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podcast. Thank you so much for listening, Let's start the ship show.
When I was eighteen years old, I became an Alpha FI sister at the
University of Maryland. Three years after disaffiliating from the chapter and three days before
graduating college, I released the first season of Snapped, a tell all podcast
series about my sorority experience. Since the release of season one, I've interviewed
forty current or former Greek Life members, including some Greek Life adjacent individuals.
These are their stories. I'm Lucy Taylor, your host and favorite excommunicated sister.
This is Snapped Snapped. All of our playersh class had to sit on
the floor of the basement and we all had to tell each other as a
bonding exercise, our deepest, darkest secrets because we were sisters, and so
we all sat as complete strangers. And the first one to go to was
like, yeah, I was molasted by my stepfather growing up, like we
were strangers, and she told a group of like fifty of us. So
then like one by one, people just started doing it because we was expected
of us and we didn't know. We were like, okay, I guess
we have to do this. So then someone was like, I got boyed
in school all the time because I had two moms. Someone was like,
yeah, my dad like beat my mom in front of me every day.
I got hit by a car and my mom didn't come to the hospital,
and so people were like looking around, see, okay, who else is
going to do it? And I felt bad for the girls who had gone
so I was like, I, you know, have attempted suicide. And
then my close friend that was like the closest friend I had in the sorority
kind of just once I said that, she kind of put her head down.
She was just like, what the fuck is going on? The night
before initiation, they were like, we're gonna have this really important tradition that
we do. They brought us into one of the chapter rooms at like nine.
We're all like, all, right, of initiation tomorrow in the morning.
We ought to be going home soon, right, And so they sat
all of us in a room. There were between fifty to sixty girls in
my member class, and they said, we're going to talk about the darkest
points of our lives. The darkest point in my life. I was kind
of going through at the time because I had gotten as alted three months prior.
I was like, this is a little odd. I don't really know
these girls like that. And our two new member educators went first and then
they left and it was just us, just the new members, and I
went second and I said, I got assaulted by someone in Greek life,
and in the heat at the moment, I said, they belonged to this
chapter. And I feel like that was later used against me because it was
a chapter that we had good relations with and whenever I would say I don't
want him at this event. They would say, like, we can't really
do that, you know, we have really good relations with them. I
wish I just kept deprivate and didn't have to say he was in Greek life.
But it wasn't very much a heat at the moment kind of thing,
because it's so emotionally charged and in the moment you're like, oh my god,
these are my sisters forever. And as the night went on, it
seemed like psychological endurance to see how much bad shit you could hear in my
head as someone who was going through something really dark. And I didn't look
at these other young women and see their struggles and think of how strong they
were, But I thought, if they can handle that shit, why can't
you work on yourself? Why are you fucked up? And this wasn't like
an hour long activity where people just kept it short. It went from nine
pm to four thirty in the morning of just every single girl going sobbing,
talking about the darkest part of their lives. Nothing was left out. There
was death, there was child sex abuse, there was domestic violence. And
it lasted till four thirty in the morning. Some girls went home, Some
girls just slept on the floor because they were so tired. That happened when
I was a freshman. I'm a senior now. I still look at girls
in my chapter who I didn't talk to a lot, and the first thing
I think of is their trauma. There have been sometimes where girls used want
against each other. Snappers were huh uh, welcome back to snapped everybody.
What you just heard were interviews with students from James Madison University and the University
of Maryland. While what they shared might sound shocking to some of you,
this trauma circle is actually a practice in many sororities. I did it as
a pledge in Alpha Fee, and at the time I was like, Wow,
I'm becoming so close with my sisters. I did not question it or
realize what they were actually doing. Social psychologist Alexandra Stein describes this practice of
group trauma sharing in her book Error, Love and Brainwashing. Stein explains how
the group member that is sharing feels fearful because they're recalling their trauma and sharing
it in front of an audience. Stein notes that thus feelings of fear,
while aroused and manipulated by the group, will not be attributed to the group's
actions, but two events in the narrator's past. Instead, the group positions
themselves as a safe space in which you can share your worst memories and moments.
So this is not a trauma informed group therapy session right like, there
is no license therapist in sight. This seems like a trauma bonding circle that's
being led by your twenty year old pledge mom who's not even a psych major.
According to Stein, the difference between the two lies in the motivations of
the group and its control over the situation. I spoke with Julie, a
former Kappa Delta sister at the University of Idaho. We're going to call her
Katie Julie from now on. In my interview with Katie Julie, she revealed
how her chapter would control the Trauma circle. After initiation, when we're not
allowed to leave the house, they like draw all the blinds and they tell
everyone to go get blankets and put on pj's, and they say all the
secrets. They teach you, the knock, they teach you the handshake.
It was the way that they sort of like kicked it off in one of
our first like rituals. But a senior always admits and they have a script
and we didn't know this, but they had a script that they were like
one senior always admits to almost committing suicide. Like they were like, we've
only ever had a couple of years where a senior hasn't admitted that as like
a corsion method to be like, look, you can trust me. I'm
giving you this trauma as like currency for now you can give me your secrets.
So the senior does it first. M Like the seniors will stand up
and they'll be like, Okay, here's the knock, and here's everything,
and we're gonna put up some AOT walls and here is something from my past,
and would go off on a story. It was like an unofficial script
where like no one had written anything out, but like this is what you
say, and then you admit this, and then you admit this, and
then you sum it up with this Snapped. Being a pledge in a sorority
means that you've made it past recruitment, but you were not initiated yet.
Pledge is interchangeable with new member or baby. If you heard season one of
Snapped, you might remember that my old sorority wasn't allowed to call us pledges,
so the older girls would call us babies. The pledge mom, also
known as new member educator, is an already initiated sister who is like this
maternal figure for the new pledge class. At the very beginning, my pledge
moms I had two of them. Actually, they would be like, oh
my god, this pledge class is literally so stunning, Like we all keep
talking about how you gedge, literally so pretty. Like we don't haze at
Alpaphie. We just constantly tell you how pretty you are. Flash forward like
a day or two and they're telling us, Oh, you were an embarrassment
because some of us got too drunk at our first social. We always wanted
our pledge mom's approval, but getting it was kind of trial and error.
I spoke with Julia, a millennial woman who went to the University of Pittsburgh.
Julia told me about the beginning of her new member process. But I
do remember making an effort, like I remember going out to dinner with the
older girls trying to get their advice. I remember like putting a lot of
effort into all of my new member stuff and like trying to be present.
But I remember one new member meeting. I had a searing migraine and I
was like in so much pain, but I paid attention the whole time.
I just had my eyes closed and I answered the questions. And then at
the end of the meeting, our new member educator goes, Julia, I
need to talk to you, pulls me aside and goes, that's not going
to fly on a sister meeting. I was like, what she's like closing
your eyes. I was like what she was quizzing us on, like national
stuff and what I think it was like, who our founders were like shit
like that. I was like, okay, And I remember thinking like,
these girls are kind of mean, Like I thought we were supposed to be
the Chill Sorority. Mm, the Chill Sorority. It's a classic, classic
tale. I mean we've all heard that one right. Part of being a
new member is attending these pledge meetings where you're trained to be an obedient sister.
You learn things like the dews and don'ts of social media, you sign
all the contracts, and you learn all the sorority history with that. Oh
no, no, no, not the sorority history like their roots and slavery.
No, they're talking history, like the names of the founders and the
official flower of the chapter. I spoke with a former Sigma Delta tall sister
who we're going to call isabel Isabelle became a subrity pledge in her second semester
of college at the University of Maryland. Here's how that went. You know,
I was a first year college student. I had a full schedule.
I was still trying to make friends, and we'd have to kind of like
at the drop of a hat, go to the house whenever the new member.
Educators would email us no matter like where we were, and we wouldn't
know how long we would be there, and so that put me in a
tough position for like hanging out with my other friends and doing homework and eating
meals. So they would literally be like come here. Yeah, Like if
it was like six pm, I'd get an email like you need to be
here at six fifteen. Yeah, And then we didn't know when we were
leaving, so you know, I don't know how much food to pack,
I don't know what we're doing. So like sometimes we had time for homework,
sometimes we didn't. We couldn't enter the house until all of the new
members were lined up outside the house, and we weren't allowed to sit on
the furniture, which I found really degrading. They also also took our swipes
and our keys most days when we were at new member education, and so
just like that lack of control, what yeah, why did they why did
they take them? They took them like to put our big little stuff in
our rooms, and just like, you don't know who you're big is,
so you're allowing someone who you don't even know to go into your dorm room
and kind of do whatever they want in it. And I felt like I
didn't have a choice to say no, I don't feel comfortable giving you my
key and my swipe. I have like a distinct memory of one time we
were in the basement and the new member educators were like going around asking people
who these people were in the sorority, so pointing to people and saying like,
who's this and if they didn't know, they would like yell at us
and be like, how do you not know who this person is? There's
just a lot of yelling, and it was really hard for me just to
hear people yelling at other people and knowing that like, I'm just trying to
like figure everything out, and I'm not going to have every member of the
sorority who I just joined. I'm not going to have every name memorized.
You know, a lot of people think trauma is just like being in a
hurricane or being assaulted, and really there's so much trauma around us all the
time because it's based on our subjective experience. So you know, Lucy,
if you and me were in the same situation and the same thing happened to
us, you might have some trauma and I might not. I learned more
about the purpose of the new Member period and Women of Discriminating Taste. This
is a book by cultural historian Margaret Freeman, who we spoke with last season.
Lucky for us, Freeman will continue to provide us with a historical context
throughout this season as well. In the season two Recruitments special, Freeman explained
how sorority women would model their behavior off of what she terms the Southern esthetic.
We're going to build off of this notion throughout the season, so let's
do a quick recap. The Southern aesthetic, as I term it, it's
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 imagery,
and that was the image that was nationally promoted and accepted across the US in
the first half of the twentieth century, and it presented a really sanitized,
very white image of this quote unquote Old South. But what we don't see
here, 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 aesthetic here also provides a symbolic means, then
of preserving white, mostly Protestant elite interests. And I argue that's what's going
on with national sororities in the twin century and continuing certainly today. It is
about maintaining that white privilege with the limited membership, 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 themed parties and pageants. Through building and even remodeling of
chapter houses to present that Southern colonial architectural style, the one that evokes this
popularized image we have of these 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, the ladylike ideal, the otherness that
still signals a protective space for white people and white privilege in these national organizations.
In Women of Discriminating Taste, Freeman's dates that sororities saw the pledge period
as the optimal time to mold the desired identity of new members. She also
notes that the nineteen twenty seven Kappa Alpha Theta Pledge training book states that pledges
are the most impressionable and ready to follow suggestions and examples of members. This
book also instructed the chapter to view each pledge as an individual problem. If
she was guided and helped rightly, the pledge would be an asset and if
not, a liability. H reading that reminded me of my interview with Katie.
Julie so I had a sister. She was the only woman in my
class that was a woman of color, and she was at the university on
scholarship, got through her sorority dues on scholarship, so like was not in
the same wealth bracket that a lot of the women like myself were, But
that also meant that her fashion was a little bit different than us, Like
we were all going to like playboy bunny parties and dressing up the part,
and she would go in a clubbing dress and that was seen as slutty and
like she had one clubbing dress and I think maybe she had too, And
she would alternate when she would wear them, because you don't want to wear
the sham dress like twice in a row. And people are like, someone
needs to get destiny some new clothes, Like what she wears is not what
we expect of our ladies. Like there was a lot of talking, like
what are we going to do about destiny? How do you know my pledge
mom? The president of the chapter and their alumni relations would go to Applebee's
after every chapter and would talk shit about people. And they needed a freshman
to drive them, and I was the freshman so they could drink got it,
And they called it risk management, like you driving them was risk management?
No, the whole event, the whole going to Applebee's to talk shit.
They called that risk management. We would be at Applebee's and we'd be
sitting at the table. They would talk shit to each other about what like
so and so did this. I would find out who wasn't passing classes because
they have access to all this information and they're just talking about it and I'm
sitting there. How do they have access? Because we have to send in
grades in order to remain on good standing at the sorority. So like,
in order to be in good standing and be able to speak at chapter,
you have to be making a three point zero average, And like I would
fall into that category sometimes where I wouldn't make grades and they'd be like,
you're no longer on good standing, you may not speak at chapter. This
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it all is that I'm not doing my nails for the soubrity of recruitment look
book. I'm doing my nails as part of my self care routine because it
makes me feel good and I like playing nail salon Snapped. Based on my
own experience and my research, I've concluded that sororities love to use humiliation as
a form of punishment. I mean, if they call you out in front
of the entire chapter for whatever mistake you made, I bet you're not going
to want to make that mistake again. In Women of Discriminating Taste, Freeman
says that in nineteen ten, the tried outs at Stanford University called for girls
to be in at ten pm. If the women did not make it in
time, their names would be read at chapter meetings by the senior critic,
not the senior critic. And yeah, this was a long time ago,
but as you'll see throughout the series, this is a pattern of behavior that's
continued up till present day. Well. And like the girls that were on
for financial bad standing, they would read off the amount they owed in front
of everyone. In the chapter. So like today in good standing is Sister
A, Sister B. Sister see today on bad standing is Sister E with
a balance of five hundred dollars, Sister F bad standing socially Sister G,
who also owes a thousand dollars plus one hundred dollars for like missing an event
also on social bad standing that was paid Julie. I actually interviewed someone else
whose chapter used this call out method. This time it was a sister at
Penn State. Like they used to just put people on blast about like whether
or not they had paid their dues. They would call people's names out basically
say like, seventeen members haven't paid their dues. Your names are as follows
and name like Sarah, Katie, Emily, Jessica, like every single person
by name. I know personally, I was one of very few people who
paid for their dues out of their own pocket. And then I do remember
they really frontload the costs because we had new member fees, we had our
regular membership fees. We had to pay for our pin which it is one
hundred and sixty dollars just for our pint of Yeah, the outfits it's going
to themed parties, you're drop in money. I still have access to an
entire presentation about dues and don'ts of frat Land, saying things like, you
can't wear converts to the frats, you'll look like a jeed. Like they
added Amazon links to like booties, like pictures from girls in our sorority,
and they were like, this is what you should wear, and this is
what's acceptable, and like sneakers are only okay if it's a game day or
a themed party. You can't wear them on a normal week day. And
so you know, people like who have a lot of money, they're probably
laughing at that. But if you're struggling to get by taking out thousands and
thousands of dollars of loans just to get through college, what are you what
are you going to do? You will be the odd man out if you
don't comply with those rules. And those rules cost a lot of money.
Another part of the control that costs a lot of money are the fines.
We'll get more into the money side of things in a later episode, but
for right now, let's examine fines as a means of control. And if
you missed chapter which was once every Sunday, they would find you, which
I think is ridiculous. If you can't make it a chapter because you're cramming
for a final that you need to get a good grade on, it doesn't
matter because you need to be a chapter where they just tell you which mixers
do you have that weekend? With what frats? And then I get fined
Fucking Bill Hodway. They would charge me for a missing chapter. I think
it was fifty dollars. Once I started getting really depressed, I stopped going
to chapter. I stopped going to any of the events. So when you
stopped going to chapter, would they find you every week? Did you pay
it? Yeah? They were threatening to send it to collections, so that
was your way. Do you know how much you paid them? I think
at the end it was like somewhere around six hundred dollars for not going to
chapter. Yep, yep. And that was in addition to the two thousand
I was I was paying a semester for dudes. It was two thousand a
semester that was Harper from James Madison University. I spoke with a former tried
out named Maggie who had the same dilemma as Harper. At that point,
I'm like, I don't want to go to chapter. I have a test
to study for. But they're like, if you missed three chapters, you
get fined. I'm like, fuck it, I'll take the fine. Like
what else would you get fined for not going to chapter missing events? I
think academic probation if you had to log asterout to study hours. If you
do that, you had to pay a fine. If you are on a
financial probation, like if you weren't paying your dues on time, they would
just add more fees to it. Or we already paid thousands of dollars and
do it. We paid so much money and dues. But I was lucky
because my parents were willing to pay for it. And my parents didn't know
it was actually happening. They were like, Oh, we're so glad that
you're getting involved in something that will help you meet new people. I wasn't
in my sorority long enough to get fined. I'm sure I would have been
fined at some point, but I was curious about the behind the scenes of
these fines, and so I asked Katie. Julie, and when you get
built for things like fines and stuff, does it say just fine or does
it say fine four x X. It would usually say like bed check fine
or missing grades fine? Is that legal to do a bed check fine?
I don't know. Don't worry. We'll discuss bed check in five minutes.
And where do your fines go? The fines just got collected by the chapter
and then they were divvied out. If it was like you're missing clubs,
you need to be engaging in more clubs, and because you didn't engage in
enough clubs this semester and that's a national standard, we're gonna find you one
hundred dollars and that fine would go to nationals. But a bed check fine
would go back to the chapter and would be considered part of the housing budget.
You would get fined for not being in enough clubs, not enough clubs,
or like not enough classes. Was there a list anywhere of like finds
and the amount of money. Nope, they could make fines out of nothing.
Like we would get like scolded at chapter where they're like, ladies,
don't make us find you for this, and where do you pay the fines?
On Bill Highway on Bill Highway, Bill Highway dot com. Baby I
use too. According to the twenty seventeen UMD Alpha fee financial contracts. Bill
Highway is an online financial system that partners with sorority chapters and allows members to
be invoiced for all international dues, chapter dues, and housing related fees on
one consolidated statement. And then I get fine, fucking Bill Highway. Do
you think Bill havers in on it? I think they know that they enable
college kids to build people for whatever, because I got to see the backside
of Bill Highway, like the finance side, because my friend was the finance
VP, and Bill Highway would tell her if people hadn't paid, and then
if she needed to add something, she literally had a drop down many that
was like add new bill or add new fee, and she could do it
for one person, she could do it for the whole chapter if she wanted
to. She could like put in a fee without like running it by anyone.
No adult had to approve it. There were no adults in her position.
She had one all with someone from Nationals once and they were like,
have a great day. And now she was just in charge of the finances
for the whole chapter. And is she keeping a spreadsheet of like where the
money is going? Like she's doing all of the work of a financial manager
and like she's a college shoot it, and she was in like an animation
field, like she wanted to work on Disney movies, and she's like,
I'm spending all my time animating a shark and finding women. So you might
be wondering, how do groups that do things like financially exploit their members end
up on college campuses. Well, listen, I had the same question.
So Margaret Freeman will explain at the very beginning, they're creating this space that's
needed for women who are the pioneers on campuses that had been all male previously,
and providing a space to have support where they may not have had any
because there probably were no female mentors at least at first. Some teams.
A woman really found that very helpful to have an additional way to have women's
behavior monitored. And you have suggestions for how what sort of behavioral standards these
women who are not in sorties maybe should emulate. But then as time goes
on, there's other organizations for women. There's you know, student government and
sports clubs. As there's more women on campus, there's a little bit more
provided for them. Why women, again, I should mention, of course,
in this time, and so in the face again of criticism about these
groups, why what were we providing? Why are we here? And how
can we sell ourselves as an important part of campus. And I think that's
where the social education starts becoming something that gets talked about more. You're selling
that as this part of college that the women wouldn't be getting just going to
class. The alumni thought that having the houses were really integral in this training
of young women. So having that control or policing of behavior within the sorority
house among the stray sisters could be seen as useful. Living in the sorority
chapter house was an unforgettable experience, to say the least. So I already
knew how anxiety inducing living there can be, but I was truly truly humbled
about my own experience living in a quad in the house when Katie Julie told
me about the sleeping porches in her sorority house. Oh, let's take it
back to twenty eighteen at the University of Idaho. There we'll find Katie Julie
moving in to the motherfucking chapter house. We did recruitment and then on midday
they moved us into the house. So they moved us out of our dorms.
The day you'd bought your bid, you opened your mid card, you
ran home, and then a bunch of seniors drove their cars over said hop
in and you moved all of your stuff out of shipping containers where it's spent
all of recruitment into the house. It's first semester freshman year, first semester
freshman year that university had worked out a system with Greek life that like that
counted as freshman year on campus housing. In the time, I was like,
this is normal. This is what everyone else here is doing, and
women before me have done it, so it doesn't seem like it should be
an issue. Do you know what a sleeping porches? No? Okay,
So almost all of the sororities except for one, had these things called sleeping
porches, and they were large rooms filled with bunk beds, and that is
where everyone slept. And you had a separate room that was like you and
three other girls, and your desk and your closet was there. But you
would go somewhere else to sleep, and you would sleep in a room with
bunk beds with other women all at the same time. So you were moving
in and they were like, Okay, here's your bunk bed and I was
the middle of a three high bunk bed and wait, I'm sorry, but
this literally like is scary. It sounds bad, It sounds really bad.
But if you like look it up, like sleeping porches, the Universe video
still condone them. All their sorority women still sleep on sleeping porches. Not
only did you like have a bed where like the person next to you was
like less than a foot away and you're sleeping like really close to them in
bunk bed style, someone would come and check on you on certain days of
the week and make sure you were in your bed, and they would call
it bed checks and they'd be like, bed checks happen at three am.
You have to be in your bed, in your sleeping porch at three am.
If you're not, we'll find you. I think it happened every Sunday.
You had to be back in the house. You had to be in
your bed, you had to sleep in your bed on Sundays. And then
like initiation week, they would do the same thing where it was like every
day of the week, you have to be in your bed. You can't
spend the night at your boyfriends. You can't spend the night at your partners.
Like there were girls that like put mattresses or extra large dog beds in
the room with like their desk and everything, and they would call it a
squish and they'd be like, I would rather sleep on two extra large dog
beds than sleep on my sleeping porch bed. And they would like go back
at three am, sleep for an hour in their bed, and then go
back and sleep on these like extra large dog beds on the floor of their
room after the check, after the check, because like maybe they sloured.
Like one girl I know had sleep at me and she was like, I
know, we like all sleep in the same room, but like I feel
uncomfortable forcing you guys to listen to it, so I go sleep somewhere else.
And like she was like, but I have to get up for an
hour and go and like sit in my bed for a bit. Who did
the checks? Are council members? So like exact exact. Yeah, So
the president she had her own room and she had a bed in her own
room. That was like a perk of the president chill suite is that you
want your own room in your own bed, not the presidential suite. So
the president was oftentimes tasked with doing the check. But if it was like
multiple days in a row, the president would be like, Okay, I'm
doing Monday. VP of Recruitman is doing it Tuesday. VP of PR is
doing it Wednesday, and they would have signed it out. And do you
remember a time that someone wasn't there didn't make the check. I don't remember
there being a time that people didn't make the check, but there were people
that just would. They would just like take the infraction. They're like,
I'm gonna sleep my boyfriends. I know it's one hundred and fifty dollars,
Like that's how much it was one hundred and fifty dollars out of bed bed
check. They would like schedule it out in their paycheck where it's like,
oh, this happens on our anniversary. He's going to put in fifty bucks.
I'm going to put forward the hundred and well in the middle, Wait,
it's nuts. How much were your dues and how much was it to
live in the house. Ten thousand dollars would be like a very low ballpark
ten thousand a semester, yep, And that was to live in the house
because it was room and board, plus our due, plus a bunch of
like extra fees. Like there was like every year we were build for a
necklace that we got our freshman year and we were built fifty dollars for it
every year, and we were like, are you sure we're still paying off
this necklace? Like this necklace that is like faded. Our sority had four
porches and there was two normal porches. Normal was deemed like you have an
alarm after eight am, you go to bed anywhere before two am, and
like when you're in your bed, you won't talk, like you'll have headphones
if you're going to listen to something. And then there was a quiet porch
where you weren't allowed to have an alarm because those women needed like complete silence
to go to sleep. And then I slept on loud porch, which was
four people that snored, people that had alarms, Like I had an eight
am and so I had to have an alarm at six You had to listen
to everyone's alarms. And there was a girl that came in like I have
a video off snapchat that was like this is the sleeping porch and it's a
girl that's so drunk. She had puked her own bunk and her big was
there like down and like all of us are trying to sleep, Like it
was three thirty at the time. It was like, that's okay because it's
loud porch. You know you signed up for this, Yes it is.
Oh, that's all. So how many people were in the loud room like
twenty five? Yeah, like twenty five people consistently, and like you know
the toddler guardrails that you can put on beds that don't roll off, like
women would put those up. They would like hang sheets from the ceiling.
Everyone had a heated blanket. Because it was Idaho, and because you have
twenty five women all in a room with bunk beds, the ventilation wasn't good,
so they would keep the windows open twenty four seven. So you also
couldn't go to sleep with your hair wet, otherwise your hair would freeze because
they legally had to keep the windows open in order for there to be enough
ventilation. And so like you'd be going to bed and you'd be like,
Okay, I've blow dried my hair, my homework's done, I've locked my
room, crawls up into bed, and then sit there for thirty minutes watching
like TikTok or whatever, like locked my room meeting, locked the room where
your desk is, because like we would smoke pot. We had canvases that
were like a little dirty, and because people could come into the house and
like walk around the house, you didn't want your room open if you had
things that were like not seen as sorority, like approved, and like my
big had weed that she like kept in a locked box inside another locked box
on top of her closet, and she was like and even then I'm not
sure if our house mom will come in and like check shit snapped. Part
of my research included reading Fraternities Without Brotherhood by sociologist Alfred mcclungley, originally published
in nineteen fifty five. Lee notes that the social elements of fraternities and sororities
replace rather different childhood archetypes. He states that the frat house frequently has about
it something of the Arab a home from which the parents are temporarily absent and
are not yet expected back, and in which the sons and their friends have
taken over just be trash everywhere, like dishes everywhere, ash everywhere time in
the chapter house. So it would constantly smell the dirtiest bones sitting around and
like no orders, half drank drinks. I'm surprised that the floor has not
caved in in the house that they were in. Lee states that, on
the other hand, a sorority house is more like a home in which the
daughters have replaced their mother in control. Someone needs to get Destiny some new
clothes, like what she wears is not what we expect of our ladies.
I was on my phone the other day looking at old conversations, and I
found this conversation with a former sister of mine where I'm explaining to her that
I can't find my dad pen in the house because we weren't allowed to smoke
in the house, and so my gall like me, needs her dad pen.
And so I say to her, I'm scared. I brought it with
me downstairs. I've looked everywhere. I'm crying. I'm so anxious. I've
looked everywhere in my bed. I just feel like I would have noticed it
if I brought it down, But what if I didn't, Okay, I
found it, Like I was so scared that one of my fucking peers,
one of my sisters, would find my dad pen in the sorority chapter house
somewhere and fucking report me to God knows who. In women of discriminating taste,
Freeman states that it was often the college members themselves who were on the
front lines of managing perceived behavioral abnormalities among their peers. Freeman elaborates, the
control on the rules is more the interaction of the women in the house,
and that becomes how to enforce certain types of BacT these or behaviors debt you
want portrayed and limiting those that you don't. Sobrity sisters are basically trained to
surveil each other's behave like you absolutely should tattle on your sister because it's for
the good of the entire chapter. So no wonder the sorority house is so
integral in the sorority model because living there means that you get to see which
sisters came home blacked out drunk, you get to see who didn't come home
from the social last night, and you'll be there bright and early for the
breakfast gossip session. So basically, living in the sorority chapter house means that
she knows when you are sleeping, checks happen at three am. She knows
when you're o. You listen to everyone's alarms. She knows if you've been
bad or good, So be good for goodness, say today in good standing?
Is sister A sister B sister. I interviewed a fellow excommunicated sister who
we're going to call Erica. Erica was a Pie five sister at the University
of South Carolina and lived in the chapter house during her sophomore year. You
hate to see that. You hate to see that, and you know it
happens to the best of us, but you hate to see that. So
it was like big little reveal night and I was going out with my little
and then I happened to like meet with this guy. He was from Australia.
He was like visiting his study abroad. So you know, that just
automatically gets ya. And I was living in the house at the time,
but I had a roommate, and like the only rule that I was aware
of, like regarding boys in the house is that they weren't allowed upstairs.
And he doesn't have anywhere to go, So we go back to my chapter
house. It's like three am. So I'm not super worried about anything,
and I don't want to disrespect my roommate. So we end up like cooking
up on the couch downstairs, and then like through that door, my VP
of Housing walks in and then gets like the housing mom, like the old
lady that lives there, and they come and are like, yeah, he
has to leave, like sends me upstairs. And then I wake up the
next morning and I walked downstairs and like I haven't told anyone anything, and
like the VP of Housing was like liceling the couch in front of everyone,
and like everyone was laughing, like you had to eat every meal there.
And this was like Thursday night and Friday morning was brunch, so everyone was
there. I felt like people were laughing at me, like I was wearing
like the scarlet a and I remember just going back upstairs and kind of hiding.
I get an email that week and the subject is all caps and it's
like urgent action required. So I'm scared shitless. It says, Hey,
I'm emailing you to request a meeting between the Executive Council and Alumni Advisory Committee
and you this is a standards issue we would like to address. We will
discuss the specific topic of the meeting at the meeting where's the meeting. It's
in the chapter house. So they section off a portion of the house,
which is like already super suspicious because like people go in and out that door
to go to dinner, and everyone's like, well, what is happening,
Like it was at five thirty pm, so dinner's five to seven. It's
like super uncomfortable because I'm waiting outside in my full dress and like people are
coming up to me like it's dinner time, and then I walk in and
they're basically just talking at me there like, ah, so you violated these
rules. We're going to take it to chapter and let your sisters decide.
Either Option A, nothing will happen. You'll be cleared of all charges.
Option B you'll get probation, and then option C you'll get kicked out.
You're lucky you are not just kicking you out, because this is very serious.
I had to prepare my own statement. I was spending more time on
this statement than my schoolwork, like and I ended up like not doing well
in school that semester at all. Where was this vote? It was like
in this random school building where we had our chapters, Like it was an
auditorium. You give your speech, and then they give their speech, and
then you can have three pros and three cons. So this is like their
little lingo in how they rebuttle each other. Yeah, and its mind you
in front of the whole entire chapter. So anyone when you're talking, anyone
could just say con. No, you're supposed to prepare people. So my
cons, like I specifically picked my big and my two littles, like people
on my team, like sharing why I should be kept in the sorority.
So you have the three cons, and then do they have the three pros.
Yeah, and they prepare the exact members to be the people who are
giving the pros. But my big didn't show up, she had to go
to work, and then my little didn't show up. One of them didn't,
and then the other one, like she agreed to it, and then
come chapter like I guess after she heard the exact speak, like she was
so nervous about saying anything because she wanted to run for office that she just
didn't say anything. So it's like super embarrassing that I didn't have anyone to
speak for me. Theirschfield was how embarrassing it is to be associated with someone
like me who everyone knows did this thing. It makes us look really bad.
People aren't going to want to join if we have people like you.
Here's what happened this night. We walked in with her naked on the couch
with a random boy, and we can only assume what happened. But that
is so foul to do that on our couch. And so then you had
to respond to that. Yeah, and I had to stand up in front
of all of them and like begged them to forgive me. And that's like
the long ass statement I prepared, like why I should be kept in the
chapter. I was like on the VP of housing, I raised the most
money for like the Reblay for Life. I was the captain. I won
like a sincere Friendship award, like I do all these things for the chapter,
and like I made a mistake, but like I'm sorry about it,
like it won't happen again. I didn't really know that this was a rule.
And then the person who rebottled it their pro was one of my good
friends, which she was on the exact board, and she was like,
this is not what the Southern woman is supposed to do. What question?
Yeah, what was she from the South? No, she was from New
York. But the votes ended up being thirty people voted for all charges to
be dropped, one hundred and fifty people voted for probation, and then like
thirty people voted for me to get kicked out, which is like, okay,
thirty of my sisters like want me gone, Like like you went to
trial. Yeah, I was on trial for being slot in their eyes?
Did the vote happen right at the meeting, Yeah, it happened at the
meeting, but I didn't get the results because everyone just like writes down on
a piece of paper. Then I think they called me with the results and
they sent me my terms of probation in an email. It says, Hi,
after taking your concerns into consideration and discussing with the AAC, the Alumni
Advisory Council, the terms of your probation have been updated to extend over one
term sixteen weeks, split over this semester and next. This is in line
with the automatic consequences timeline in our by laws for these violations, so I
would have had a whole year of paying my dues like doing these stupid ass
terms fulfill all Chapter and fraternity requirements, including financial obligations, hold no chapter
office, have no voice nor vote in chapter meeting, but shall be expected
to provide information if called atlas for badge in the custody of the chapter president.
The member will be put on social restriction, which includes not being able
to attend social events during the period of probation. Go to all required events.
The member will repeat the mentoring workshop under the one on one direction of
the new Member Court, and you'll have a biweekly meeting with the Vice President
to monitor progress. And like I knew I was dropping at this point,
like I did not have time for this ship snapped. Just because we're jeeds
doesn't mean that we don't deserve cute merch. And let me tell you,
Snapped merch is way cuter than anything I ever got in my big little basket.
I'm so excited for you all to see the new merch for the season.
It's up now, all new designs, all new products. We even
have a sticker sheet where one of the stickers is a Sincere Friendship Award,
so you too could have your own since your Friendship Award. And when in
doubt, you know, if you're ever sent to trial, just say,
but I got a Sincere Friendship award, and you know we all deserve that.
So go to Snap the podcast dot com, click on the shop Snap
section and grab your very own Sincere Friendship Award sticker Snapped. Do you ever
wonder if your sorority was a cult? SAE? I went down a huge
rabbit hole trying to answer this question, and along the way I found Terror
Love and Brainwashing by cult survivor and expert Alexandra Stein. Based on the amount
of times I mentioned the book in this podcast, you already know how eye
opening it is, but I'm just sharing little tidbits and to truly answer the
cult question, you got to hear it from the expert herself. We're partnering
with Audible to offer you a free thirty day Audible trial. This means that
for thirty days, you'll have access to thousands of audiobooks, including Terror Love
and Brainwashing. Snapped has allowed me to share my story and has allowed so
many others to now share theirs. To keep supporting Snapped and storytelling of all
kinds, visit Audible trial dot com, slash snapped that's Audible trial dot com
slash sna Ppe d snapped. How can you create trusting relationships? With your
sisters when all those sisters are Sorority World's version of a mandated reporter, Like,
I personally find it scary that the sisters that you're disclosing your trauma too
and the trauma Bonding Circle are the same sisters you are voting on if you
should be kept in the chapter or not. The sorority positions themselves as this
safe space, but they're the ones actually causing us to feel unsafe, whether
you're an older girl or a younger girl. If you go again the white
lady like ideal, if you become a liability, you might get sent to
standards or jay board or whatever made up name they liked to use. Kady
Julie explained how standards worked in her chapter, Standards was an exact member and
they had a committee of their own, like PR would fall under them,
so we had like our PR manager was under standards. Standards would also check
pin attire, so when we wore our pin, you couldn't wear something that
was considered slutty or out of taste in it, and so like it was
written our bilaws like after November three, you must wear stockings with skirts until
March fourth, and so if you weren't wearing stockings with a skirt, and
you wore your pin on a dress, then you would get sent to standards
or Standards would stop you in the hallway of the house and say go change.
Harper from JMU told me that in her chapter, Standards was known as
Tall Honor. They had a council of people that were in charge of reprimanding
you if you did something wrong. There's a group of probably eight girls and
a sorority. You were just on Ta Honor. They didn't like me because
I was not like a serious, die hard member. Harper got called into
Tat Honor for allegedly trying to get alcohol during a sisterhood retreat. God forbid.
So I got called to Tat Honor for the retreat because they said that
I was trying to get alcohol for the other girls when I didn't have a
car. I rode in the backseat of someone's car, like I didn't have
any way of getting in where they just wanted to pin something on me.
So I had to go to Ta Honor. And so I was like,
oh, it was just a joke, you know, we were just joking
around about having alcohol. And they're like, well, that's a really serious
offense, like we don't take that lightly. And I'm like, okay,
whenever, so I leave to I got called back three times the first time.
Thing I didn't do. I got called back the first time because this
girl who didn't like me made up this story about how I had punched a
window in a frat house, that i'd punched a window open, that I
had beaten up a fract guy, and that I was distributing cocaine. And
so I went in to talk honor, and so they're like, well,
you know, we heard that you broke a window and beat up a frat
member, and you know you were talking about getting drugs to people. And
I go, where's the proof. Where's your proof? I said, I
think if I broke a window, I would have some injuries on my hands.
Second of all, I don't even go to frat mixers anymore. And
do you think that I have the strength to beat up a grown man?
That's funny. And I go, you know what, this is the third
time you have called me into ta honor with absolutely no evidence, and at
this point it's botn So I'm not going to deal with it anymore. And
next time you call me back. You better have cold tart truth. I
never got called in again. Yeah, that shit was ridiculous. In one
of my interviews, the interview we described standards as a form of kangaroo court.
I didn't know what this was, but she explained. Kangaroo court is
an unofficial kind of makeshift court in which you're accused and tried by the group
without like an actual civil trial. It's instead of instead of there being a
whole process of looking for evidence and defending your case or you know, a
court of law, it's we have decided you did this and we're going to
punish you for it. It's like when a kind of a group of people
come together and try you to their standards. You rarely get a chance to
defend yourself, but even if you do, you're guilty either way. It's
sort of an excuse to gang up on you. And this is a term
that's been coins just like because it's happened a lot. Yeah, this is
a This term comes from the notion of justice proceeding by leaps, like a
kangaroo jumping over evidence that would be in favor of the defendant. So it's
basically a way of not giving the person a fair shake and saying we're going
to try you and punish you so you lose either way. Immediately, I
think to myself that Kirston was sent to kangaroo Court. We met Kirston in
the season two recruitment special but Quick Refresh. Kirsten was a Zeta at cal
State Long Beach from twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen. During her time at Zeta,
Kirsten became the vice president of the chapter. I became a figurehead.
And if you know me, I'm a big, like jeans and T shirt
kind of girl, Like I don't see a point in going to class with
makeup on. And I started being told that, like you're a representative,
you need to start playing a part. You need to start looking the role.
And I started of using diet pills because I'm a little bit chalky,
and that wasn't what the ideal look was. People would just tell me I'm
doing a shit job, like I don't belong here, And every time my
phone went off, I would get a pit in my stomach because it was
just going to be another person telling me that I fucking suck. They would
tell me that I was dragging the organization down to my level. I'm now
going to explain why Kirston was sent to standards. So Kirsten's chapter had a
tradition where they would steal a frat guy's pledge book and then give it back
to them. A pledge book is something that the fraternity men have to carry
around with them for their hazing. But we would just see dudes come into
the chapter meeting every week and they would like sing a stupid song or like
profess their love, or like bring a dozen roses to someone who stole their
pledge book. So it was in front of all the advisors. It wasn't
like a secret thing. Yeah, and then when I ended, it became
a problem. So, just like all the other sisters, Kirston participated in
this sorority tradition by taking a pledge book that a frat guy left at their
philanthropy event. She didn't make him sing her song, she didn't make him
go get flowers for her. She just took it and then a few days
later she gave it back. Well, like, I didn't really think much
of it, and like I talked about it in my group chat. They
were like, you didn't Hazem did you, and I was like, fuck
no. So one of Kirston's sorority sisters then took it upon herself to report
Kirston to the judicial board for hazing. She reported me to judicial for that,
and that was her quote unquote evidence that I had hated somebody, but
you said fuck no exactly, and I had witness too, like somebody came
with me to drop it off and we were both like that that didn't happen.
And so my roommates a president, she had to sign off on the
paperwork to like send me to judicial, and she did it without thinking twice.
They called it like a counsel of love. That was the colloquial where
they were like, we're not trying to punish you, We're trying to set
you on the right path. The judicial chair she texted me and she's like
can I drive you home? And I was like not really, like I
take the bus, like you you don't need to pick me up, and
she's like I'll be at the bus stop in fifteen minutes, like meet me
in my car. And she gave me this manilla envelope and she basically like
served me. And so it was a gap between when I got served and
when I had the trial, and so in the gap, the two weeks
gap, I kept trying to tell myself, like they don't have any evidence.
I have a witness, But I did eat for two weeks. I
maybe lost like five pounds. If self harm is triggering for you and you'd
like to avoid this content, please skip the next thirty five seconds. On
the day before, I was like crying myself to sleep. My roommate like
he didn't really say anything, and I left the room and I went to
go cut. I took a knife out of the block, like a chopping
cooking knife. I don't I don't cook. I don't know what's called.
And I sat on a couch and I like rolled my sleeves up and like
I was like about to make the first notch, and like my roommate came
out and so like I shoved the knife under it, like my pillow on
the couch, and she's like, what's wrong? Heirston, like, which
I know what she'd fucking know. And I was like, I'm really nervous,
like I didn't do this, and like they're trying to punish me for
doing my best, Like they're punishing me for not listening to them. I
don't deserve this, like I have dedicated my whole like life this at this
point, like I haven't seen my family in months. I don't know what
to do. I don't know how else to prove my devotion of this fucking
cult. And she looked me in the eyes and she moved over. She
sat next to me, and she was like holding my hand. I remember
her words perfectly. She's like, we need to address the elephant in the
room, Kirsten, and I'm like, what elephant in the room. And
she's like, I don't believe you. So I'm already like like like suicidal
because there's no more of myself that I can give, There's nothing left anymore.
And she's like, well, I want to believe you, but I
just don't. So walk me through what happened again, Like I walked her
through what happened, and she's like, Okay, I'll stand up for you
tomorrow at your child. So I went to my trial and it was help
on our glage. They asked me to explain the evidence, and so I
explained it to him and I was like, they asked me if I hazed
him, and I said, fuck no, like, what more do you
want me to say? My roommate, the president like ended up standing up
for me, and she's like, I shouldn't have like my newspapers, like
I believe my best friend, and so I was feeling good about it,
but I knew in the back of my head, I'm like, they don't
like me, and they're gonna want to make an example of me. And
so they found me guilty. They banned me from whatever social is that night,
and then they banned me from the formal and so the situation with the
mixer that night was our social chair. She told me that the theme of
the party was poor people. It was poor people, and I want to
believe that that wasn't what she meant, and so I was like, well,
tell me more about this theme and she's like, well, it'll be
fun, like people can dress up like blue collar workers, they could dress
up like hoboes, like whatever, like it's fun. I went over her
head and asked her advisor. I was like, did you approve of this?
And she's like fuck no. So they obviously like said you can't have
a poor people theme party, which rightfully, so well, my punishment was
not going to that social but they changed the theme to ten minutes before the
porn of y'all. We should have ended this episode the second she said,
poor people party, But alas, we will be ending this episode here,
Snappers, hide your weed now because we are not in good standing. I
know we're already forbidden from speaking at chapter, but we can't get kicked out
yet. There are seven episodes left in season three, and the Patriarchy Police
are roaming frat Row day and night. So please please join me as we
pray to our founders, Martha Kade, Lord Jeus Christ. Our next episode
will be so not Alpha Fi Snapped. If you're feeling ready to listen to
next week's episode, I got you, join the Snapped Patreon at the Dismantler
level and you'll get exclusive access to next week's episode through our dismantler only podcast
feed. Become a dismantler today at patreon dot com slash Snapped. This episode
was written, recorded, produced, and edited by myself, Lucy Taylor,
Production supervisor, Megan Thompson, story editor, Rosa Poio, audio engineer Kneele
dot LEA special thank you to Margaret Freeman, whose work you can find at
Margaret L. Freeman dot com. For more information about this episode, check
us out on snaps the podcast dot com, and don't forget to follow us
on Instagram and TikTok at Snaps the Podcast. Thank you so much for listening,
and we'll see you next Wednesday. H