At AFLV I attended a lot of Panhellenic-oriented sessions. These sessions give students the opportunity to hear from fraternity and sorority professionals about current trends and to voice concerns of issues happening on their campus. One of the things I heard over and over was that sorority leaders were sick and tired of fraternities hosting parties with inappropriate names. To be honest, I am not at all surprised that the gentlemen that comprise our fraternities are hosting parties with names like
(please excuse my language) "Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes," "Tops or Bottoms," and, my personal favorite (read: sarcasm) "Joggers and Rapists."
Are you kidding me?
Yes, I understand that you are mad and offended because I literally felt my stomach turning as I heard the names of these parties. Guys (because frankly they
do not deserve to be called gentlemen with behavior like this) think it is cool to host parties with names like these because they see this behavior displayed on TFM. But the biggest revelation of all came while I was attending a fraternity session.
I was sitting next to the sweetest fraternity man you have ever met. He is telling me about all the great things his fraternity does and then we begin talking about parties. He rattles off some mildy offensive party names. I advise him that these names are probably not a good idea because they perpetuate negative stereotypes among our organizations. This sweet young man looks at me and says...
"We keep having them because the girls come."
Ladies, I am going to spell this out for you right now. Men are simple. If you talk about hockey, they will think you like hockey. If you go to an inappropriately named party, they will think you like the inappropriate name of the party. They have your buy-in. You may have received a t-shirt that you wear occasionally. You probably posed for some pictures that you were tagged in on Facebook that you future Little will see and she will go to the same party next year because adores you and has been looking forward to it since she creeped on you last semester.
The sweet fraternity man then looks at me and says, "If the girls didn't come, we wouldn't have the parties."
It is that simple.
Do not support fraternities who have these parties. You do not go. Do not let your Sisters go. Do not let your Little go. If you are in a position of leadership, encourage your chapters members to not attend. Tell your Panhellenic Sisters that you think this is a bad idea and ask them to ask their Sisters not to go.
Don't go and maybe that fraternity will stop having that party and eventually giving their other parties inappropriate names. And your campus and community will stop perceiving sorority women as uneducated and highly sexually active because you finally took a stand.
This post has come across more as a rant, but the actions needed to change the stereotypes associated with our organizations begin with us, not the public. We have to stand up and do something or no one else will.
P.S. I realize this is not the most Valentinesy post.
Here is something a little better to soothe your heart.
