When I was eighteen years old, I received a bid from a top tier
sorority at the University of Maryland. Accepting my coronation into one of Greek life's
royal families would soon alter the trajectory of my college experience entirely. Three years
after a dramatic exit from my sorority, I released a podcast series about my
experience to break the culture of silence that is intentionally cultivated in these environments.
After releasing Season one, I received an outpour of messages from individuals ready to
tell their own greek life horror stories on the record. This isn't just my
story anymore. Welcome to SNAP Season two. Snapped. Sorority recruitment, also
known as Rush, is sorority world's biggest event of the year in historically white
sororities. Recruitment is when the PMMs, which stands for potential new members,
have the chance to visit each sorority chapter on campus. But sorority of recruitment
is no casual meet and greet. It's a highly regimented, planned out event
that gets increasingly serious and exclusive with each round. For the PNM, recruitment
is like an audition, and throughout the multiday extravaganza. The pnms are assigned
different sorority members to whom they must prove that they are worthy of being in
that chapter. There's so much pressure to look amazing, and you're trying to
get these like privileged like girls to want you. And for the sorority,
recruitment is when the chapter needs to appear as polished as possible. The sorority
sisters are selling their empowering sisterhood, generous philanthropy, and exclusive membership perks.
You're selling yourself. It's like you're the product that they want to be you.
The goal for the chapter is to hit quota. Quota is the number
each sorority may pledge on campus during formal recruitment. Hit quota every year that
I was on the team. And if you hit quota, that's what matters,
and the chapter will do whatever it takes to ensure that X number of
PMMs buy their product of lifelong membership benefits. I think recruitment cost us about
fourteen thousand dollars, which ultimately wasn't successful. We didn't reach our quota that
year. What the pnms aren't told is that their interest in the sorority is
paramount to the chapter's survival on campus. In order for these organizations to stay
afloat, they require a constant source of income from do paying members that must
be replenished each year when all the seniors graduate. Those massive chapter houses are
expensive and they need the beds build. They said, being a sorority woman
is having people outside of your circle for the purpose of recruiting people. We
may as well have been like those people who like give out by bowls at
the metro station, and sometimes we kind of then do that on campus,
like we just set up a pop up time. Nothing stops sorority recruitment,
not even a goddamn pandemic. It was all held on Zoom. Need to
get a new pledge class, Gotta hit quota. Welcome to part one of
the Snapped three part Recruitment special where we investigate sorority World's biggest event of the
year. I'm your host, Lucy Taylor. This is snapped at the start
of the school semester. It's common for sorority members to arrive to campus one
to two weeks early so that they can attend recruitment training. And who better
to lead and oversee this training than alumni of the sorority chapter. They taught
us how to do recruitment, and in that session, one of the alumni
members came up. She was giving us like what was supposed to be an
inspirational speech, and she compared our chapter to the World Trade Center, and
she's like, you can fall back down and you can stay down, or
you can build yourself back up. And I'm like, I don't even know
how to explain how inappropriate it is to compare the losing of three thousand lives
to a shitty sorority chapter. They bring in this person who's an alumni of
the chapter, who is basically coaching you on how to do recruitment. She
would tell us, you want this chapter to be one that you could not
have gotten into. Being shut down was always a threat, like if we
messed up during the Zoom workshops, it would be like you messed up a
Zoom workshop, which means we're not going to be perfect on recruitment day,
which means girls aren't going to join, which means our sorority is going to
get shut down and it's going to be your fault. Personally. I spoke
with Amanda, an alumni from Berkeley, and she explained to me that she
was in the first ever pledge class of a chapter and they didn't care about
being topped here until recruitment came around. The desperation kicked in to be talked.
Here were the alumni advisors, the ones who were really pushing that,
or was it your chapter? Hell yeah, it was the alumni advisors.
So the advisors that I had, they're probably fresh out of college or maybe
like twenty five twenty six. We learned very quickly that we were considered too
casual and a little to run down as a house. And I remember we,
of course most houses. They came on every campus. You show up
about a week or two weeks prior to everyone else to prepare for recruitment,
which is sucked up in it of itself. It's like I have to truncate
my summer break and I can't focus on my classes or focus on preparing for
school. I have to devout two weeks to just pandering to this ideology to
like bring in woman. It's just like going to cirority camp. They actually
brought in a woman to teach us how to do makeup. They were definitely
a huge chunk of girls in my house. That we're not considered seminin enough,
or fin enough, or preventible enough, So it seems like step one
is shame. The alumni advisor tells you this is a shitty chapter. We
want to turn this chapter into one that you couldn't have gotten into. You
hear me, say, alumni advisor, and you might think, who the
fuck is that the alumni advisors were once in the sorority themselves, have graduated
and now hold a volunteer position for Nationals. Who the fuck is Nationals?
Good question. Feather Footed on Reddit compares Nationals to a McDonald's franchise. They
state, quote, there is an overarching organization which spans the country, and
the frat or sorority that you pledge to is really just one storefront of this
mega corporation. Of course, you'll always have your favorite memories at your hometown
restaurant, and there might be certain customized menu items that you prefer in a
special way, but ultimately you can go to another store ten years later,
at a different restaurant in some other part of the country and get largely the
same experience. And the way that the company keeps that going smoothly is by
organizing all their franchises into little regions and assigning regional managers to keep tabs on
the restaurants there. The regional managers appoint local store managers, and the store
managers can bring in even more people to help delegate their responsibilities of advising the
employees of the restaurant end quote. So the local store managers are the chapter
alumni advisors, and the employees of the restaurant are the actives in the chapter.
To continue with this analogy, it's like Alpha Fia is McDonald's, tridell
as Burger King, and Theta is Wendy's, and they're all competing to be
the top restaurant. So the sororities use this workshop week to ensure that their
employees i mean members are up to par and if they aren't, they mold
you into shape so that you fit the brand. Ever since their inception,
sororities have monitored and molded members behavior to fit their ideal of a white conservative
ladylike sorority girl. I learned about this and Women of Discriminating Taste, which
is a book by Margaret Freeman that examines the role of historically white sororities in
the shaping of white womanhood in the twentieth century. The book states that quote,
sorority etiquette and pledge training books instructed the woman on everything from becoming involved
in campus activities and the proper application of makeup to cultivating a pleasant speaking voice
and the correct way to get in and out of a chair end quote.
Margaret's book provided me with a profound insight into the history of these groups,
and so I was thrilled that she agreed to come on Snapped. Freeman is
a scholar with a PhD in American studies, a trained writer, searcher,
and cultural historian, and I'm honored to say that Freeman herself will be providing
a historical context throughout the season. Freeman's book explains that sebrities would base their
idea of a perfect cebrity girl off of what Margaret Freeman calls the Southern esthetic.
Freeman will now explain what the Southern esthetic represents. The Southern aesthetic,
as I term it, is like a style of being or a mode of
self presentation. It's most obvious in the devotion to what we might think of
as this popular Southern imentry, and that was the image that was nationally promoted
and accepted across the US in the first half of the twentieth century. It
was pushed out through advertising and entertainment, and it presented a really sanitized,
very white image of this quote unquote old South. You know, that's the
picture we've learned, the large plantation homes that you know, mythically everyone lived
in. That image of the Southern lady, southern belle, and the hoopskirt
standing on the five branda of a home with large white columns. It's sort
of gone with the wind picture. But what we don't see here, or
what we've been taught to ignore, really is the horrors of slavery, the
enslavement and terrorization of black people whose forced labor enabled that vision of the white
old South that's been the standard image for so many years. And so the
continuance of the Southern esthetic here also provides a symbolic means than of preserving white,
mostly Protestant elite interests. And I argue that's what's going on with national
sororities in the twentyth century and continuing certainly today. It is about maintaining that
white privilege with the limited membership, the sort of selective membership practices and importantly,
the Southern esthetic allows you to promote that ideal implicitly without being really obvious
about this. So certainly we see the explicit use of Southern imagery in sororities
and fraternities right through things like plantation theme parties and pageants, through building and
even remodeling of cha after houses to present that Southern colonial architectural style, the
one that evokes this popularized image we have of the sort of quote unquote plantation
home. The sorority women or modeled their behavior is modeling this ideal of the
Southern lady. You're supposed to be the epitome of woman of the ladylike ideal.
And even in some national organizations like FAMU the women's fraternity, and cap
alph Order the men's fraternity, you have actual hero worship of Confederate officers.
And that's up to the contemporary times. In my dad, this is not
just over one hundred years ago. So even when you don't see all of
the blatant mimicking of these Southern symbols, the southerness that still signals a protective
space for white people and white privilege in these national organizations, sororities would emulate
the Southern esthetic in various ways, but particularly at recruitment and women of discriminating
taste. It states that in nineteen thirty four, Alpha kay Omega and the
University of Illinois bracked about their successful rush parties, including a traditional Southern breakfast.
The journal read that the sorority woman decorated a table with colored dolls and
bales of cotton. It goes on to say that the event included entertainment by
quote members of the active Chapter who dressed as negroes and sang Southern songs end
quote. Freeman points out that by holding events that celebrated this mythic image of
Southern planter culture, sorority sisters from the South and non South would find common
ground. Despite their Southern and non Southern regional differences. They could assure themselves
of their race and class superiority by participating in these displays of old South pageantry.
So let's get back to contemporary sorority world and see how emulating the Southern
esthetic carries out today. I'd like to now introduce you to someone who we
will call Megan. Am I allowed to say the name of the authority totally.
I'm gonna do it okay, okay, And I was a part of
Find You. Megan is a current student and is using a pseudonym to protect
her identity and safety. Megan provided me with all the ins and outs of
Zoom recruitment during the pandemic. It was all over Zoom and they started in
the summer, like sending us a look book, which I sent you should
we go through it? I would love to go through the lookbook. So
the twenty twenty Fall of Recruitment pack, okay, so lots of important dates.
From August twenty first to September thirteenth, it was like every day training.
On August twenty third, it was eleven am to seven pm a workshop.
Yeah, except if we like had messed up the night before. She
would be like, all right, I'm adding three hours. We're going to
have to stay even longer because you guys just can't get together. What would
messing up be? Well, she wanted us to this thing where we all
wanted to breakout rooms, and we would like rotate through the breakout rooms,
like we did have a room to go into and we ne each have a
room to go out of. It was really confusing because all on Zoom it
was a brand new thing. And if we had, like mister Q,
if we had gone into the wrong room, she'd be like, all right,
another hour. We're staying till nine. What do you do in these
meetings? Like practice talking? You would practice talking to one another, like
one of us would be the potential new member and the other one would be
to find you. It would be a role play. It'd be a role
play, yeah, and it'd be like what's your name? Like where are
you from? And just a lot of like kind of fake stuff like if
somebody says something that you don't know what it's it, you just say like,
oh my god, I love it and keep going on. We'll do
like a recruitment workshop week and we'll have you know, five six hour days
where you're learning how to greet someone. You're practicing having conversations, practicing transitions.
It was so nice to meet you. You're actually going to talk to
my other sister right now. Have a great rest of recruitment. You're being
told what to say, you're being told what not to say. There's like
the five bees or it's like boys booze, I guess now Biden, politics,
Bible, so religion, and we were explicit about the bees because they're
just things you're supposed to avoid as a good sorority lady. You should not
bring up Biden because you don't want things to get political. Margaret Freeman points
out that while Sebrity alumni were actively promoting a conservative political ideology, they acted
like sororities had no involvement in the political realm, and protest of any kind
was forbidden because protesting is unladylike. In my interview with Freeman, she elaborates
they always had had this non political presentation. They don't want to offend somebody
in the organization. I think by the time where they're trying to keep people
out of protests, perhaps particularly in relation to school desegregation at colleges, that
either side of that was gonna look bad for them to somebody, right,
and the idea that a lady would not be out protesting, they would be
bringing shame on the organization for just doing that, no matter which side they
were on. Hey, rapes, just a quick reminder to not where your
letters to protests. That's really important that we keep arm into our chapter.
In Women of Discriminating Taste, it says that members of the Gamma Pie Housing
Corporation and alumni group warned that any member or pledge who is involved in any
way in any demonstration regarding the integration situation will lose her membership in the fraternity
automatically. In a copy of the Gamma Pie House Corporation letter sent to University
of Georgia's Dean of Women, the alumni noted that, quote, we prefer
to keep our girls completely out of any demonstrations against the Negroes, and this
is just the most effective control we have end quote. Margaret Freeman goes on
to say that it seemed like the safest thing and to maintain the ladyhood quote
unquote of the members and the reputation of the chapter. Just don't say anything,
don't be involved. And that has been the party line the whole time.
Don't say anything until you get to the point where if you don't say
anything, you look bad for not saying anything. And I think that's maybe
point we're at now. Yes, that is the point that we're at now.
In twenty twenty, during the George Floyd protests and the tense racial climate,
sororities had to keep their gen Z target audience in mind. It would
have looked bad to say nothing, but instead of perhaps owning their racist recruitment
practices or their racist history, they'd say things like racism has no place in
this chapter, or Alpha Fea stands with you hand in hand, Union hand
in hand. So this shows the potential new members. Oh, the sorority
supports Black Lives Matter, and they're very much unaware of the skeletons in the
sororities closet that are never brought up by the organization over recruitment. They emphasize
how they were supporting Black Lives Matter and they donated all this money you played
at the Little Sorority Bengo for it, and they bought a Black Lives Matter
banner and they posted on the front. So you know, I thought,
wow, like they really do care about like other people other than themselves,
like you know, the white person bubble. That I was wrong. I
found out a lot of them are like Trump supporters and they're Blue Lives Matter,
and they were like all lives matter, and I'm like, how are
you gonna say blue lives and all lives matter when you have like a Black
Lives Matter posted on your band. I'm Claudia Vega I a student at the
University of Illinois and I recently in the past few months disaffiliated from Greek life.
We were what we are the most diverse quote unquote house in Panhellenic which
is the white Greek life might go by. So we are known as the
quote unquote most diverse house with sisters brag about it during Rush. Yeah,
and that was something I really did not sit write with me, especially I
know this year during Rush my sophomore so this last fall twenty twenty, that
was something that people talked about, especially because coming at the political climate that
we're in, that's something they wanted to really kind of advertise. And I
did not like that at all. Like a house said like we support like
BLM, and our house also had a BLM flag on it, which if
it's genuine, I'm all for that, But I think that kind of advertising
was a false advertisement and it's really disrespectful to just honestly it is. And
in social media, like the post stuff in solidarity with these movements, which
I think were awareness for versus I think it's a really good thing. At
the same time, when they're putting in social media and their advertising during recruitment
and then they're not only put in the work behind the scenes. There's I
think there's a big disconnected issue there. So remember how I was talking about
the fact that sorority ladies from the South and the non salve would find common
ground and reassure themselves of their own race and class superiority by practicing the Southern
esthetic. Well. Freeman also points out that quote non Southern sorority woman could
cast off the Southern esthetic when they wished to disassociate themselves from supposed Southern traits
such as racist behavior. They hoped to distance themselves from women who advocated racial
segregation and blatant racism, all the while continuing their work to keep African American
women out of their chapters across the nation end quote. So when it came
to picking new members and they didn't want to let black women in, their
justification was, well, our sisters in the South might not like that,
but we're not racist. I'm sharing this because it reminds me of what's going
on today. Sororities are posting things like black Lives Matter, but then don't
address the ways in which their organization actively upholds white supremacy. So they can
decide that This is not a discriminatory organization when it's convenient to do so,
but we need to remember that the goal is to be a top house and
hit quota for this semester's recruitment. So if it takes little saving face,
sororities will do it, especially on their instagram sororities take their instagrams very seriously,
especially when it comes to recruitment. The following clip is from part of
my interview with a former EP of recruitment. In terms of the instagram,
we would do. You know, every stority does different posts for recruitment,
so you have your open house posts, a cute post, always, esthetically
pleasing, always. Everything that's posted has to go with the feed, has
to be posted on, the story has to be cute, but it always
had to get the approval of the recruitment team. I'm now going to read
an email that was sent to Megan's five MEW chapter, and she is going
to then read the rest of the email. Hello everyone, I just wanted
to say that our pr is looking great so far. We've come a long
way and I'm so excited to see where this goes. However, involvement from
every in caps, every sister is important and expected. It's not only good
for PR, but it's good for sisterhood as well. This looks good for
PMMs two and whomever may be involved in follow recruitment. If a post is
made, please like, comment, share, etc. On that post.
This displays our love and excitement for our sisters in our chapter why we are
so proud to be in Fine me, comment more and share the lot more.
This is very important as P and m's have already begun to follow the
page. We need to show them how loving and accepting of a sisterhood we
are. I spoke with Taylor who explained to me how the sororities instagrams affected
her while she was going through a recruitment as a P and M. Yeah,
so instagram stories. I think that's the reason why I was so attracted
to want to like stocking in their Instagram and seeing like t minus two weeks
so I see my sisters and everyone in the comments like oh my god,
you're so beautiful, I love you. You mean the world to be blah
blah blah blah blah, and I was like wow, Like and they really
pushed the whole like girl boss feminism, like joining sorority, like we're all
empowered together and theirs grams world was like, oh my god, you're like
your thoughts are valid, like you know, you're beautiable who you are.
But everybody was really into the whole like girl boss like empowering thing. But
also it was like dresses up to be at the knee or you are a
horror. Something else that sororities post on their chapters social medias are there sisterhood
videos, the classic sorority video that's used as promo before recruitment. I spoke
with Alex, the former VP of recruitment, about this because she was in
charge of making her chapter sisterhood video, and so sisterhood is all about let's
show how close our chapter is and all the fun things that we do.
Didn't think of it as like an Instagram real almost for a bunch of little
clips are just thrown together and everyone's smiling and slow motion with happy music,
holding hands and walking towards the sun. Watch how fun it is to live
in the house. Look at all these silly times that we had watching the
Bachelorette in the living room. Things that freshmen are being, like, you
know, I want that, Look at us studying together. We're so smart.
You're someone like in the chapter it's a cheerleader, like watch her do
a flode. Yes, you're selling yourself. It's like you're the product and
they want to be used. These are videos that we collect all year,
where like give us videos that you just took of you all ice skating so
that we can put them in the video for recruitment. Some of them are
candid and some of them are real, but then you have the ones that
are like, oh, let's do this for the video, right. Well,
all videos are the exact same except for the fact that there's different members,
so it's just a showcase their prettiest best members. Yes, and even
like girls who talk in some of the videos, like they're usually asked the
recruitment team knows would do well in front of a camera. Hey do you
mind talking? You know and saying this little spield Sororities are very careful about
which members they choose to put on their platforms. For example, I never
made it to my Sororities Instagram. Not everyone makes the cut. Megan was
telling me about how members of her chapter would submit photos, but not everyone
would make it on the Instagram. I heard girls tried to submit pictures,
but they were rejected because they didn't like fit the look. Most of these
girls were like overweight or you know, didn't have like perfect terror makeup.
And a presentation created by the National Office of Alpha FI, it states,
quote the chapters social media must attract the target PNM, not reflect the chapter's
current membership end quote. I spoke with Kirsten who provided an example that perfectly
illuminates this notion. We had a photo shoot at one point, and I
hosted on our Facebook group like, hey guys, we're having a photo shoot.
Comment below who's coming. It'll be for our sorority catalogs. They sold
shit on the side, and so we went. It was at the beach,
and they put us in two different groups, and it was very obvious
what they were doing. Was this a TLC. Yeah, for anyone who
doesn't know, a TLC is a traveling Leadership consultant who was a volunteer and
is being instructed by nationals. But we'll get to that in a later episode.
They put the white and white passing girls in one category, and also
like the thin girls that's important too, and then they put bigger girls and
people of color, just in a different section, and so they took a
picture of the former group, and so we were just sitting around because I
was at the second group, and so we were just like waiting for someone
to be like, Okay, it's your turn. So finally I asked I
was just sitting at the beach for an hour. I asked them, I'm
like, hey, should like we go home? Like are we gonna get
pictures taken? Like what's the deal? And they were like, well,
you guys all have phones, Like why don't you take pictures yourself? As
if that was like an alternative to a professional photo shoot. And so we
were in some of the pictures that they took from the boardwalk, where like
you couldn't see people's identities and they like spelled out ZTA. But it was
sad and it made me feel like shit. And I remember having a conversation
with someone who's my friend at the time and I was like, hey,
that was fucking racist, and she was like, Kirsten, you know what
you signed up for when you joined this, Like this is a white centric
world. We were guests in this world and we're lucky to be here.
And that's just the way that we have to play this game. Gave me
like a pit in my stomach because like she truly believes that. She truly
believed that, like she was of a lower status because her skin was brown,
and throughout her experience, like she just kept I hate to say that
other like pocs are whitewashed, but like she made an attempt to like quote
unquote being more white as time went on. She would wear her pearls,
she would wear her like her Lily whatever, Lily who Lily peeled through but
yeah, and wear the cardigans and like just being stereotypically white. It sounds
to me like she was trying to emulate the Southern esthetic. And it's my
hypothesis that the sorority did everything in their power to mold her into the closest
version of a Southern lady like sorority member. I spoke with Angel, a
black student from Sunny Genco who went through Zoom recruitment. Angel knew right from
the start that as a black woman she would have to work ten times harder
to emulate the Southern esthetic. In this rush event with fifty plus girls and
there's maybe three black girls rushing, I'm already standing out when you're looking at
the little grids of all these white girls, you're gonna look at me,
and people's eyes are already gonna be on me. More so, I bought
specific airrings and shirts, and I did my hair and my makeup so that
way they look at me and they'll say like, oh, she's put together,
she's well spoken, so I have a better chance of getting a bit.
I'm already very whitewashed. I've been like made fun of that my whole
life. They're like, oh, you have a valley girl voice, or
like your voice is so white. You are a white girl chatted a black
girl's body. So I already was kind of like, oh, I already
kind of act like that. I dressed like pretty white, so I'll be
fine. But I knew no matter what, I'd be looked at differently,
and I definitely on the more polish version of myself. I definitely changed how
I talked, Like if I talk a certain way about something like what if
they think I'm yetto or like ratchet. It's always wondering will the sority want
black girls or do they give bids to black girls. It's like a lot
of that was constantly running through my mind, like, am I not going
to get a bit because I'm black? Or like, is it actually because
I don't fit the vibes of that sorority. In my interview with Alex,
the former VP of recruitment, I learned that not only are the social media's
extremely curated, but also the sorority house itself needs to be carefully adjusted before
the pmm's can even walk through the door. And it takes planning to be
this calculated. For a recruitment that took place at the end of January,
Alex had to start planning and November, you're planning decorations for four rounds.
Here's the picture they're gonna be up on the walls. Here's the color that
they're going to be backed by. Here's what our abroad board is going to
look like. Here's what the pictures in the picture frames on kitchen walls are
going to look like. This is the way the chairs are going to be
set up. This is the decorations that we're going to pull from girls rooms.
We'll take pieces of like you know, a cool light or a cool
pair of shoes from a different room, and we'll put them in the room
that girls are going to be recruited out of to like create whatever image we
want. So half the stuff that's in someone's room when they're being recruited out
of it isn't there. Like if someone had a cool light up star and
light, like one of those like aluminum whatever, like super cool and artsy
and trendy, We'll take it from another room, put it above the bed,
run it on. We know. We'll take someone's jewelry and like strategically
lay it out on the dresser. We'll take shoes and like you know,
they're just a pair of shoes on the ground. But like everything that's there
is purposely put there. And the girls who I was sent to do it,
they knew what we wanted the image of our chapter to look like.
I came home from like running errands, and I found that my room had
been stripped apart and my room was full of nerdy shit. Like I went
to Comic Con every year and I would buy like expensive collectibles like Game of
Throne Ship and all of it was shoved in a corner. And that's like
if you know, like that's expensive stuff, and like it was just some
of it was completely damaged because it was just shoved in a corner because they
didn't want people to know that someone like me is in that chapter. I
actually have a friend I think she's actually going to be dropping soon who was
in a top house in my school. It's Kyo. They wouldn't let her
put up a bill and flag in her own room, and when she pushed
her it, they took her out of recruitment. They've curated the house,
they've curated their social media. Now they just need to ensure that their members
are up to par Let's return to the look book that Megan shared with me.
The look book states, please wear find you apparel the moment you get
on campus. We want to represent our organization well. So don't go to
events or to classes looking sloppy. Remember the two thirds rule. The thirds
are outfit, makeup, hair. Please make sure before you leave to go
to an event that at least two out of the three of these things are
done well. So you have to do the two thirds rule for class?
Yeah, oh yeah, you have to word to class or else you know
you're gonna get a text like hay Gurley. Notice the two thirds rule wasn't
really being followed today, even wearing masks. Yeah, most of us had
like class online online, when you and your online zooms you have to do
the two thirds rule. Oh yeah, I'm so worried about that. Also,
I'd just like to point out right now that some of the frats have
to do any of this if you wake up at eight am and your classes
at eight oh five, just like just usually, we're supposed to show up
a day before school starts to help move people in, so that you're like
wearing your fine new shirt and you like help some freshman move in or be
like, oh my god, like fine new girls. They're so helpful.
We've got to join interesting tactic. Let's take a look at the outfit section
of the look book and see what Megan's chapter was instructed to wear during recruitment.
Preview Night ordered shirt medium, darkwashed jeans or overalls. Simple jewelry preferably
gold, platforms or nice white shoes. And then Philanthropye Sister Knight white to
blush to rose, dress romper or jumpsuit, chunky jewelry, silver, tan
heels or flats. And then Prep Knight has black jumpsuit, romper or dress,
pink heels or flats, pearls white. Duh, Like I don't have
any of this shit like that costs so much money? And where do I
get it? If I'm a plus sized girl? Where do I get if
I'm like a tall girl. You have to get these outfits. Yeah,
it's either fine or you just don't get to participate. This is all over
Zoom. Nobody's going to see our pants. This is all over Zoom.
Every outfit that a girl wore had to be approved, so we had outfit
checks, so people would be pissed, and especially this year on Zoom,
people aren't going to see my bottom half. And I am sitting there like,
I don't even know how to fucking justify you buying a forty dollars pair
of pants when you're not even going to see them. But you would still
have to write. You would still have to because what if you take a
picture and you post it, God forbid you post a picture of you wearing
slippers in your recruitment outfit. What would not be appropriate if you had too
much cleavand showing, if your dress was too sure, if it wasn't the
right material. During one of the presentations the semester before recruitment, when they
were talking about the outfits that is when they brought up everyone has to buy
a pair of Sphinx and wear it underneath their dresses. They were afraid to
say like the real reason, in my opinion, so they said it was
to prevent lines, like unsightly lines that just would like not look good,
like not polished. The word was always polished. You want to look polished.
I love that word. Yeah. And also no one was allowed to
wear their natural hair, so like, even if your hair is straight,
like the PowerPoint explicitly said, like if your hair is already straight, you
have to re straighten it, like everyone had to use heat on their hair.
They showed us one power point during the actual meeting and then they sent
out a more sanitized one in our email. So they took out the spanks
thing because at the time I was like, I'm going to send this to
all my friends nod in grape life. This is so fucked up. And
then I went to find it in the power point that they emailed out and
it was gone, so I was like, oh, they're good. And
then the makeup, oh my god, makeup is non negotiable for recruitment.
And when we definitely had a non binary member who was like I really don't
like burning dresses or makeup, but I guess there's nothing I can do about
it. When I became baby Recruitment, one of the things that I really
wanted to focus on is like making the dress code more inclusive because from NATIONALS,
we're told like, oh, you have to wear like this color this
day, and it has to be like this specific outfit, Like you have
to wear like a wine colored dress on pref night with gold heels, so
essentially like once I became VP of Recruitment, I one of my first conversations
with my alumni count of her, I was like, I want to change
the dress code so you can wear a dress or a jump suit or like
a shirt and pants, like whatever you're comfortable with, as long as it
looks like professional and like it's with the vibe. It would make people more
comfortable because we also have some non binary people in our chapter and they told
me like they feel really uncomfortable wearing dresses sometimes. Once I talked to my
alumni counterpart about that, she was like absolutely not, absolutely not, Like
this is the way that our chapter has always done it, Like national says
we have to wear dresses, so even when you want to change it.
That doesn't mean that NATIONALS is going to let you change it, because remember,
the VP of Recruitment is essentially an unpaid employee for the national organization and
their job is to get a good pledge class and hit quota for that semester.
Listen to what Alex's alumni advisor told her after her chapter hit quota and
got a full pledge class. She said, awesome job, Alex. I'm
so proud of your new member class. Hope you can do a repeat performance
next year, as in, like, great job, you got enough girls,
do it again next year. If you got the girls here, your
job is done. You're perfect, you know. And they're gassing you up
after and you have the whole chapter texting you you were amazing, you did
so well, And in that moment, it's like, yeah, I fucking
did. And then you look back and I'm like questioning half the things that
I did behind the scenes. So while you may be questioning what you're doing,
you figure out ways to cope. In my interview with Amanda's, she
explained her chapter's reactions when the alumni advisor brought in someone to teach the members
about how to do their makeup for recruitment. The only way that me and
my friends met house deal with it. It's just laughing off because we all
understand stood it. But it's like, you know, it's the same cessicism
that every younger generation has. You're so bitter and pissed off, but you're
just like, yeah, as we know that up, like fuck it,
you know. And if you're if you're part of the hot girls club in
the house, if you're if people are even marked as a non issue,
you're going to lean into your egos thriving. And my mind certainly was yeah,
I definitely had my moment of that too. Go back to season one
and you'll hear all about it. But what if you're marked as an issue?
What if you don't fit the Southern esthetic? We were all in the
zoom call and they said more else, pretty pretty down. Some girls said
a panic attack. Who wants to go around and say why you joined from
you? That might make us feel better? So I said, I joined
from you because I'm a queer woman and I'm kind of different, and I'm
just really not sorority material. I'm like kind of a bigger girl. I'm
different. I do tax it or me that's not usually something that like girly
girls do. And you guys really accepted me for that. I felt really
welcomed, and a lot of people, you know, they were like,
you're great, I love you. Until one girl typed up and said,
actually, we shouldn't say that to the potential new members because we don't want
to be like the quirky odd ball sorority. That might not make them want
to join. Residential Advisor. There somebody who was a member find me when
they graduated, and she like didn't say anything, And I thought that surely
the president is going to say something, or the recruitment chair, but instead
they were like, yeah, no, you're totally right, Like please don't
say anything about you being like quirky or like different, because that gives us
a bad image. Very first day of recruitment came. We were all gathered
in this girl's townhouse. Even though the girl who owned the townhouse we just
got out of quarantine. We were still there anyway. We're all packed in
there, no masks. When we started the zoom meeting, one girl like
singled me out among like everybody to say here, like can you turn an
a light? Like you know, you just need a little more light on
your face. That was really embarrassing. And then we started recruitment and they
interviewed all the girls and I was actually feeling pretty good. I was like,
wow, like I did it. It's almost over. I can finally
go back to the sleeping. At night, we're in the kitchen, you
know, like laughing, and our president comes up and she's like, I
need you to come talk to me. So she pulls me aside, just
like a few feet away from everybody else, and she says, listen.
The recruitment chair says that you aren't wearing enough makeup. And I was wondering,
if you don't want to wear more makeup, maybe you could just turn
off your camera. And I said what and she was like, yeah,
we're trying to keep continuity among the girls and you're just not wearing enough,
like, you know, like makeup. So if you don't want to do
that, just just turn off your camera, okay. And I was like,
you mean an eyeshadow, not wearing enough eyeshadow or what. She's like,
yeah, like eyeshadow like foundation. I mean I can help you if
you want. I'm really good at makeup. And I said, all right,
I want out right now, and she said, just send me a
letter saying that you want to leave, and I will approve it. And
that's when I finally realized that I wasn't a part of Find You. I
was something that find Me was trying to hide. So I left. I
texted all my find You friends. I was like, guys, can you
believe this? I can't believe I just got told to wear my makeup.
I hear my camera, and I thought I was going to be met with
like a lot of like, oh my god, reback. I can't believe
that. I'm definitely going to go like write a letter or like report her,
but a lot of like how dare you think that you're better than the
rules here? Like you had expectations of you just wear more makeup. It
was a lot of like I'll help you with their makeup. It's fine.
But one girl was like, you're actually being super unfeminist right now, because
feminism isn't the rejection of traditional beauty standards, and it's really empowering for us
all to come together and look our best. If like you can't do that,
then like maybe you just don't deserve to be in fund you. I
cried a lot because at first I was like, oh my god, I'm
so ugly. I still have a lot of trouble sleeping. I have a
lot of nightmares, just like stress dreams were like, you know, it's
time for recruitment and I don't have any dresses and I wake up in the
cold sweat. But it's zoom all the time because of COVID, and a
lot of professors are like, yeah, you have to turn on your camera
for this class. And it was so hard after September ninth when all that
went down, because I returned to the camera and I would see this girl
who like she was pretty, but she wasn't pretty enough to not have makeup
on recruitment can be detrimental to a woman's self esteem. And I applaud Megan
for or sharing her experience. I also just want to point out how they
flipped the blame onto her, the victim. You're the one that's the problem,
Like, ignore all the abuse that just happened and replace it with the
truth that is more convenient for the group and for recruitment, and it just
leaves the victim feeling like shit and like it's their fault and leaves them with
fucking nightmares and sometimes trauma. But in the sorority's mind, who gives a
fuck? Because it's now the last round of recruitment, which means it's the
chapter's last chance, the final push to recruit. It is too low cut.
You need to go upstairs. The best ladies get in line, pledge
class. Important that we're all reflected, ever, welcome back to our house.
In the beginning round, it's a lot more like, you know,
we're cutting girls they want to get rid of. In the last round,
it's like partially on the chapter, but it's also on the piano. At
that last round, you're really trying to sell yourself more than anything. You're
trying to sell the chapter. You're trying to show this PNM, here's why
you would love it here. And that's why I joined my chapter. You
know, I was really unsure in the beginning. I did not want to
join the chapter that I joined. They had a reputation that I didn't want.
And that last round was kind of a push it over the edge for
me because I felt a sense of comfort. The last round is the most
intimate one, the most heartfelt. I mean, I cried every year.
I found a podcast episode called the Process by the podcast Sorority Recruitment with Kate
and Anna for fair use research reasons. Listen to how they discuss the last
round. It's more of like a ritual kind of thing. And you go
in, They're like, you don't have to cry, but you might cry.
Yeah, like I bawled. Yeah, you're just confused onto what's about
to happen and what they're gonna say. So yeah, it's honestly like a
weird day, but it's also like really cool because it kind of just you
just know which house like you want to be. And I went to Gainsai
Beta and I baled my eyes out because their stores were just too relate.
Yeah, too relable, I thought so too. I just like wanted to
cry the whole time. I did, and then I felt like olymp I
was like, oh my god, these people are gonna be like she's crying.
Okay. I think they liked it. They hugged me when I left,
and I was like, no, I don't want to leave. But
I mean, like I would say that, like it's like a mutual process
throughout the whole thing. But I feel like preference Day is really the day
that like you pick them and then like like they want you, they want
you, know, they let you know if they want you or not.
They're not supposed to. But yeah, when I was at PNM, this
happened to me too. In the last round, the sister rushing me told
me that I was in they want me. And this was minutes after I
watched an intimate chapter ceremony. Listen to what Alex says about the last round
ceremony. It is the round with like the singing, and you know,
you got to teach everyone the songs. Who's on the harmonies, who has
to fake sing because they don't have a good voice. The speeches are about
like our story, here's why we join the chapter. There's one speech that
someone does every year. Dear Future blah blah blah. I was in your
shoes once, you know, as in you the sister speaking to the PNM.
So it's like, dear Future Alpha Phi or dear Future Triedell, dear
future blah blah blah. I know the confusion that you're feeling right now,
dear future blah blah blah. And you're jumping back and forth from person to
person, and it's like when you're sitting there as a P and M,
You're like, oh my god. They're literally speaking to me, like,
oh my god, I can't wait to have that one day. It's like,
dear future, blah blah blah, you'll find your bridesmaids here, just
like I found mine, Dear future, blah blah blah. I didn't know
my roommate until pref of my freshman year, and look how far we've come.
And it's just like you're selling the emotion. The sororities propaganda prevents the
recruit from examining the sororities actual practices and history. The pnm's critical thinking ability
can't help but be overwhelmed with all these testimonials and emotionally arousing information. According
to Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Steyne, cult recruitment is primarily the
result of situational vulnerabilities, not personality vulnerabilities. So for example, people might
be drawn in through friendship networks. All of my friends were in Greek Life.
We were all in classes together, and like if they're all ones I
knew and really ling out with them. I didn't have a lot of friends
really, just my first year. They were always busy with like Greek life
events, and I thought, well, if I joined, we can have
it all the time because we're going to be both a part of the same
sorority. I didn't know anyone at JMU, and I was kind of influenced
by the girls in my freshman dorm, like they were all rushing, and
I didn't want to be the only one who wasn't rushed me If I was
the new freshman, I wanted to make friends. I wanted to find my
people, and a lot in my mat and sweetmates for wresting, so I
thought why not or they might be expected to join through familial ties. My
mom was in a sorority, dad using a fraternity, my sister was in
a sorority. I ended up joining the sorority that my sister was in.
It was just an expectation from my family and from growing up with everybody in
my hometown that I would go through Rush and that I would join a sorority.
So my mom was in Greek life, and my aunt and all of
my mom's family, and so I felt a lot of pressure, like at
family bought mitzvahs and family events where people would be asking what sorority are you?
Going to Rush and then being a first year student at a huge state
school and not knowing what the hell you want to do with the rest of
your life. Stein states that another situational vulnerability is being an a normal life
transition like a recent move to attend university, a divorce or other relationship breakup,
a death in the family, and a change of job or a housing
So in the case of who was being recruited in sororities in fraternity is it's
eighteen year old freshmen that just got to college and are seeking a community,
and then the sorority or frat swoops in and promises you exactly that Greek package
steps beautifully for me where I'd like it was very much. So this offers
me a solution to all of the concerns I have being alone into Bay Area,
and the sororities are literally trained on how to sell it to you in
a perfectly crafted elevator pitch of all the amenities and privileges you'll get when joining
their marketing geniuses. I can't fight this advertising like this is great. They're
giving me all of the things I need. I'll fucking just drop the money
on it. However, no one is joining with informed consent. The PMMs
are never made aware about how calculated and curated this shit all is. That
there's fucking training for this, and they're certainly not made aware of the racist
recruitment practice that's being used rank them all behind the scenes, But they're about
to find out next week on Snapped. Snapped, we've been waiting for you
all winter, and we're so glad you're finally here. Thank you so much
for listening to this episode. For all the updates and to be part of
the conversation, please follow at Snaps the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. Please
rate, review, subscribe, share this episode to your Instagram story, and
send it to your sorority sisters. Because there's no network behind Snapped, the
biggest thing that we can do to get this out there is to spread the
word. To learn more about Margaret Freeman and her incredible book, Woman of
Discriminating Taste, visit Margaret L. Freeman dot com. If you're interested in
sobrity history, you need to buy yourself a copy of Freeman's book. Last,
but not least, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Lucy
jt Underscore. Please let me know what you thought of this episode. I
love to connect with y'all. Why why why why