Everyone knows the "top tier sororities" on their college campus. They're the ones that have the beautiful houses, the recruitment videos, and the big wooden letters. Boys want to date them and girls want to be them--or in some cases, also date them. They're the Panhellenic, beautiful girls that flaunt their 18 pairs of letters around campus. They have pride in their sisterhood, and that's really, honestly, awesome.
I, by contrast, am part of a Women's Professional Music Fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota. We, are not Panhel. We do not have a house or a recruitment video or big wooden letters. But this, is very much okay.
Let me be perfectly clear: I have nothing bad to say about social sororities. The work that they do is paramount, and great for their philanthropy events. They really help shape a college, through their traditions and history with the school they are established at.
Oftentimes, I am told that my fraternity isn't real. I am told my sisters are not my sisters and we did not have to work to get our letters. Even though we also have secrets, rituals, weekly meetings, philanthropies and letters, according to some, my sisterhood is a sham.
I'm here to tell you all, that I think this notion is complete and utter baloney.
My sisters and I are very close. We have inside jokes and tell each other things we would never tell other people. We love each other and bond over our mutual passion for all things music. We volunteer together, we work together, we face rough patches, lift each other up, bicker over things in meetings, cry, laugh and hope together. The bond that I have with my sisters is very much real. My members-in-training class and I had wacky adventures that we still look back fondly on. Our chapter has had ups, and downs and a crazy rebuilding period. We've gone through it together, and if that isn't sisterhood, then I'm not sure what is.
We aren't a social Greek organization and that much is true. We've never pretended that we are. What we know we are, is a society of beautiful, empowered women who love music, the arts and each other. We are Greek too, just maybe not your kind of Greek. Invalidating us doesn't make our organization any less real. We have connections through our province, we have sisters all over the world and we continue our tradition of holding ourselves to the highest standards of musicianship, integrity, charity and friendship.
You're right, my sisters and I are not Panhel. We are not social Greek. But we are real, we are sisters and any attempt to invalidate that doesn't hold water.
