If there’s one thing Greek life cherishes more than parties, philanthropy events and Vespas, it’s tradition.
Greek houses serve as bastions of traditional social norms, reinforcing them through centuries-old rituals and brainwa-we mean, passing their values to members of new classes through the generations.
One of the major components of this is the separation of the sexes. Established traditions dictate that drinking and general mischief can only happen in the houses of fraternity men, who hold the responsibilities of planning, cleanup and — this is a big one — insurance. Sorority houses, in contrast, are not allowed to serve or even possess alcohol.
The effect is a yin-and-yang-like differentiation of the sexes in Greek life. Fraternities are afforded the privilege of rowdy debauchery while sororities are held up as an immaculately pure, well-behaved counterweight. Of course, sorority women — and plenty of others — go to frat parties all the time, making the aforementioned pristine appearance illusory at best.
The roles given to fraternities and sororities reflect the ones traditionally given to men and women, and it all depends on the fraternities’ control of where the booze is.
There are valid reasons for this setup, the main one being that organizations which regularly hold parties assume a lot of risk and thus take on a lot of insurance. Sororities spend about15 to 30 percent as much as fraternities do on insurance per member. Accidents in which alcohol is a factor account for that disparity.
But in light of recent events regarding sexual assault and Greek life, schools have been scrambling for a solution. Many have proposed strict restrictions on their Greek organizations, which are really aimed at fraternities. In all likelihood, this solution will fail. Fraternities and, more importantly, their alumni are too powerful to be contended with, and the allure of Greek life is too strong of an attraction to potential students. Shackling Greek organizations won’t work.
Another possible solution seems to be gaining slight traction via numerous national media outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic and Slate: Why don’t we let sororities throw parties? Upend the system.
The way things work right now, sororities and independent women alike are essentially commodities, with frats competing to get them to parties. So it goes — they can’t hold parties on their own, and fraternities hold the distinction of throwing the most massive bangers around. Nobody really questions it because, well, it’s tradition: much like wearing blackface to parties, thoroughly corrupting student government or shouting racist and misogynistic slurs at a black woman from your front porch.
But if sororities were allowed to throw parties, it would emancipate and empower the sisterhoods and even out the playing field, so to speak. Parties run by women will be safer for women, which would be well worth a slight increase in insurance premiums. Best of all, it would end centuries of hegemonic domination of the party scene by dudes who love boat shoes and croakies.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 1/21/2015 under the headline “Let sororities party: for the equality, for the beer"]
