Fascinated by how both systems seem to be focused on gendered endurance - The social endurance sororities ask for during rush (and ever after) seems similar to the experience of week long trade shows (look good all day, wear uncomfortable clothes, present yourself and the topic perfectly, keep it going without ever breaking face, perfection at all costs) while the physical endurance of fraternities does, as AHP points out so well, creates a military style bond that is practically and legally unbreakable. It's basically asking the same thing: how long can you perform socially constructed Rich White gender until it is who you actually are? And naturally, people who were born into this environment are more likely to succeed because they've been trained on how to perform at this level since before they could walk. If you've been raised to obey, say your yes ma'am/sirs, and succeed in a regimented, gendered environment I could see how the Greek system is comforting. It's like you never left home.
I can't get over how this series illuminates how much violent, sexist, racist behavior is deliberately taught, modeled, and reinforced for so many young men during the 4 years that are their introduction to adult life. This is an intense form of immersion training at a very formative time. No wonder so many of these men seem shameless later in life -- they were rigorously trained to be so. If you were regularly "implored" to sexually assault someone and got respect from your peers for doing it, for 4 whole years while your brain was still developing, well you're sure not gonna care about HR's sexual-harassment guidelines by the time you're in a cushy banking job.
I thought similarly! It's disturbing to think that these guys have any tendencies toward boundaries, consent, and conscientiousness essentially abused out of them. How are they supposed to move on to healthy relationships later in life (platonic or romantic), let alone during college? I went to a liberal arts school that had a strong fraternity tradition (oddly, not much of a sorority corollary), and the secrecy, hazing, and code of loyalty did create a strange dynamic between women and non-greek guys and those in fraternities.
Cushy banking job, high-level elected office, Fortune 500 executive, judge sitting on the federal bench...it really is chilling to think about how many powerful men likely have this kind of experience in their backgrounds.
This series is brilliant and horrifying and I hope is leading to a book? The "Greek system" seems so linked to the structures of patriarchy & misogyny that undergird US society, to large degree: men who behave as if they're invincible, women who have been told that if anything bad happens to them, it's their fault--and that's even without the way that the wealth of frats (in particular) ensures that the entire system thrives.
University of Oklahoma SAEs got a lot of publicity for a little video of a bus full of members singing, "There Will Never Be A [vile racial slur] SAE," in 2015. They learned the song at a national leadership gathering.
I really wonder how this cruelty and torture impacts young developing brains and then extends into adulthood. How many men that went through the Greek system at Bama become abusers? Obviously this would be seriously difficult research to do.
And then on top of it, with mothers who send their daughters off to Bama, help them get into a good sorority with the idea that they will marry a guy who was in a good fraternity, knowing the boys are going through this brutal hazing and as part of the hazing may be "implored" to sexually assault the girls in the sorority...this is more than my brain can process.
Appreciate the depth of reporting here, AHP. The Panhellenic and IFC Greek systems (predominantly white) are truly just rotten and like so many of our current institutions would do well to be dismantled entirely. I’m an alum and can point to deep, wonderful, lifelong friendships as the result of my sorority experience, but have interrogated enough about the culture to know it has no business existing in this day and age, and yet due to the crisis of community, especially for white people, we latch on to anything resembling connection and cohesion. White supremacy is a hell of a drug.
"due to the crisis of community, especially for white people, we latch on to anything resembling connection and cohesion." This needs to be said again.
I think that sororities (in places other than, say, Bama) have done a pretty decent job of weeding out the toxicity, because their national organizations actually back up hazing bans, alcohol bans in house, etc. I said it on yesterday's thread, but it bears repeating- this series is about a very particular, extreme instance of Greek life. The evils here are indivisibly intertwined with the evils of the Deep South. What AHP is reporting here cannot be extrapolated to all Greek life (as your comment indicates!) I don't think dismantling the system entirely is the answer--especially since, as you say, we have a crisis of community. If the frats would actually take on national regulation and install house supervisors with authority, SO many dangers could be alleviated.
Some schools have local sororities that are not attached to any nationals so have different rules and offer, for example, a female-led space for people to go for underage drinking and pong, etc.
My college had all local sororities except one. I rushed local sorority and hazing was the norm among the locals (not nearly as intensely as the frats of course). I think there were likely some benefits to being in a local srat vs. national but it seems like national sororities could (and did afaik) curtail hazing of their pledges. Much of the hazing among the sororities seemed to serve the purpose of making the pledges uglier/less appealing to male students, which is its own fascinating tangent.
Same here. They had these lion statues outside their house that were painted each week in the different sorority colors (ALLEGEDLY, so I don't get sued) based on what house they roofied the most that week.
At my campus it was Pike-- starting our first week, the older sisters told us never to cross the threshold there unless it was in a group of 5+ (ie announcing) and even then, to get out asap.
I think Pike was the frat at Michigan State that was known as the rape frat. My roommates got them to divulge their jungle juice recipe to us one year and it was so strong yet tasted so fruity. No wonder girls think they can drink more than they can.
I'm still stuck on this: "The lawsuit also says that after the beating, HB was allegedly forced into a kiddie pool where members demanded he shout racial slurs at Black students under threat of physical violence. According to the lawsuit, HB refused."
While acknowledging that refusing to shout racial slurs at other students is clearing the lowest of low bars: to refuse after having been severely beaten, while in a brain-injured state, and now with certain knowledge of what "threat of physical violence" means for you, takes courage.
And, I didn't think it was possible to feel even more scorn for the elected leaders in our country who can't even condemn racial slurs and violence while healthy, not in pain, and sitting comfortably in their offices, but turns out it is.
I wasn't in a sorority in college but had many friends who were. The cruelty was the point of the pledging under the guise of bonding. What was interesting was that in what was the most "exclusive" sorority on my campus at the time, by the time my friends were seniors, there were 2 schools of thought on the pledging process with no one on the fence:
1. It was essential.
2. It was dumb. There were better ways to create the intimacy (BTW, great way to frame that) within the cohort.
Also you see this playing out in investment banking, which has done this for decades (I'm an alum from the 90s/00s). It's a rite of passage. Science has now shown us that sleep deprivation on an extended scale is really bad for you. I would not want analysts and associates working those hours now. There are better ways to teach resilience, professionalism and attention to detail than making ppl work 90-100 hours/week. It's stupid. You don't produce quality work so everyone loses - you, the firm, the client.
In recent years, there have been multiple deaths of otherwise healthy ppl from the overwork. But the oppressed become the oppressors.
*Also you see this playing out in investment banking*
And medical school, and the military, and . . . Something in humans wants to keep the s**t rolling downhill, wants to punch downwards when you can't punch up.
Well, this was a sobering read. It makes me so sad to think young men honestly want to do this and that ‘Luke’ says he’d do it again.
Plus, besides the ‘built-in friends’ that a fraternity grants you (‘friends who’ve beaten it humiliated you and that you’ve beaten or humiliated and that you’re sworn to secrecy over’) what is the point? To be able to drink underage? To have awesome (?) parties?
It’s disgusting. And people rant about what’s being taught at colleges. If you’re spending 3 months of your freshman year on this bullshit…
Also the bit about the sorority sisters… I really is sad the world we live in.
It’s really interesting to me that this is the only part of the reporting that I recognise from my UK university experience - where this all happens through the sports teams. I don’t know that it ever reaches the levels here that you describe in the piece but I definitely heard some horror stories about the ‘initiation experiences’ for new recruits, especially on some of the ‘old money’ type sports, even though the students’ union had banned them.
Separately but relatedly, this made me think of military dynamics too. It's not uncommon to "break in" new recruits esp in countries where service is mandatory - the breaking in can often turn cruel. There's something about this idea of needing to humiliate a man to ensure his loyalty that's so pervasive.
My (actual, biological) sister didn't go to a school that had Greek life, but she was very involved with a roller derby team throughout college. We've had quite a few conversations about how similar my sorority experience and her roller derby experience were. Nothing along the lines of hazing for either of us, to be clear, but we've found it very interesting how alike the group dynamics/tensions/politics are for what on the surface are two very different types of organizations.
I was thinking about this earlier, how often humans replicate the same group/power dynamics regardless of the setting. Like your comment, not so directly connected to today's topic of violent/substance-fuelled hazing, but more about the demands to prove your allegiance and fidelity to the organization, and strong sanctions/social shunning for stepping out of line. Like it could be a DSA chapter or a sorority chapter or a sports team, but it gets replicated because there's a strong "us" and "them" mentality.
My daughter (sorority) and her cousin (college rugby) had the same conversation and conclusion about their experiences. My niece didn't want to believe it (thinking, ew, sororities) but it became pretty apparent to her.
"And it’s why so many anti-hazing measures don't work very well...It relies on people telling on not only their friends but themselves." What is the answer here? Some kind of forgiveness/non-prosecution if you tell and implicate yourself in the process? That doesn't seem right either, but I have no idea what the path forward is.
Truly depressing that these boys/men (boys in man-sized bodies, arguably) find these collectively self-imposed trauma bonds the easiest/only way to form close relationships. Also depressing that parents are paying thousands of dollars to, often knowingly, put their children through this because they too see no other way.
This is all true of what I saw (and stayed verrry far away from) at the University of Virginia. The schools with UVA's flavor of elitist self-importance ("the Ivy of the South") are probably often just as bad, if not worse, than UA on these fronts.
It is maddening to me that NO ONE WILL TALK. I mean, with the amount of humanity that has moved through the Greek system at these schools, surely someone has soured on the experience, or just doesn't really care any more or whatever, but... no? I wonder if they tell them that talking about their hazing experiences will leave them open to liability or something. It's just astounding to me that in this day and age of tell-alls and people courting their 15min of fame, more people haven't come forward to talk about what they went through.
For some reason I kept thinking about Boymom while reading this. Like there are so many other cultural influences on masculinity development here.
Has anyone else noticed that Greek houses are really...queer, in a mindbending kind of way? Granted, a small sample size, but I had 2 close friends awhile back who went to different universities, both became the president of their Greek house, and both were queer. I met a woman last December who was president of her Greek house (at University of Alabama!) and she was also queer. One of my friends noted that after graduation, many of the women in her sorority came out. It kind of makes sense, in that if you're queer, there's an added incentive to living in a same-sex environment that you might not be conscious of at the time of joining when you're like 18.
Fascinated by how both systems seem to be focused on gendered endurance - The social endurance sororities ask for during rush (and ever after) seems similar to the experience of week long trade shows (look good all day, wear uncomfortable clothes, present yourself and the topic perfectly, keep it going without ever breaking face, perfection at all costs) while the physical endurance of fraternities does, as AHP points out so well, creates a military style bond that is practically and legally unbreakable. It's basically asking the same thing: how long can you perform socially constructed Rich White gender until it is who you actually are? And naturally, people who were born into this environment are more likely to succeed because they've been trained on how to perform at this level since before they could walk. If you've been raised to obey, say your yes ma'am/sirs, and succeed in a regimented, gendered environment I could see how the Greek system is comforting. It's like you never left home.
"gendered endurance" is a great phrase--so apt.
"It's like you never left home."
This is probably a big reason why these college groups continue to exist-young people away from home, needing something familiar
“Gendered endurance”. Great way to capture it.
Your reporting in this series is phenomenal. I’m completely captivated!
I can't get over how this series illuminates how much violent, sexist, racist behavior is deliberately taught, modeled, and reinforced for so many young men during the 4 years that are their introduction to adult life. This is an intense form of immersion training at a very formative time. No wonder so many of these men seem shameless later in life -- they were rigorously trained to be so. If you were regularly "implored" to sexually assault someone and got respect from your peers for doing it, for 4 whole years while your brain was still developing, well you're sure not gonna care about HR's sexual-harassment guidelines by the time you're in a cushy banking job.
I thought similarly! It's disturbing to think that these guys have any tendencies toward boundaries, consent, and conscientiousness essentially abused out of them. How are they supposed to move on to healthy relationships later in life (platonic or romantic), let alone during college? I went to a liberal arts school that had a strong fraternity tradition (oddly, not much of a sorority corollary), and the secrecy, hazing, and code of loyalty did create a strange dynamic between women and non-greek guys and those in fraternities.
"No wonder so many of these men seem shameless later in life -- they were rigorously trained to be so." exactly what I was thinking
Cushy banking job, high-level elected office, Fortune 500 executive, judge sitting on the federal bench...it really is chilling to think about how many powerful men likely have this kind of experience in their backgrounds.
Exactly.
This series is brilliant and horrifying and I hope is leading to a book? The "Greek system" seems so linked to the structures of patriarchy & misogyny that undergird US society, to large degree: men who behave as if they're invincible, women who have been told that if anything bad happens to them, it's their fault--and that's even without the way that the wealth of frats (in particular) ensures that the entire system thrives.
one of the MANY reasons I was so against it and didn't understand anyone who participated.
University of Oklahoma SAEs got a lot of publicity for a little video of a bus full of members singing, "There Will Never Be A [vile racial slur] SAE," in 2015. They learned the song at a national leadership gathering.
I really wonder how this cruelty and torture impacts young developing brains and then extends into adulthood. How many men that went through the Greek system at Bama become abusers? Obviously this would be seriously difficult research to do.
And then on top of it, with mothers who send their daughters off to Bama, help them get into a good sorority with the idea that they will marry a guy who was in a good fraternity, knowing the boys are going through this brutal hazing and as part of the hazing may be "implored" to sexually assault the girls in the sorority...this is more than my brain can process.
Appreciate the depth of reporting here, AHP. The Panhellenic and IFC Greek systems (predominantly white) are truly just rotten and like so many of our current institutions would do well to be dismantled entirely. I’m an alum and can point to deep, wonderful, lifelong friendships as the result of my sorority experience, but have interrogated enough about the culture to know it has no business existing in this day and age, and yet due to the crisis of community, especially for white people, we latch on to anything resembling connection and cohesion. White supremacy is a hell of a drug.
"due to the crisis of community, especially for white people, we latch on to anything resembling connection and cohesion." This needs to be said again.
I think that sororities (in places other than, say, Bama) have done a pretty decent job of weeding out the toxicity, because their national organizations actually back up hazing bans, alcohol bans in house, etc. I said it on yesterday's thread, but it bears repeating- this series is about a very particular, extreme instance of Greek life. The evils here are indivisibly intertwined with the evils of the Deep South. What AHP is reporting here cannot be extrapolated to all Greek life (as your comment indicates!) I don't think dismantling the system entirely is the answer--especially since, as you say, we have a crisis of community. If the frats would actually take on national regulation and install house supervisors with authority, SO many dangers could be alleviated.
Some schools have local sororities that are not attached to any nationals so have different rules and offer, for example, a female-led space for people to go for underage drinking and pong, etc.
My college had all local sororities except one. I rushed local sorority and hazing was the norm among the locals (not nearly as intensely as the frats of course). I think there were likely some benefits to being in a local srat vs. national but it seems like national sororities could (and did afaik) curtail hazing of their pledges. Much of the hazing among the sororities seemed to serve the purpose of making the pledges uglier/less appealing to male students, which is its own fascinating tangent.
There's a reason why SAE's are known as "Same Assholes Everywhere."
Sadly, I’ve also heard it referred to as “Sexual Assault Expected”
They were absolutely the house on campus with a rep for roofies 🙃
Same here. They had these lion statues outside their house that were painted each week in the different sorority colors (ALLEGEDLY, so I don't get sued) based on what house they roofied the most that week.
this is what my daughter says they call them at her college too
At my campus it was Pike-- starting our first week, the older sisters told us never to cross the threshold there unless it was in a group of 5+ (ie announcing) and even then, to get out asap.
I think Pike was the frat at Michigan State that was known as the rape frat. My roommates got them to divulge their jungle juice recipe to us one year and it was so strong yet tasted so fruity. No wonder girls think they can drink more than they can.
Good grief.
Pike actually got banned and thrown out of my university because of their behavior (and we didn’t even have actual frat houses or frat row).
Yep- there's a reason they were profiled in Rolling Stone years ago.
“The True Gentleman Experience" somehow sounds even MORE sinister
Agree, sounds absolutely cursed.
I'm still stuck on this: "The lawsuit also says that after the beating, HB was allegedly forced into a kiddie pool where members demanded he shout racial slurs at Black students under threat of physical violence. According to the lawsuit, HB refused."
While acknowledging that refusing to shout racial slurs at other students is clearing the lowest of low bars: to refuse after having been severely beaten, while in a brain-injured state, and now with certain knowledge of what "threat of physical violence" means for you, takes courage.
And, I didn't think it was possible to feel even more scorn for the elected leaders in our country who can't even condemn racial slurs and violence while healthy, not in pain, and sitting comfortably in their offices, but turns out it is.
I wasn't in a sorority in college but had many friends who were. The cruelty was the point of the pledging under the guise of bonding. What was interesting was that in what was the most "exclusive" sorority on my campus at the time, by the time my friends were seniors, there were 2 schools of thought on the pledging process with no one on the fence:
1. It was essential.
2. It was dumb. There were better ways to create the intimacy (BTW, great way to frame that) within the cohort.
Also you see this playing out in investment banking, which has done this for decades (I'm an alum from the 90s/00s). It's a rite of passage. Science has now shown us that sleep deprivation on an extended scale is really bad for you. I would not want analysts and associates working those hours now. There are better ways to teach resilience, professionalism and attention to detail than making ppl work 90-100 hours/week. It's stupid. You don't produce quality work so everyone loses - you, the firm, the client.
In recent years, there have been multiple deaths of otherwise healthy ppl from the overwork. But the oppressed become the oppressors.
*Also you see this playing out in investment banking*
And medical school, and the military, and . . . Something in humans wants to keep the s**t rolling downhill, wants to punch downwards when you can't punch up.
Well, this was a sobering read. It makes me so sad to think young men honestly want to do this and that ‘Luke’ says he’d do it again.
Plus, besides the ‘built-in friends’ that a fraternity grants you (‘friends who’ve beaten it humiliated you and that you’ve beaten or humiliated and that you’re sworn to secrecy over’) what is the point? To be able to drink underage? To have awesome (?) parties?
It’s disgusting. And people rant about what’s being taught at colleges. If you’re spending 3 months of your freshman year on this bullshit…
Also the bit about the sorority sisters… I really is sad the world we live in.
It’s really interesting to me that this is the only part of the reporting that I recognise from my UK university experience - where this all happens through the sports teams. I don’t know that it ever reaches the levels here that you describe in the piece but I definitely heard some horror stories about the ‘initiation experiences’ for new recruits, especially on some of the ‘old money’ type sports, even though the students’ union had banned them.
Separately but relatedly, this made me think of military dynamics too. It's not uncommon to "break in" new recruits esp in countries where service is mandatory - the breaking in can often turn cruel. There's something about this idea of needing to humiliate a man to ensure his loyalty that's so pervasive.
My (actual, biological) sister didn't go to a school that had Greek life, but she was very involved with a roller derby team throughout college. We've had quite a few conversations about how similar my sorority experience and her roller derby experience were. Nothing along the lines of hazing for either of us, to be clear, but we've found it very interesting how alike the group dynamics/tensions/politics are for what on the surface are two very different types of organizations.
I was thinking about this earlier, how often humans replicate the same group/power dynamics regardless of the setting. Like your comment, not so directly connected to today's topic of violent/substance-fuelled hazing, but more about the demands to prove your allegiance and fidelity to the organization, and strong sanctions/social shunning for stepping out of line. Like it could be a DSA chapter or a sorority chapter or a sports team, but it gets replicated because there's a strong "us" and "them" mentality.
My daughter (sorority) and her cousin (college rugby) had the same conversation and conclusion about their experiences. My niece didn't want to believe it (thinking, ew, sororities) but it became pretty apparent to her.
"And it’s why so many anti-hazing measures don't work very well...It relies on people telling on not only their friends but themselves." What is the answer here? Some kind of forgiveness/non-prosecution if you tell and implicate yourself in the process? That doesn't seem right either, but I have no idea what the path forward is.
Truly depressing that these boys/men (boys in man-sized bodies, arguably) find these collectively self-imposed trauma bonds the easiest/only way to form close relationships. Also depressing that parents are paying thousands of dollars to, often knowingly, put their children through this because they too see no other way.
This is all true of what I saw (and stayed verrry far away from) at the University of Virginia. The schools with UVA's flavor of elitist self-importance ("the Ivy of the South") are probably often just as bad, if not worse, than UA on these fronts.
I’m getting Proud Boy-formal vibes from the outfit descriptions and photos.
Sadly that’s just how so much of the South dresses
Good point… my west coast is showing ;)
It is maddening to me that NO ONE WILL TALK. I mean, with the amount of humanity that has moved through the Greek system at these schools, surely someone has soured on the experience, or just doesn't really care any more or whatever, but... no? I wonder if they tell them that talking about their hazing experiences will leave them open to liability or something. It's just astounding to me that in this day and age of tell-alls and people courting their 15min of fame, more people haven't come forward to talk about what they went through.
For some reason I kept thinking about Boymom while reading this. Like there are so many other cultural influences on masculinity development here.
Has anyone else noticed that Greek houses are really...queer, in a mindbending kind of way? Granted, a small sample size, but I had 2 close friends awhile back who went to different universities, both became the president of their Greek house, and both were queer. I met a woman last December who was president of her Greek house (at University of Alabama!) and she was also queer. One of my friends noted that after graduation, many of the women in her sorority came out. It kind of makes sense, in that if you're queer, there's an added incentive to living in a same-sex environment that you might not be conscious of at the time of joining when you're like 18.