I'm not your typical sorority girl. I'm not skinny. I'm not traditionally pretty. I have all the sex appeal of a dead fish and I have a mostly hate relationship with the color pink but I am smart, I am driven and I enjoy meeting all kinds of new people so greek life is perfect for me.
Recently, the University of Alabama's Alpha Phi chapter posted a recruitment video that has frat boys cheering, old women clutching their pearls in shock and fellow sorority women questioning whether or not it'll ever be possible to dispel the negative stereotypes that come with Greek life.
Though I'm sure the video is only meant to be a light- hearted and fun recruitment tool. I find instead, that it highlights all the things that people hate about sororities. All the girls in this video seem to be wearing the exact same outfit, be the exact same size, have very similar skin tones, and the same shade of blonde hair. It's like Alabama's Alpha Phi unlocked the secret to cloning.
As a diverse sorority girl myself I find the video disheartening. Girls like me aren't often represented in recruitment videos and I'm just as much of a sorority girl as they are. I want any girl to feel comfortable rushing because being in a sorority can be an amazing experience that offers you connections, leadership experience and lifelong friends and this video perpetuates the exact opposite of that.
Sorority girls are lots of things: smart, driven, bookish, clumsy, creative, sarcastic, capable, classy, social, philanthropic, down-to-earth and much, much more. We should not continue to perpetuate that all sorority girls are blonde, pretty, and air headed we should be making recruitment videos that showcase how diverse and amazing we all are.
