Granted I am not a part of the Greek family here at GVSU, I have always been very interested and curious about sororities. I have many friends involved in the Greek Life and always here so many stories. Some good, some bad. Most of you will remember MTV’s Sorority Life & Fraternity Life. Although the reality shows only lasted a season or two, many people had a lot to say about them, including some of my Greek friends. Most said that the Greek life that was televised was totally out of control and did not highlight the true Greek life that they all know and love. Anyways…like I was saying I’ve always been slightly interested in joining a sorority. So I picked up a hot pink covered book called “Hazing Meri Sugarman” by M. Apostolina. Apostolina himself describes “Hazing…” on his MySpace page as a
comic novel about Cindy Bixby, a mousy first year college student who believes she can change her life, meet new friends, and help her future by joining Alpha Beta Delta, an exclusive sorority house headed by Meri Sugarman, the glamorous house president! And then, uh oh, Cindy comes to realize that Meri is a dangerous psychopath! It’s up to Cindy and her new sorority friends to bring Meri down.
So I sat down to read the book and was presently surprised with it. I enjoyed it-but makes me wonder how sororities (outsideof GVSU) are like. I then went around searching for articles online and came across one from the NY Times. In the article titled” Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks and Bias” by Sa Dillon, sororities are still getting bad reviews:
Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.
The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.
“Virtually everyone who didn’t fit a certain sorority member archetype was told to leave,” said Kate Holloway, a senior who withdrew from the chapter during its reorganization.
From this I get the impression that you must fit a particular stereotype in order to fit into a sorority…which I know is definitely NOT true here at GV. But–this article goes along nicely with the reality shows…image is everything and sometimes in order to be a part of something you have to fit a particular mold.
I’m just hoping those YA readers who engross themselves into “Hazing…” and Apostolina’s two other novels in a series of three, will not get bad impressions of things that can go wrong and then eventually hold back from joining an organization or club, Greek or not.
Posted by murphkel2003 