“They won’t like you. You don’t look like them.”
Those words, spoken in my father’s thick, Ecuadorian accent, were his response to me when I told him I wanted to join a sorority. When he said them, he was referencing both my race, plain as day in my brown skin and curly black hair, as well as my body shape and weight.
We all know the stereotype for what a sorority girl is supposed to look like: gorgeous, thin white girl, right? Though I got angry at my father for saying what he did, I was angrier that he was only voicing the thoughts that I pretended not to have. In reality, I spent the entire summer before recruitment being terrified that no house would want me because of the way I looked.
Actually going through recruitment was even scarier. Every person I met was wonderful and kind and interested in getting to know me for me, but I was still aware of how different I looked than the girl I was talking to or the girls I stood by. Wearing clothes that I wasn’t comfortable in and constantly standing in the scorching Oklahoma summer sun only added to my anxiety. I kept thinking, "Can a fat girl like me really join a sorority?"
And then I did. Getting the bid from the house I wanted that entire week was one of the best moments of my life. Getting to call 100 plus women my sisters was incredible, and I tried not to let my father’s words get under my skin. And for a while, his words faded from my thoughts. I was happy with my new sisters, women who loved me and accepted me for me--my fat included.
No matter how much I loved my new sisters, it didn’t stop people outside my sorority from saying horrible things. Apps like YikYak that allowed for anonymity enabled people to spread their anti-Greek vitriol, including many horrible things about my own house. It hurt, seeing people attempt to tear down a sisterhood that they could never understand.
Though I never told anyone, there was a time very early in my sorority experience that I was ashamed to wear my new letters, especially when I ate. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be associated with my sisters, but rather, I didn’t want them to be associated with me. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, and I didn’t want my sorority’s reputation to go down even lower because they gave a “fat girl" like me a bid. I didn’t want to be the reason that people would continue to call us derogatory names.
Looking back, I know how absolutely flawed my logic was. I was ashamed to eat, something that every living thing has to do to function, because “fat” was the worst word that could be associated with my letters. Fat. Not selfish, or malicious, or cruel, but fat. How stupid is that?
The funniest thing about it all though, is that I continuously put the opinions of people who would never understand what my sorority is about, before the opinions of the girls who wanted me to join the sorority in the first place. I wasn’t given a bid because my sisters felt pity for me because I was a fat girl, but because they saw potential in me to live up to the values set forth by the founders.
If you clicked on this article thinking it was going to be an exposé on the mistreatment I've faced from my sorority sisters for being fat, you're sadly mistaken. Whatever the stereotypes and rumors are, my sisters have never, ever treated me differently or judged me because I’m not the same size as them. And I’d much rather have 100 girls that love me for who I am than have 1,000 people who would judge the letters I wear because they’re on an XL shirt. And while there will always be people like Nicole Arbour out there who do judge me for my size, I know my sisters never will; and that makes me proud of the letters I wear.
