Recently, we've all seen the video on our Facebook and Twitter feeds. It involves a handful of sorority girls prancing around in slow-mo to happy music to get other girls to want to do the same by rushing their sorority. Also, there was glitter.
University of Alabama's Alpha Phi chapter has since removed the video from their website with the mass influx of criticism regarding the demographic of the girls within it. Although the production value was extremely high, the variety of girls within the sorority portrayed was extremely low.
Now, I'm not a member of any sorority. But I do know many young woman who are. My best friends here at College of Charleston are members of Greek life. However, I think the image this recruitment video portrayed was completely flawed.
Yes, there are girls in every sorority that may be like the ones in the video. No, the video didn't portray binge-drinking or a hypersexualization of sorority women. No, it didn't give sorority women as a whole a bad name. As an outsider looking in, I've learned that sorority woman come in all shapes and sizes. There is no set mold for them. And that's what makes them great.
I know sorority women who love sports, and who love media; who love science, and are fascinated by international relations. I know sorority women who were too shy to branch out until they joined their sorority and were able to build their voice. I know sorority women who left high school broken down and with little self esteem, but their sorority helped build them into the strong women they are today.
In contrast, I know sorority women who joined for the title. I know sorority women who joined for the wrong reasons, or who wanted to please their family members who were also members of sororities.
But what all these woman have in common is that they are sorority woman.
They are all different. They all think differently, dress differently, grew up differently. There is no set look or mindset for them. They are all different, and that's what makes them and their affiliated chapters great.
That's what Alpha Phi of University of Alabama failed to show their potential new members, or PNMs, with their recruitment video—that groups like sororities embrace differences, not hide them out of sight. They failed to show PNMs the home they could make within their chapter.
They failed to break the stereotype of what a "sorority girl" is.
Although the video has since been deleted, this chapter and all other chapters can learn something—to embrace one another's differences and show the world that they are not a stereotype.
They are something much, much more.
