I experienced light hazing as a freshman. Nothing really vile. A lot of verbal abuse but you knew not to take it personally. The problem that I could never solve in 4 years was changing the mindset of other members that hazing was wrong. Everyone agreed while going through it, that hazing, cleaning, the random chores in the middle of the night was a bunch of crap that proved nothing. However, once initiated 95% of them changed their tune to ‘if I had to do it, they should have to do it.’ That made no sense to me now…or then. Alas, I was usually the only one out on that branch and boycotting those events.
However, don’t let this story be representative of Greek life. Chapters vary from house to house and college to college. I am still involved in my fraternity at a national level. The leadership and personal development models they created are really top notch. As a whole, the fraternity has a gpa of 3.10. Not bad for 15,000+ guys who are just their for beer, girls, access and a warped sense of brotherhood.
College fraternities have a warped sense of brotherhood, at least most of them do. I’m sure there are some here that will disagree. But like any other organization, as long as you stay in line, people will be cool with you. But once you become the square peg, when you probably need the friendships the most, nobody wants to be there. College fraternities are about beer, sex, and access. Plain and simple. For a good example of real brotherhood, learn about the Masons. Two weeks before I pledged a fraternity, I was invited to a lodge by two responsible looking member. I always wondered how that last year of grad school and beyond would have turned out if I had gone to that meeting instead of pledging the fraternity. Some of the lessons I learned in a Mason lodge, years later, were some of the best experiences of my life and helped me turn my life around for the good. Instead I became a smoker, a drunk, a sex addict, and a burn out, that took years to overcome. And now I don’t even talk to any of my Fraternity brothers except two, but one of them was my best friend before joining the fraternity.
generalize much?
A number of fraternities were founded by masons and are based on masonic traditions and values. If you had a bad experience that is unfortunate, but your n=1 experience is no more indicative of the whole fraternity system than my n=1 experience.
Of fraternity brothers I am in touch with (which is a majority of them), I count many doctors, attorneys, college professors (one guy is at the Institute for Advanced study at Princeton), engineers, finance professionals, and successful entrepreneurs. Also, for the most part among the most outstanding individuals I have encountered in life. I actually get a little discourage some times, because I am one of the least successful ones.
Weird. I thought most of the major greek organizations had banned that stuff. They sure did when I was a SIgma Chi back in the early 80’s.
The worst thing I can remember is a little sleep deprivation during hell week. No physical stuff, no perverted stuff.
Oh, but there was “pub city.” The pledges had to clean the bathrooms which included a drying off area outside the showers that had wooden racks on the floor. Once a semester this area was cleaned by the pledge class and it contained about a half inch of accumulated wet pubic hairs. Dry heave time.
The best grades I got when I was in college was during my pledge period, since we were required to attend a certain amount of study tables each week.
Hazing
On January 31, 2005 Sigma Chi announced a zero-tolerance stance on the issue of hazing. Sigma Chi defines hazing as “an act performed by any Sigma Chi or pledge member that results in an environment of servitude or in any way endangers or demeans a Sigma Chi or pledge member, regardless of that person’s willingness to participate in that act.”
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I was a little sister to a fraternity so was put through pledge by them. They harassed us, made us clean, serve beer and do silly stunts but we weren’t allowed to drink and NO touching. If any of them tried anything outside of a brotherly hug, they’d get tossed. We all knew it. After pledging was over and we were members it was on us, but not while we were pledging.
We broke off and started our own sorority. All the other ones on campus were bitchy and no one liked them but themselves. I was founding President and put though 2 pledge classes before I left.
No alcohol, bodily fluids or physical abuse was tolerated. We embarrassed them and kept them sleep deprived during Hell Week but that’s it. Probably that means hazing but nothing like we know happened on campus. We were the misfits (surprise) and the fraternities loved us because we weren’t snotty bitches.
Those years had a huge impact on my life. I am still in touch with many of my sorority sisters. Those were some of the best times and best friends I’ve had. So much fun.
It’s a completely different world that I don’t understand. When I got my undergrad, I was married, had a son, and paid for it myself - the last thing I was interested in was prolonging the process or increasing the cost.
I agree with you though, about undergoing some sort of ritual before becoming a member of a group - not a big deal. I cannot understand why anyone would allow themselves to be demeaned, humiliated, and physically endangered just to be accepted by a group of kids.
Another Sigma Chi checking in here (Iota Mu '96). We were actually told as pledges that if you experience anything that even feels like hazing let your pledge educator know and it will be dealt with. A couple of years later when I was president part of my role was on the disciplinary committee and we had to suspend a brother for doing something that was considered hazing. Why would you ever want to form a bond with guys who treat you like that?
My fraternity experience was one of the best times of my life and did a lot for my own personal development.
Curious if there are any here who were in a fraternity in college and then served in the military afterwards. I wonder what the correlations, if any, are to the rituals/hazing of the military and college fraternities and sororities. I attended one semester at Kent State prior to enlisting the Navy, when I got out of the Navy I went back to school and had to grind out my undergrad while working full-time so I never had the traditional college experience, including pledging to a fraternity. The military is rife with traditions and rituals that historically were the equivalent to hazing. And in some cases, as the definition of hazing evolves to include even minor discomfort, may still be considered hazing.
When I was in there was a huge crack down on hazing that was precipitated by the Tailhook scandal and several others. That said, I still went through several rites of passage specific to the Navy and the submarine community that some, probably most, would have considered hazing even by pre-crack down standards. There have been several references to Hell Week (which I am guessing is pledge week?) that reminded me of life onboard the submarine as a non-qual. That life was typically several months long until one becomes qualified in submarines and earns their submarine warfare insignia. Life as a non-qual can be fairly miserable ranging in everything from treatment by the crew to mandatory studying which can put a big hamper on the amount of sleep one gets while underway.
I believe there is something to be said for rites of passage and activities that create a bond amongst “brothers” and “sisters”, but I can’t imagine senseless acts like those in the article about Dartmouth.
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We broke off and started our own sorority. All the other ones on campus were bitchy and no one liked them but themselves. I was founding President and put though 2 pledge classes before I left.
It is blanket statements like that, that cause the general population to criticize sororities.
As far as hazing, unless covering your room in your favorite candy counts, I didn’t experience it. Although it did ruin york peppermint patties for me.
Oh for fuck’s sake. It my experience that this was the case at my college. There were only 4 on campus. You seriously think I don’t know what they were like? There were 3000 students at my school.
My greek experience was pretty good. The students in it were just a cross section of normal college life. You have drunks, stoners, jocks, serious students, bluto-types and Christians. I’m still in touch with many of them in the local professional world.
I’m not going to go into the details but there was some seriously bad blood between us and the other sororities because we wanted to start out own.
Besides that, I had a blast. The fraternities were great. Word went out we didn’t sleep around and they were a lot of fun to hang with as a result. First to arrive at a party and the last to leave
I was never in a fraternity but I did spend 22 years in the military and there were some similarities to frat rituals in the military. The “hell week” concept is one, lack of sleep, tasks that are designed to create a sense of unreality, exposure to hostile environments are all designed to transition a person from a diverse group to a uniform group.
The Navy had a ritual called “crossing the line”, where any sailors who had not yet been across the equator were “lowly polywogs” and those who had crossed the equator (and been through the ritual), were called “loyal shellbacks”. That ritual in my case involved crawling through week old garbage, being washed down with a fire hose, being hit with a shillalie (sp), which was a piece of fire hose that made a lot of noise but didn’t have much impact.
Navy Chiefs (E-7s), go through a ritual that lasts weeks, culminating in an intense ceremony where they finally are accepted as Chiefs. There used to be a practice of “tacking on” a promotion with punches to the new patch on a sailors uniform. After a number of arms were broken, that practice was prohibited. A similar story went with earning the Dolphin (submarine qualification), and the Surface Warfare/Aviation Warfare qualifications. A few times the pins had to be surgically removed from ribs, making those practices obsolete.
Each services has or has had its own rituals, some more or less overt than the others, but I never experienced or heard of anything as bad as that described in the OP. I met a few aviators who were present at the location where the Tailhook scandal happened and their descriptions were a country mile less demeaning than to OP description as well.
