The recent debacle has raised some interesting points that I think should be discussed, namely the concept of "You're always wearing your letters," how we represent our groups and how we deal with other members of our groups.
For background, I'm going to say that when I first became a Greek I was very, very concerned about promoting Greek stereotypes. When I left for sisterhood events, my non-Greek friends would tease me, asking if I was going over to the house to get hazed. Instead of laughing it off I would give them mini lectures on hazing (yes, I am a nerd). I would never say anything that could possibly be misconstrued as being rude or tacky to someone, no matter how much they deserved it, even if I wasn't wearing letters or they didn't know I was in a sorority -- just in case. But now that I've been in my sorority for over a year, I've realized that the difference I can make on people is minimal. I've succeeded in changing some opinions -- my boyfriend, some of his roommate's, a number of my close non-Greek friends -- and I hope that most of these people can walk away with at least a neutral opinion of Greek life. But all of these people were people who know me pretty well, whom I have sat down and had discussions with about Greek life and point by point cleared some of their misconceptions. I've realized that the impact I'm going to make on people who I don't have the chance to do that with is going to be minimal -- especially with those who have major negative preconceptions of Greek life. For example, I will never be able to convince my mom that sororities can be a good thing no matter how hard I try, and she's my mom!
So here's what I want to hear from you:
(1) What do we do about PR? Clearly we need to be concerned about it. Part of what frustrates me about Greek life is that we are held to much higher standards than non-Greeks (check out the punishments for athletic team hazing versus Greek hazing for one example) -- but didn't we sign up for that? Greek life is about upholding high standards, but somehow it's a lot easier to uphold standards that your organization or you yourself are setting than it is to uphold standards that others arbitrarily impose on you. And the fact of the matter is we are human, we can't be perfect, and we are not always going to reach those standards. Some issues obviously are touchier than others.
So how do you achieve the balance?
(2) What can you do about those in your organization who you don't think are upholding those standards? I'm not talking about national execs laying down the law, I'm talking about us, as actives and alums, enforcing the behavior of other actives and alums? Is it okay to tell people that they're embarassing your organization? Is it okay to tell other people how to act or what to say when it reflects on your organization? Or do we need to realize that, even when it makes our beloved Alpha Beta Gamma look bad, not everyone has the same standards for behavior? I haven't struggled with this issue much myself since the number of Tri Delt GCs are low and we tend to agree with each other most of the time
but I know other groups deal with it pretty often and not just on issues like this, so I want to hear about it.
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