops

GDI could also stand for GD Ignorants. I don't know any Greek who uses GDI to refer to every single Independent...we usually reserve it for the dumb ones, just like most Independents reserve "fratty" or "frat boy" for our dumb ones.

[MTSUGURL]

Ahhh ok. Thanks for the clarification - I am now blushing and hanging my head in embarrassment.

[UCFPhiDelt]

Some of the major's within the College of Business are easy. I have had broad experience within the College and I know this for a fact. But... go tell an accounting, economics, or finance major that they have an easy major. Good luck.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by MTSUGURL
Ahhh ok. Thanks for the clarification - I am now blushing and hanging my head in embarrassment.

Don't be - you didn't do anything wrong!

Business majors depend a lot on your university - at my last one, it was a play major. At my current one, it's pretty prestigous.

[astroAPhi]

Originally posted by MTSUGURL
When I went to the sorority info meeting last year, they were doing a question and answer session, and one of the "sample questions" was, "If I join a sorority do I have to date fraternity boys?" The rho sigma answered. "Most of us wouldn't date them. Our standards are a little higher."

HAHAHA... I'm sorry, but that's funny.

Crystal, there is nothing to be embarassed about. I understand how sometimes the term GDI is taken and that's why I only use it to apply to people who are big jerks about the Greek system, just like GeekyPenguin pointed out. And I greatly admire the fact that you were able to stand up on a board of Greeks and challenge something that you felt was wrong.

[sairose]

Before I start, I want everyone to be very open-minded to my thoughts. I am NOT anti-fraternity in ANY WAY; I am Greek afterall(a music Greek, but still a very proud Greek!). I have close friends in many Greek organizations on my campus. However, I've made some observations and such.

As far as the stereotypes go...unfortunately, some groups (well, I should say certain individuals in the groups, not the group as a whole) DO live up to the stereotypes. I will not name any groups in this post, but here's some things I've noticed.

Stereotype #1: "fraternity guys are all jerks/stuck up". Well TOTALLY depends on both the group and the individuals. There are a few groups here that are totally cool, open-minded and friendly. However...the other groups, you can go to their parties, but they don't talk to you or even notice you're there, unless you're one of the girls in the sorority they associate with. This has also happened to me in classes I've had with some of the more stuck-up guys. Please, GreekChatters, I'm NOT trying to stereotype them; but this has been my personal experience. I've gone to parties at every house on campus many times and this has happened to me at a few houses.

Stereotype #2: "fraternity guys drink 24/7." Depends on the guy...and besides, I know plenty of non-Greek people that drink 24/7, so that's just stupid.

Stereotype #3: "fraternity guys do drugs all the time." Well...one of the fraternities here do.....the others...not that I know of.

Stereotype #4: "fraternities are date rapists." This is NOT always just a rumor or a stereotype. A close friend of mine who is in one of the top fraternities on campus has an older sister who was date raped by a particular fraternity on campus. My brother's best female friend was ALSO date raped by a member of this group. And a friend of mine went to one of their parties and drank something that one of them had put a date rape drug in. A mutual friend of ours realized she had been drugged and got her out of there.

Now, this may only be one guy there doing that. But this has happened, by members of this fraternity, NUMEROUS times here. How can this be allowed to go on?

Another fraternity on my campus has their house directly across the street from my dorm, and my hall faced their house directly. These guys would be drunk EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and be yelling and screaming so loud that they woke up EVERYONE in my hall. We would yell out the window for them to shut up, and they'd get louder. We'd call the police on them, and they'd shut up for maybe 5 minutes, and get louder again. One occassion, I drove past their house and about 5 of them threw beer cans at my car. And these same guys wonder why a lot of people don't respect them.

I don't want any of you to think I am anti-fraternity; I'm not. I think GLOs are wonderful, and raise lots of money for philanthropies as well as doing service projects for the community, etc. However, many fraternities get upset when they get stereotyped when they very clearly live up to that particular stereotype. I mean, if you want people on campus to respect you, you have to be respectable.

THoughts? Similar experiences?

[astroAPhi]

sairose, I completely understand your frustration with the groups on your campus that live up to a negative stereotype. One person in a group can destroy years of positive PR, and one group run by morons can destroy an entire Greek community.

I'm fully of the opinion that these people who act like morons and neanderthals would be exactly like this if they weren't in a fraternity/sorority, and acted like this before they even got to college. Why do entire groups act this way then? Well, everyone likes to hang out with people like them. So all the idiots turn on their idiot magnets and before you know it, all the idiots have congregated into a single group and proceed to make all groups look bad with their moronic antics.

I'm not saying the Greek system produces clones or that everyone in an org. is exactly the same. But doesn't everyone in your org have at least something in common, or a common mission? Yes, there's one or two people that aren't on the same wavelength, and sometimes they're the best members, and sometimes they're the worst members.

I probably didn't get anywhere with this post, but I just wanted to throw some ideas out there and acknowledge the fact that we know there are idiots out there.

[sigmagrrl]

I'm curious. Are any fraternities actively fighting to destroy this image on a Inter/National level? For example, does any fraternity have an education program that focuses on preventing violence towards women? This would be a very important thing, IMO, and a great place to start. I know that I've personally never heard of this and if I saw a fraternity on campus sponsor a program on this to make all men aware of this epidemic, I would feel better about fraternities actively working to improve their reputation and eradicate the stereotype altogether...