Sorority - Better Sisters Than They Knew

There's an uproar at DePauw University in Indiana. Two-thirds of the members in the Delta Zeta sorority were given alumna status and told to move out of the sorority house in the middle of the year. Were they too rowdy? Self-centered? Inconsiderate? No - they were simply brainy, or overweight, or a racial minority.

A DePauw psychology professor, surveying students about the traits associated with particular Greek groups on campus, identified Delta Zetas as socially awkward. The sorority house drew the attention of its national office because it was only half filled. The question of recruitment seems to have transmuted, quickly, into one of image.

The chapter appears to have been home to a diverse community over the years, partly because it has attracted brainy women, including many science and math majors, as well as talented disabled women, without focusing as exclusively as some sororities on potential recruits' sex appeal, former sorority members said.

"I had a sister I could go to a bar with if I had boy problems," said Erin Swisshelm, a junior biochemistry major who withdrew from the sorority in October. "I had a sister I could talk about religion with. I had a sister I could be nerdy about science with. That's why I liked Delta Zeta, because I had all these amazing women around me."

We talk about body image and self-esteem in my Family and Society class. The majority of the class are women; most recognize media messages regarding beauty, but claim that they "ignore" those messages. Discussion usually reveals that they use "fit" or "healthy" but mean "traditionally pretty and slender." Eventually, recognizing that many of them have internalized the images and feel bad about themselves, they express anger at the media. Most cannot see any way that their behavior or attitudes, in effect, support these norms.

That difference: the enforcement of body-image norms for women by women themselves - seems to be at the heart of the contention over this sorority chapter.

In spite of on-going membership problems, they were stunned when 23 of the 35 members - including the chapter's president - were deemed insufficiently cast out. The 12 who were invited to remain were described as slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women who the sorority hoped could attract new recruits.

There is a clash of cultures here. Nationwide, sororities purport to be about friendship among women and service - as well as socializing within the Greek system. The women in the DePauw Delta Zeta chapter seem to have created a true sorority - a sisterhood - by shifting the priorities placed on appearance, social affability, intelligence, and service.

If DePauw had a large pool of women who both wanted to be art of the Greek system and shared that value system, this confrontation might not have occurred: there would not have been a recruitment problem. There is a fundamental mismatch, though, between placing priority on brains and community spirit over the traditional Greek system requirements - so a very small pool of women interested in this type of sorority chapter.

I am sorry for the 23 who were dismissed. I am tremendously impressed with the six who were invited to remain as the core of the renewed Delta Zeta - and chose to leave when the priorities of the national office were made clear.

I attended a college that did not have sororities, so I have no experience of the positive elements they might bring to a campus. This episode might be the beginning of the second wave of change in the Greek system. It's been 40 years since racial barriers were disbanded. Perhaps it's time to let go of other practices that value people for their looks.