‘Now some sororities may say “fine with us we have no desire to throw parties” but perhaps others may feel differently. Why should they not have the same option?’
Women are entitled to join any organization they want to, have parties of any type they want. They just can’t do it member of a Panhellenic sorority.
But that is the issue - why is that so for the sororities but in practice not so for the frats? Why the double standard?
Apparently the Panhels have a tighter grasp on their membership than the guys do.
My house, like all others on campus, has a House Board - they oversee the finances, construction/repairs, legal matters, hire/manage the House Director who lives in, etc. They don’t overstay their welcome, but they can come around when they want. (Not like they are hanging around on Sat nights.) They are involved with rush insofar as they may do behind the scenes work (prepping food, hanging up coats, etc - obviously not membership selection).
I am not aware that the frats have anything similar or that their alums are involved except maybe at a distance for legal matters where the students cannot sign (eg contracts). The guys just seem much “looser” in adherence to policies.
Both of these are situations in which housing is on campus, right next to regular student dorms - not off campus privately owned houses.
‘Now some sororities may say “fine with us we have no desire to throw parties” but perhaps others may feel differently. Why should they not have the same option?’
Women are entitled to join any organization they want to, have parties of any type they want. They just can’t do it member of a Panhellenic sorority."
Right. Just like the tennis team can’t hold parties with alcohol as the tennis team per se, though of course individual members can do what they like as individuals.
Because they are two separate groups, the Inter Fraternity Council (frats) and Panhellenic (sororities). Panhellenic actually enforces its rules. Most sororities with houses have an advisory board that enforces the PanHel rules. If the house breaks the rules, they get their charters revoked by their national organization and if the nationals don’t do that, that National risks being expelled from Panhellenic. Some IFC groups seems to be a little lax in enforcing the rules, and the member houses too.
I bet if the houses are on a campus, or owned by the campus, the rules set by the school are exactly the same for all Greeks. No parties with alcohol allowed. The difference is in the enforcement.
Twoinanddone is exactly right.
It’s not one unified group imposing a double standard on girls vs guys as some of you seem to think.
It’s two separate groups, both ostensibly about responsible drinking in line with the letter of the law yada yada - but one group plays by the rules and the other doesn’t enforce them.
When I was in school, parents still very much had the Ted Bundy sorority house murders top of mind and that was maybe a decade later. Security was a huge issue in our house and having men in the house after certain hours and certainly men potentially unknown to us would have been a huge concern. Men were not allowed past the first floor “public” areas even with a member. Probably seems paternalistic now but many parents have expectations for security and fraternity style parties won’t meet those expectations.
In our house, a member sat in the entry and greeted visitors. No boys/men entered without a member’s invitation. Unless a male was well known to the group, he waited in the entry until the woman who invited him came downstairs to greet him.
Officially no males were allowed upstairs. Unofficially, the third floor was party central and boyfriends climbed up the balcony columns into open windows and spent the night. Girls climbed out downstairs windows and left to spend the night at their boyfriends’ apartments.
One very memorable morning, a mother arrived from out of town at 6 or 7am to check on her daughter who always seemed to be in the shower when she called the house. The housemother didn’t even know that girl. She had never spent a night in the sorority house. Her supposed roommate just used to call her and tell her to call her mom back. These days I guess the mother would have been tracking her cell phone.
I have no idea what I think about all that at this advanced age. It doesn’t seem as risky as co-ed dorms. We had some sense we were vetting the guys. Of course, we obviously weren’t as responsible as our parents might have hoped.
We had that as well - a member on door duty greeted anyone at the door and then overhead paged the girl. “You have a caller” for a guy; “you have a visitor” for a girl. It was charming in retrospect. I don’t recall if guys were allowed upstairs or not, but they had to be out of the house by a certain hour. (Those of us with singles may have, um, subverted this policy.) Of course some girls went elsewhere to sleep at boyfriends’ apartments; that has nothing to do with Greek or not Greek.
It was nice to have a girls-only space. Dare I call it a safe space?
:)) :))
I would not advocate for the sororities hosting parties that mirrored the frat parties, as the whole point would be to offer an alternative that the women would have some control over. Since the girls seem to be so good at following the rules, certainly there could be limits imposed on the frequency of the events and on the number of invitees. That would go a long way in keeping the sorority events civil.
And I get the arguments relating to legal liability and security of the sorority houses, but that should be balanced against the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that the frats have a vice grip on the parties that many sorority girls are attending with their friends - the guys are mixing the drinks, setting the ambience/theme of the parties and deciding who can or can’t walk through the door. That’s a lot of power. And the girls lose any “home court” advantage and have to find their way home late at night. Seems very unbalanced to me.
There is at least one sorority that has gone rogue - Dartmouth’s Sigma Delta which now has no national affiliations, so it’s free to throw its own parties. I think one member summed it up nicely by saying that the current social landscape of Greek life insures that "the women have no ownership of the social scene. You can’t kick a guy out of his own house.”
Gee…you say that like it’s a bad thing.
BTW: your suggestion is too boringly conventional…but considering your posting history…that’s to be expected.
Much more exciting to crash such an event with like-minded friends, cart off as much of the booty-err food, desserts, and spirits, and run with glee as frat/sorority members and parents like yourself are yelling curses, shaking fists, and possibly calling up your friends, SOs, the local LEOs, and the National Guard to come after us like Star Wars Imperial stormtroopers. 
I admit that my friends enjoyed attending parties (at fraternities and at private houses). Most of us drank. All of the above mentioned by other posters (boyfriends sneaking upstairs in the sorority house, girls spending nights at wherever their boyfriend lived , etc) went on.
I still liked having a place that I could come home to (and it was my home for awhile) that was not party central. Where I could have a quiet place to sleep, study, relax, chat with my girlfriends or whatever. And as mentioned upthread, the surroundings were very pleasant aesthetically.
We had alcohol in the house. It was allowed on the upper floors and was not to be taken out of the rooms, not even in the halls. Did 6 or 8 of us sisters gather in “Sally” and “Jane’s” room after classes for a small “happy hour”? Yes, on a regular basis. But that was very different than having a full scale party in the house!
I don’t get how the fraternities have a “vice grip.” Girls can attend whatever social event they like. That can be a dorm party, a party at an off campus apartment, or just hang out in small groups. Many of us didn’t attend frat parties at all - we had boyfriends so we didn’t need the pick up scene, or just hung out with small groups of friends.
Are there places / houses where it’s required that you attend X number of frat parties or something?
"I think one member summed it up nicely by saying that the current social landscape of Greek life insures that "the women have no ownership of the social scene. You can’t kick a guy out of his own house.”
Again - what makes everyone think all the guy-attendees necessarily live in the house? There seems to this assumption that as soon as you go Greek, you automatically live in a house all 4 years.
Yes. When I was in college, we had a roughly 2:1 ratio of fraternities to sororities. Every year, each fraternity would ask several sororities to have a social event (house party, formal, hayride, boat party, fund-raiser, etc.) The fraternities would get every guy they could muster, dress them up in suits and ties, and do a formal invite in the sorority house at dinner time. The girls knew we were coming, so they were dressed for it. The invite typically involved serenading the sorority and flowers for the officers and house mom. A few weeks later, the sororities would decide which fraternities they wanted to do events with the following year. The sororities couldn’t pick fraternities they had parties with in the prior year, and they had to pick such that each fraternity got at least one event with a sorority. Panhellenic would be involved in the choices, and most sororities got two parties.
At these events, the sororities pushed to get as many their members as possible to the parties. Even girls that had steady boyfriends were urged to go to bolster turnout so they would get better offers in the future.
Not just parties, but volunteer work also. D1 was the one who came up with the point system at her sorority. One must have X number of points in order to attend the sorority formals, otherwise some sisters would be MIA and leave a lot of work to others.
“A few weeks later, the sororities would decide which fraternities they wanted to do events with the following year. The sororities couldn’t pick fraternities they had parties with in the prior year, and they had to pick such that each fraternity got at least one event with a sorority. Panhellenic would be involved in the choices, and most sororities got two parties.”
Wow, that’s so unusual to me - not my experience.
In the system H / S / I were in, nothing prevents House A from deciding – hey, next month we want to do a mixer / exchange with House B and after that, with House C (presuming House B and House C agreed!). No one “oversaw” any kind of master system. The social chairs of the houses would coordinate calendars, but I am not aware of any requirements that they be matched / non-matched based on previous exchanges or previous years. They weren’t being matched for life or anything.
S’s house had a falling-out with sorority E over something (probably stupid) and so they simply didn’t do exchanges with them. Of course, nothing prevented any individual member from doing something with any individual member of the house – just not part of a group event.
But the extent to which this matters differs by campus. My H was in House X and my house tended not to do a lot with that house at all. So what? That had no bearing on my dating him, spending time at House X, getting to know his brothers, etc. He came and visited me at my house just like anyone else in any house or not Greek at all. It just didn’t matter. I kidded my son, when he joined the same house, that he needed to hang around my house because that’s where the best girls were. Well, he just didn’t take an interest to any of those girls and dated girls who were either in other houses or not-Greek at all. Shrug. What difference did it make? Why this assumption that sorority girls can only date “approved” fraternity guys?
The sororities DO host parties and events, it’s just that alcohol is not served so it is less likely that these parties are going to be on a Saturday night with a toga theme at the house. Often the events are fund raisers, so 24 hour pancake breakfast, chili feast, BBQ before the football game (and yes, there are probably a few beers smuggled into the backyard, but the alcohol is not provided with sorority funds). Often the events are hayrides or casino night on a boat or a gala fundraiser, and if the venue sells alcohol, that’s fine.
I feel some in this discussion want the NPC sororities to be more than they are, to change their rules to keep up with the boys. Don’t join if you want something that they aren’t offering (parties with alcohol at the sorority house). There are other option like the one listed above at Dartmouth (local sorority). Other groups exist or, as we’re all told at every college tour, ‘you can start your own club!’ What you can’t do is join a sorority and then expect the rules to change to what you want them to be.
It’s sad that this kids(most who are underage) think it’s only a real party if they can have alcohol. That’s more concerning to me than the whole frats can do it thing.