Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And since back to school time is happening,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about fraternity ees because way
Speaker 1: back when in the podcast we did an episode on sororities,
Speaker 1: which if you haven't heard it, you can find it
Speaker 1: at stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. And so
Speaker 1: many years later, it's high time to talk about fraternities.
Speaker 1: So first let's get things off with a little bit
Speaker 1: of fraternity history to figure out how these Greek houses
Speaker 1: came to be. And for this we are referencing a
Speaker 1: lot from Nicholas Sirates the Company He Keeps, which is
Speaker 1: a history of white fraternitys in particular, and so he
Speaker 1: talks about how the early to US colleges were founded
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century in New England specifically to educate
Speaker 1: men for the ministry, and as a result, and also
Speaker 1: because of some other factors, just the fact that you're
Speaker 1: living in the seventeenth century in New England, college wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly a fun place to go. There was not that
Speaker 1: list of you know, the annual list of party schools.
Speaker 1: It was mostly a recitation and a lot of moralizing
Speaker 1: and very strict living habits powdered wigs and poundered wigs. Yes.
Speaker 1: And prior to fraternities, college literary societies were really the
Speaker 1: social hubs. Yeah, there are usually two at each college
Speaker 1: and members would compete for the new freshmen, and early
Speaker 1: fraternity's actually retained this whole tradition of oratory recitation and
Speaker 1: the presentation of essays. And this might sound familiar if
Speaker 1: you are familiar with Five Ata Kappa, which was the
Speaker 1: first Greek letters society founded in seventeen seventy six at
Speaker 1: the College of William and Mary. Phi Beta Kappa was
Speaker 1: and still is a literary society and a place for
Speaker 1: intellectual debate. Now, Phi Beta Kappa is, like you said,
Speaker 1: a literary society, not a fraternity in the social sense
Speaker 1: that we think of, But the secrecy and rituals that
Speaker 1: we associate with the social fraternities with the Sigma Alpha
Speaker 1: epsilons at all began with Phi Beta Kappa. So fast
Speaker 1: forward from seventeen seventy six to when you have five
Speaker 1: seniors at Union College who had been members of an
Speaker 1: organized military company that had then been dissolved. They got
Speaker 1: together and decided to form a society for literary and
Speaker 1: social purposes, and they called it the Kappa Alpha Society.
Speaker 1: And within two years two more fraternities had started up
Speaker 1: at the college, Sigmafy and Deltafy. And so, but what
Speaker 1: is the deal with this whole Greek thing? Why why
Speaker 1: did I even call fraternities and sororities by Greek names
Speaker 1: and Greek letters. There was this whole new national interest
Speaker 1: in Greek as opposed to Roman culture as a model
Speaker 1: for the emerging citizenry, and fraternities, as Syate talks about
Speaker 1: in the Company He Keeps, really provided autonomy, specifically from
Speaker 1: overbearing faculty. And these activities offered a break from just
Speaker 1: that monotony of college life, which even at that time
Speaker 1: that Kappa Alpha was founded, were still ministerial oriented um.
Speaker 1: And also, of course it provided companionship um. And this
Speaker 1: is important for this time considering how as society is changing,
Speaker 1: even as we get into the mid nineteenth century. Fathers
Speaker 1: of these guys, usually white, an upper class, you could
Speaker 1: afford to send their sons off to college rather than
Speaker 1: keeping them at home to work. Fathers couldn't necessarily hook
Speaker 1: their sons up with land because land was becoming more
Speaker 1: scarce and they didn't have as quick of an entree
Speaker 1: into social networks that would automatically get them a job.
Speaker 1: And wasn't it great that they founded fraternities because now
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what it is once you get
Speaker 1: into the professional world. Yeah, this whole discussion about like
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds makes me think of my ancestor,
Speaker 1: George Chamberlain. He's like my great great great great uncle.
Speaker 1: He actually was part of a group of guys who
Speaker 1: tried to save the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe's nephew
Speaker 1: at Dartmouth. They went to Dartmouth, and anyway, his his sister,
Speaker 1: who survived him when he was killed in the Civil War,
Speaker 1: compiled all of his letters home from college and during
Speaker 1: the war and everything, and his accounts of just like
Speaker 1: it is so boring, I am so bored. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go to class. Please send me more books.
Speaker 1: And then he developed eye problems because he was reading
Speaker 1: so much at and he's like, my eyes are failing me.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you didn't talk like that, but anyway, but
Speaker 1: I'm just like picturing my my grand uncle and his
Speaker 1: mustache at college at Dartmouth, reading by candle light. Yeah,
Speaker 1: college was no fun, and so it's not so surprising
Speaker 1: that fraternity spread like wildfire after Cap Alpha was founded.
Speaker 1: So by the time the Civil War breaks out, there
Speaker 1: were twenty two different fraternities with two D ninety nine
Speaker 1: chapters at seventy one colleges in twenty five states. And remember,
Speaker 1: at this time, college enrollment again limited to white upper
Speaker 1: class men, and a lot of white fraternity specifically excluded
Speaker 1: non white, non Protestant groups, including Jews, Catholics, blacks, and
Speaker 1: poor students. And it wasn't until after World War Two,
Speaker 1: with a civil rights movement that white frats really began
Speaker 1: to integrate on a more assistant basis. Right. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen oh six that the first black Greek
Speaker 1: letter organization was founded. It's Alpha Phi Alpha at Cornell.
Speaker 1: And you have to keep in mind the context of
Speaker 1: the time, because only a few years prior, in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, you had the plus e versus Ferguson ruling,
Speaker 1: which basically upheld segregation by saying that separate but equal
Speaker 1: was okay. And these Cornell students at the time didn't
Speaker 1: even have access to student housing, university, public facilities, organized athletics,
Speaker 1: or the existing white social groups. So they had to
Speaker 1: carve out their own space. Yeah, and the founding of
Speaker 1: Black Greek Letter Organizations UM as they're referred to it
Speaker 1: stands in such contrast to white fraternities, which are often
Speaker 1: founded on the basis of exclusion, whereas black fraternities were
Speaker 1: more founded on the basis of inclusion. If you look
Speaker 1: at the charters of black fraternities, you don't have those
Speaker 1: exclusionary like no Jews allowed by laws written into it
Speaker 1: in the same way that some white fraternities had. And
Speaker 1: so some of the motivations for organizing Alpha Phi Alpha
Speaker 1: and the in the earliest Black Greek letter organizations UM
Speaker 1: were two main things. The tradition of quote organizing for
Speaker 1: the good of the race as modeled by their parents
Speaker 1: generation and those before them. Because you got to remember
Speaker 1: this is in nineteen o six Alphai Office founded, and
Speaker 1: so their parents and their grandparents would likely have been
Speaker 1: involved in the abolition movement. So, for instance, they would
Speaker 1: have been following in the example of Prince Hall and
Speaker 1: Richard Allen, who established their own Masonic lodge in Church
Speaker 1: a century prior, since African Americans were excluded from the
Speaker 1: white establishment. Essentially, they were like, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: if we aren't allowed into these groups, then we will
Speaker 1: organize on our own and uplift ourselves. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: whole issue of of racial pride was definitely strongly tied
Speaker 1: into these early organizations and the idea of service, so
Speaker 1: helping helping their own community as well. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: have the founding of the National Pan Hellenic Council for
Speaker 1: the Divine Nine, and the Divine nine refers to the
Speaker 1: first five Black fraternities, in the first four Black sororities.
Speaker 1: So in a similar way as you see that the
Speaker 1: quick growth of traditionally white fraternities, there's also quick growth
Speaker 1: among black Greek letter organizations as well. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean these are support whatever kind of support. These are
Speaker 1: support type organizations, you know, where you're you're banning together
Speaker 1: with people who were like you and you're helping lift
Speaker 1: each other up. Well. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: the scholar pointed out about the founding of those groups
Speaker 1: is that it was literally a tool of survival for
Speaker 1: those earliest black students at Cornell and other colleges that
Speaker 1: were admitting black students at the time because they were
Speaker 1: facing so much overwhelming discrimine nation. Absolutely, and you know,
Speaker 1: so when you think back to very very early white fraternities,
Speaker 1: you think of like people like my great uncle, who
Speaker 1: you know, were incredibly bored at Dartmouth. Really kind of
Speaker 1: white fraternities have actually always been trouble. They've always sort
Speaker 1: of been a thorn in the side of school administrators.
Speaker 1: And this didn't start with Animal House, which BT dubs
Speaker 1: was inspired by fraternities at Dartmouth. Yeah, between seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: six and eighteen sixty, Nicolas Siret points out that not
Speaker 1: one of the New England colleges was without some form
Speaker 1: of revolt. You had situations where students, male students, because
Speaker 1: it was really only guys in college of a time,
Speaker 1: male students were physically attacking faculty members because they were
Speaker 1: essentially revolting against the strict standards that the colleges were
Speaker 1: trying to enforce and saying like, no, we're not going
Speaker 1: to deal with this. And college and the Shares weren't
Speaker 1: huge fans of fraternities because, uh they a lot of
Speaker 1: them deliberately flouted college rules that were banning them and
Speaker 1: so they became an early means by which students were
Speaker 1: asserting their independence, and things like hazing, defying the rules
Speaker 1: and of course being exclusionary happened from the get go.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if you look in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, you have freshmen students being
Speaker 1: forced by older fraternity members to carry their books around
Speaker 1: campus or they would One common hazing prank they would
Speaker 1: pull would be smoking freshmen out of their rooms. They
Speaker 1: would essentially like lock their doors from the outside I guess,
Speaker 1: and then put like light smoke under the door so
Speaker 1: that they would have to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: out of their rooms somehow. Well, so hazing is still
Speaker 1: common obviously, which we'll talk about up. But one thing
Speaker 1: that's not as common anymore as traditions like glee club
Speaker 1: style singing and group crooning to woo women on campus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one highlight among what we typically think of
Speaker 1: in our more modern animal house era of fraternities with
Speaker 1: that includes a lot of extreme hazing and uh drinking
Speaker 1: to excess. But if you look at the golden era,
Speaker 1: perhaps would you call the golden era, I don't know,
Speaker 1: of fraternities, there was a lot of that. There was
Speaker 1: some cheese factor to it um where they would go
Speaker 1: around and sing, which reminds me of the movie Pitch Perfect,
Speaker 1: in which you have the glee clubs out on campus
Speaker 1: singing to impress women. And we'd laugh at that now,
Speaker 1: but old school frat boys that is what they would do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there was one article that spoke with a
Speaker 1: guy who had been in a fraternity in the fifties,
Speaker 1: I think, and who was saying that, you know, I
Speaker 1: just wasn't like that, you know, I wore a suit
Speaker 1: and tied at dinner, and I asked women out on dates.
Speaker 1: And well, and they did in those earlier days to
Speaker 1: still have a focus, a stronger focus on the literary tradition,
Speaker 1: on oratory, on decorum, and on crooning. That's right now.
Speaker 1: Black fraternities also took on the singing tradition as well,
Speaker 1: but they also stepped it up a notch. And that
Speaker 1: is a bit of a pun, uh, because, particularly in
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, you have the rise of doo
Speaker 1: wop groups who are not only singing songs that they're
Speaker 1: also doing some choreographed moves along with it. And so
Speaker 1: black fraternity members started integrating dance into their on campus singing,
Speaker 1: which then evolved into the stepping tradition that you see
Speaker 1: thriving on campuses today, which if you haven't been to
Speaker 1: a step show just you can YouTube, and you should.
Speaker 1: It's definitely worth watching because essentially it's um using your
Speaker 1: body as a rhythm instrument. Is that a weird way
Speaker 1: of explaining it? Now, it's it's fascinating, it's awesome, it's
Speaker 1: incredible that they can do this. I have no rhythm,
Speaker 1: so I would not be able to participate. But now
Speaker 1: we have to move away from just the glory days
Speaker 1: of crooning and and well, stepping still happens. But moving
Speaker 1: into the discussion on contemporary fraternities, this is where the
Speaker 1: conversation gets a little bit diceier, because, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: fraternities have historically been sort of thorns in the sides
Speaker 1: of college administrators. Watch any comedy from the eighties about
Speaker 1: fraternity members and you'll see it in action. Because as
Speaker 1: we mentioned, fraternities have historically been thorns in the sides
Speaker 1: of college administrators. And while yes, let us go ahead
Speaker 1: and acknowledge that fraternities do service projects to enrich their
Speaker 1: community ease and they are, you know, some focused on
Speaker 1: helping guys you know, succeed academically and network to get
Speaker 1: jobs outside of college. There are some problematic issues, not
Speaker 1: surprisingly with fraternities. But first let's just talk about the
Speaker 1: structure of contemporary frats, right. So in four fraternities created
Speaker 1: the Fraternity Risk Management Trust, and this this had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with insurance, right, like dealing with the
Speaker 1: actual physical risks that came with being in a fraternity.
Speaker 1: And now nowadays thirty two fraternities belong to the trust.
Speaker 1: You also have the North American Interfraternity Conference, which I've
Speaker 1: seen described as bipartisan, which is very telling because, as
Speaker 1: we'll talk about, fraternities and sororities have a lot of
Speaker 1: pull in Congress and whatnot. But it counts seventy four
Speaker 1: national and international fraternities that members comprising three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand individuals. Yeah, there's not actually a clearing
Speaker 1: house for fraternity statistics. There's nobody who's going to tell
Speaker 1: you down to the number how many fraternity members there are.
Speaker 1: Um because they don't operate within the school structure. The
Speaker 1: fraternities essentially are part of a giant or not giant necessarily,
Speaker 1: but they're part of a corporation. Yeah, but there are
Speaker 1: plenty of schools out there who do not have fraternities
Speaker 1: or have gotten rid of them or replace them with
Speaker 1: co ed social house groups. Their schools like Notre Dame
Speaker 1: Rice and Vassar who have no Greek system, UH, schools
Speaker 1: like Brandi's, Harvard and Georgetown as well. There are schools
Speaker 1: that have off campus fraternities and schools that just simply
Speaker 1: don't recognize them whatsoever. And while I wish that we
Speaker 1: could spend the rest of this podcast extolling the virtues
Speaker 1: of fraternities, because there are plenty um there. If you
Speaker 1: talk to guys who have been in fraternities, they I'm
Speaker 1: sure all have like hilarious stories to tell and talk
Speaker 1: about the bonds of brotherhood and the friendships that they
Speaker 1: have forged and how they might have helped them out
Speaker 1: academically or professionally. But unfortunately, when you talk about fraternities today,
Speaker 1: what you're typically talking about, first off, is issues of drinking,
Speaker 1: because sororities and sorority houses are almost always dry. You
Speaker 1: don't proper sorority women do not drink in their house. Well,
Speaker 1: at least you know openly um. But that means that
Speaker 1: the a lot of the drinking happens over at fraternities.
Speaker 1: And part of why that shift happened was because in
Speaker 1: the National Minimum Drinking Age Act pushed partying to frat
Speaker 1: houses because it raised the drinking age from across the
Speaker 1: nation from eighteen to twenty one. So we're freshmen gonna
Speaker 1: drink if they can't go to a bar, if they
Speaker 1: don't have a fake I T right, they're going to
Speaker 1: go to the house. Well, it's funny that. What's not funny,
Speaker 1: but it's funny that there's this risk management policy that
Speaker 1: was drafted in the mid nineteen eighties that basically dictated
Speaker 1: how drinking is supposed to happen or not happen, how
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be handled in fraternity houses. But it
Speaker 1: essentially doesn't. It didn't really stick. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's all these rules and guidelines for how it's supposed
Speaker 1: to happen, but I mean, I can't say that it
Speaker 1: really has an effect. Yeah, I mean, anyone from the
Speaker 1: North American Intro Fraternity Conference who is listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast right now would quickly write us and say that
Speaker 1: absolutely this first management policy is very much in effect,
Speaker 1: because these are the rules by which fraternity members can
Speaker 1: drink in a house, and it involves students who are
Speaker 1: twenty one enough being allowed to bring at most a
Speaker 1: six pack of beer or a four pack of wine
Speaker 1: coolers that they then will when when they arrive at
Speaker 1: the house, they have to go to a sober checkpoint
Speaker 1: and talk to a ober monitor, and the sober monitor
Speaker 1: will ask the person if he's been drinking, and if so,
Speaker 1: he has to hand over his I D. And then
Speaker 1: he also gets a wristband for that six pack. The
Speaker 1: six pack is then taken from him and put I
Speaker 1: guess into a magical refrigerator and then they can go
Speaker 1: have their fun and he can retrieve via sober checkpoint
Speaker 1: one of his beers, you know, as he needs to
Speaker 1: refill until his six pack is gone and then the
Speaker 1: party's over. Well guess what, that probably never happens because
Speaker 1: those sober monitors are also fraternity brothers, and fraternity brothers
Speaker 1: probably a lot of times when they want to have
Speaker 1: a party, um there, they're going to bring more than
Speaker 1: a six pack. Yeah, and so we you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of depressing statistics around drinking and fraternity's.
Speaker 1: For instance, since two thousand five, fifty nine students have
Speaker 1: died and incidents involving fraternities, about half of them being
Speaker 1: alcohol related. It's it's a big deal. And a two
Speaker 1: thousand one study coined the term Greek effect to denote
Speaker 1: the strong correlation between fraternity affiliation and drinking. And it's
Speaker 1: not just limited to fraternities. There is just as much
Speaker 1: research on the connections between drinking and sorority members as well.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times the extent of the drinking
Speaker 1: is even more severe for guys with frat affiliations. And
Speaker 1: this is just a quote from a two thousand nine
Speaker 1: study that really drives home how much of an issue
Speaker 1: this is. Quote. Virtually every study of drinking in college
Speaker 1: shows fraternity members tend to drink more heavily and more
Speaker 1: frequently and to have more alcohol related problems than their
Speaker 1: fellow students. Virtually every study, and folks, I can tell
Speaker 1: you from researching for this episode, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of studies and when it comes to hallmarks of fraternity life,
Speaker 1: of course here's a drinking, but there's also the issue
Speaker 1: of hazing. Well, So first of all, we should say
Speaker 1: that hazing is illegal in forty four states. And no,
Speaker 1: it is not limited to fraternities. Hazing happens and a
Speaker 1: lot of different types of groups on college campuses, whether
Speaker 1: you're an athlete, etcetera, etcetera. But we should point out
Speaker 1: instances like in a University of Tennessee fraternity was suspended
Speaker 1: for making pledges pour hot sauce on their penises. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the kind of stuff that happens,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's almost laughable to think of
Speaker 1: guys being told to pour hot sauce on their penises
Speaker 1: and then actually doing it. Um. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of fraternity members defend this kind of hazing because
Speaker 1: they had to do it, and it bonds them together
Speaker 1: and it gives them stories to tell. But there are
Speaker 1: also been instances of life threatening hazing, such as I
Speaker 1: and I don't have the college or the frat in
Speaker 1: front of me, but there was an incident of guys
Speaker 1: being made to stand naked in trash cans filled with
Speaker 1: ice like that can that can kill you, and people
Speaker 1: have died. As of March. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, dubbed by
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News the deadliest frat, ended up banning pledging all
Speaker 1: together because of nine fatalities that had happened across its
Speaker 1: fraternity chapters in recent years, some of which were related
Speaker 1: to hazing. Because along with this kind of hazing behavior
Speaker 1: of you know, from pouring hot sauce on your scrotum
Speaker 1: to having to stand naked in a thing of ice water,
Speaker 1: A lot of this is happening while drinking is going on.
Speaker 1: So as you can imagine, if you're already engaging in
Speaker 1: risky behavior, Dauset and some Jack Daniels and you have
Speaker 1: a recipe in some cases for death. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: what's kind of crazy to me is that there's this
Speaker 1: group that actively lobbies against legislation that would make it
Speaker 1: make hazing penalties even worse. They're called frat Pack, which whatever,
Speaker 1: but they're political action committee who actively lobbies the nearly
Speaker 1: forty senators and more than one hundred House of Representative
Speaker 1: members who were in fraternities and sororities to fend off
Speaker 1: this anti hazing and anti Greek or what they think
Speaker 1: of as anti Greek legislation. Yeah. I mean, it's so
Speaker 1: common for our politicians to have had some kind of
Speaker 1: Greek association. Frat Pack is pretty successful in their lobbying,
Speaker 1: because once people are in fraternities and sororities, they do
Speaker 1: tend to have very strong ties and just basic fondness
Speaker 1: for the Greek system. And it helps too that frat Pack,
Speaker 1: for instance, has hundreds of thousands of dollars at its
Speaker 1: disposal that it has donated to Greek friendly politicians. So
Speaker 1: while there I don't think there's any fraternity out there
Speaker 1: that would endorse violent hazing. I mean, I think hazing
Speaker 1: is something that definitely still goes on, even though it is,
Speaker 1: like you said, illegal in forty four states, and the
Speaker 1: powers that be absolutely you know, publicly say that it
Speaker 1: should not happen, but there is the fact that it's
Speaker 1: still persistent. There are questions as to whether or not
Speaker 1: other fraternities should also follow in say Es footsteps and
Speaker 1: banning pledging altogether, because that's the period of time pledging
Speaker 1: is when they initiate new members. And so perhaps if
Speaker 1: you get rid of pledge and make it less exclusionary,
Speaker 1: then maybe you could make it is safer environment for
Speaker 1: guys to join, and then you can actually have more
Speaker 1: focused on the kind of ideals that fraternity's ostensibly uphold,
Speaker 1: such as being a good citizen, being a gentleman, being
Speaker 1: a good guy, being a successful scholar and member of
Speaker 1: the world at large. But there's usually a lot of
Speaker 1: resistance to that, and drinking and hazing ng are not
Speaker 1: the only potential downsides to what happens when you are
Speaker 1: exclusionary and keep a lot of things happening behind closed
Speaker 1: doors and in secret. So yeah, I mean, speaking of
Speaker 1: being exclusive and exclusionary, there's a fascinating discussion that goes
Speaker 1: on in Nicholas Cyrit's book about that very topic and
Speaker 1: the fact that this exclusionary attitude and behavior focuses and
Speaker 1: centers around masculinity. And and you know, as we've talked
Speaker 1: about before on the podcast, you know, issues of ideas
Speaker 1: and ideals of masculinity have definitely changed over the centuries.
Speaker 1: What it means to be a friend has changed, how
Speaker 1: you exhibit your masculinity. But what hasn't changed is that
Speaker 1: in a group like a fraternity, you're sort of apart
Speaker 1: from the quote unquote other, and you're trying very hard,
Speaker 1: typically in this situation, to exhibit your masculinity, improve yourself,
Speaker 1: to be a true guy. And so when you have
Speaker 1: things that are occurring in society, like the women's movement,
Speaker 1: like gay rights movements, you have the standards of masculinity
Speaker 1: changing to kind of respond to that. So if you
Speaker 1: know women are gaining more rights, well women are women
Speaker 1: and I'm a real man. And if if gay people
Speaker 1: are gaining more rights, well ah, oh, that's you know,
Speaker 1: gay people are not real men either. So there's really
Speaker 1: interesting discussions going on about masculinity and exclusion and who
Speaker 1: is being excluded. Yeah, and this is something that Cyrate
Speaker 1: traces back to when you start to see more of
Speaker 1: the rise of homophobia at the same time to the
Speaker 1: rise of women's rights. And one quote from his book
Speaker 1: that jumped out was, quote fraternal manliness, originated around class status,
Speaker 1: had begun to encompass whiteness and Protestantism by the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, and by the post World War two
Speaker 1: period were anchored in the performance of an aggressive heterosexuality.
Speaker 1: And so, sir, it posits that it is that pursuit
Speaker 1: of quote aggressive heterosexuality, which is where we see in
Speaker 1: fraternity's traditions of homophobia, because if you're living in a
Speaker 1: house in close quarters with all these dudes, well you
Speaker 1: need to prove that you're not gay. And also from
Speaker 1: there too, issues that fraternities that have had with sexual assault.
Speaker 1: So first let's talk about homophobia, because this is an
Speaker 1: area where things have stayed the same, but things have
Speaker 1: also gotten better in terms of LGBT inclusion. In Night six,
Speaker 1: for instance, Delta Lambda five became the first national social
Speaker 1: fraternity for gay, bisexual and straight progressive men, and then
Speaker 1: in n you have Alpha Lambda Tau becoming the second
Speaker 1: right and in between there in nineteen, the LAMB to
Speaker 1: ten Project, national clearinghouse for gay, lesbian, bisexual, fraternity and
Speaker 1: sorority issues was founded. UM. And the experience of gay
Speaker 1: Greeks basically depends on the organization, and typically it has
Speaker 1: been easier, they say, to rush as like a closeted
Speaker 1: person and then gradually come out once you've made these relationships. UM.
Speaker 1: And this is coming from a great article over at
Speaker 1: campus Pride dot org by Shane l Winmeyer and George Miller,
Speaker 1: and they started talked about how in more Maine dream
Speaker 1: legacy fraternities like say a Kappa Alpha. UM, it's perhaps
Speaker 1: getting better and more inclusive for openly gay guys to
Speaker 1: want to rush, but it's still nonetheless a liability if
Speaker 1: you want to guarantee your chances or improve at least
Speaker 1: to your chances of getting in, then you might not
Speaker 1: want to let everybody know that you are gay. Um.
Speaker 1: Any they write that less than ten percent of fraternities
Speaker 1: have added non discrimination in their by laws, essentially saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we're not going to not consider you for membership if
Speaker 1: we know that you're gay. Um. But one positive anecdote
Speaker 1: from this, Uh, friends of mine who actually just got
Speaker 1: married a couple of months ago to guys met at
Speaker 1: their college fraternity. I think, I mean, I think they
Speaker 1: were like both open and out at that, but I
Speaker 1: think they were just also at like a more progressive
Speaker 1: college obviously in a more progressive fraternity. That's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what that was My next question, like, did they go
Speaker 1: to school at like a big Southern like big Southern
Speaker 1: school with a big Greek system or did they go
Speaker 1: to more progressive they were in, uh, like Northeast, so
Speaker 1: more more progressive. Absolutely. Um. But this issue too of
Speaker 1: homophobia is something that has been talked about a lot
Speaker 1: lately by scholars looking more specifically at black Greek letter organizations. Um.
Speaker 1: It being gay is something that is rarely discussed. Gregory
Speaker 1: s Park Wake Forest law professor writing about this, says, Um,
Speaker 1: he talks about how influences of masculinity, constructs and stereotyping
Speaker 1: has really forced any semblance of being gay into the closet,
Speaker 1: particularly in black fraternities, even more so somethink than white fraternities. Interesting, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of black fraternities and other issues that
Speaker 1: a lot fraternity's grapple with. Rishawn Ray, in his book
Speaker 1: Sophisticated Practitioners Black Fraternity Men's Treatment of Women points out
Speaker 1: that black fraternity men typically tend to treat women more
Speaker 1: respectfully than white fraternity men and other black men. Why
Speaker 1: he says? He says, it's due to the socialization process
Speaker 1: that black fraternity men normally undergo to be members of
Speaker 1: that organization. So what's up with that? Yeah? Um. And
Speaker 1: Ray's also one who's looked into that issue of homophobia
Speaker 1: in black fraternities as well, and he refers to their
Speaker 1: treatment towards women as being sophisticated practitioners. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: they are balancing a higher accountability that they are held
Speaker 1: to while still leveraging their fraternity status to achieve sexual goals.
Speaker 1: So he references a two thousand ten study um which
Speaker 1: concluded that do to the small size of the black community,
Speaker 1: particularly at predominantly white institutions, they hold black fraternity men
Speaker 1: more accountable for their treatment of women in a way
Speaker 1: that the larger white community does not for white fraternity men.
Speaker 1: And there is a lot in the socialization process of
Speaker 1: black fraternity men. There is and has historically been a
Speaker 1: lot of focus on being exemplary members of their community
Speaker 1: because they are well aware of the fact that a
Speaker 1: lot of stereotypes exists regarding how black men, particularly treat
Speaker 1: white women, for instance, a lot of racist undertones to
Speaker 1: how society sees them at large in that way. And
Speaker 1: so it's like they are they're aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that anything that they do to feed into that stereotype
Speaker 1: will only harm the community at large, and so for
Speaker 1: that reason, they tend to be more factful of women.
Speaker 1: Even when it comes to just their dating approach, they
Speaker 1: are likelier to take a romantic dating approach if they
Speaker 1: want to go out with women compared to just a
Speaker 1: straight up sexual approach. Yeah, and I mean speaking of
Speaker 1: a sexual approach. Nicholas Syrett talks a lot about this
Speaker 1: in his book as well, talking about how traditional white
Speaker 1: fraternity culture sort of facilitates and almost encourages sexually aggressive
Speaker 1: and misogynistic behavior, and this includes sexual assault. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a part of the podcast that I was least
Speaker 1: looking forward to getting to because and it's I'm sure
Speaker 1: no surprise whatsoever to anyone listening, because it's talked about
Speaker 1: so much now. I feel like any time we get
Speaker 1: to this time of year when there is pledging happening,
Speaker 1: you have the first big parties of the year on
Speaker 1: college campuses, and almost inevitably there are sexual assault allegations
Speaker 1: that come out um of of things happening, particularly at
Speaker 1: fraternity houses. And we are not trying to assert that
Speaker 1: all fraternity members are simply, you know, just rapists in waiting,
Speaker 1: but rather that it is issues of the fraternity culture
Speaker 1: and environment and the way that activities at fraternity houses
Speaker 1: sometimes and this is also not all fraternities obviously, but
Speaker 1: sometimes flout the rules of conduct that, like you said,
Speaker 1: almost encourage these kinds of things to happen. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's what we've mentioned. It's that active heterosexuality that
Speaker 1: almost like reactive masculinity about reacting to women, reacting to
Speaker 1: gaze on campus and being like no, we are we
Speaker 1: are other than that, we are different where men, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to prove our masculinity somehow, And so then
Speaker 1: that just includes when you're in a house full of dudes,
Speaker 1: not only you trying to prove that you're not gay
Speaker 1: because you live with a bunch of guys, but you're
Speaker 1: trying to make all these sexual conquests to prove how
Speaker 1: straight you are. Yeah, I mean, I think it's also
Speaker 1: issues with the status and privilege that has conferred upon
Speaker 1: fraternity members, because even still, I think at least in
Speaker 1: the context of larger college campuses where fraternity guys in
Speaker 1: the same way with you know, women who are members
Speaker 1: of sororities do tend to come from more privileged than
Speaker 1: affluent backgrounds. You know, they have enjoyed levels of socio
Speaker 1: economic privilege for a while. And I think that that
Speaker 1: kind of combines with a fraternity atmosphere that um that
Speaker 1: just again sort of sets up this dangerous environment. And
Speaker 1: there are the study after study after study talks about
Speaker 1: this and what We'll get into those study findings in
Speaker 1: just a second. But I just remember being in college
Speaker 1: and how any time a like Caroline and I both
Speaker 1: worked at our student newspaper, and almost any time a
Speaker 1: young woman went to the campus police to specifically report
Speaker 1: a rape that happened at a fraternity house, the immediate
Speaker 1: response from the Greek community was to banned together and
Speaker 1: blame her. And it was it was just so it
Speaker 1: was always so disheartening and so toxic to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's rape culture at work right there,
Speaker 1: as far as blaming the victim for being in the
Speaker 1: wrong place at the wrong time and not staying sober
Speaker 1: enough or not staying vigilant enough, when really we should
Speaker 1: be talking about not raping instead of not being raped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so just for a few study findings, mean we could
Speaker 1: go from all the way up into the two thousands.
Speaker 1: There has been so much research done on this um.
Speaker 1: One startling statistic found that between nineteen eighty and nine
Speaker 1: nine frat members committed fifty cent of gang rapes reported
Speaker 1: on college campuses. There have also been a number of
Speaker 1: study findings that fraternity members tend to have more rape
Speaker 1: supportive attitudes and tend to be more sexually coercive. Right,
Speaker 1: and that ties in with nineteen study findings that fraternity
Speaker 1: men believe that are are more likely to believe that
Speaker 1: women enjoy being physically roughed up, they are more likely
Speaker 1: to believe that women secretly want to be raped. And
Speaker 1: for a more recent statistic, there is a two thousand
Speaker 1: one report by the National Institute of Justice which found
Speaker 1: that about ten percent of sexual assaults reported on college
Speaker 1: campuses take place in fraternity houses. Um so, and we
Speaker 1: could honestly go on and on and on, and there
Speaker 1: are now a lot of college administrators wondering, well, Okay,
Speaker 1: should we just shut down the fraternity system. A lot
Speaker 1: of times that seems like an impossible option because fraternitys,
Speaker 1: even though they are not affiliated directly with uh the
Speaker 1: universities or colleges, they are massively powerful in terms of
Speaker 1: donor money. Well, what I found so interesting in Cyrate's
Speaker 1: book was a discussion of those colleges, and they are
Speaker 1: a bunch of articles about this too, about colleges that
Speaker 1: have banned fraternities and sororities, in the effect that that had,
Speaker 1: and that the actual once the college made the decision
Speaker 1: to do it, the actual um lashing out and an
Speaker 1: anger that was expressed by these organizations was really kind
Speaker 1: of relatively short lived. And they quoted former vice president
Speaker 1: for development at Colby than Colby is a school that
Speaker 1: got rid of the Greek system. He said, life is
Speaker 1: much better. Women can go wherever they want to go.
Speaker 1: The social life at Colby is much healthier than it
Speaker 1: used to be. And I thought that was a really
Speaker 1: interesting um note that he made. And when I read
Speaker 1: the comments on that are article. Obviously I won't quote
Speaker 1: them because some of them are rather ugly, but the
Speaker 1: general feeling among them was, Hey, guys, live and let live.
Speaker 1: Why can't you let us have our fraternities and sororities
Speaker 1: and then you go about doing whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1: Nobody said you have to join them, Just let us
Speaker 1: have our thing. And my reaction to that, my gut
Speaker 1: reaction to that, was like, how how a lot of
Speaker 1: these people are not being able to put themselves in
Speaker 1: other people's shoes. The fact that oftentimes you have this
Speaker 1: exclusionary lifestyle that's based on this active heterosexuality and this
Speaker 1: active masculinity, and that those people then go out and
Speaker 1: end up in positions of power and society. Um, it
Speaker 1: just made me think that it's so easy for a
Speaker 1: lot of times in any situation, not just talking about fraternities,
Speaker 1: but how easy it is for guys to forget to
Speaker 1: put themselves in the shoes of others, whether the other
Speaker 1: is a woman, a gay person, a black person, or
Speaker 1: maybe that they're just not willing to do that, And
Speaker 1: so they these commenters were talking a lot about how
Speaker 1: um their lifestyle was being affected. But when that lifestyle
Speaker 1: centers on drinking, and that drinking can lead to violence,
Speaker 1: and that violence can lead to sexual assault, I'm just wondering, like,
Speaker 1: is the lifestyle worth having at the expense of your peers.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that the solution is to just
Speaker 1: shut down fraternities, because there are, at least again speaking
Speaker 1: anecdotally in college, there were just as many women who
Speaker 1: stood up for their fraternity brothers to sledge, shame and
Speaker 1: victim blame women who would come forward. There is as much,
Speaker 1: you know, problematic drinking that's also happening in other people's
Speaker 1: houses and in other settings. It's almost though that fraternity
Speaker 1: houses can become this incubator when allowed to. And I
Speaker 1: just wonder what it is because it seems like there's
Speaker 1: always in stories like this, there's always like a problematic
Speaker 1: how it's not the entire Greek system, it's specifically one
Speaker 1: house on campus, like the case there's this horrifying case
Speaker 1: at Wesleyan where there was this one off campus fraternity
Speaker 1: house it wasn't even sanctioned by the school where there
Speaker 1: were two separate incidents of sexual assaults being reported, and
Speaker 1: there was something about that house and what was going
Speaker 1: on in there, and it's like you have to it's
Speaker 1: deeper and feel like this issue is so much deeper
Speaker 1: than just burning Kappa Alpha to the ground, but rather
Speaker 1: looking at what is going on in those problem houses
Speaker 1: because I just don't it's not I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's almost too easy to say we'll just
Speaker 1: shut everything down because we're eighteen years old and we're
Speaker 1: going to find a way to like get together and
Speaker 1: revolt against authority and drink. We've been doing it since seventeen. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they will continue to in general, kids kid well,
Speaker 1: will continue to to be riff raff and drink and
Speaker 1: be responsible about certain things. But the fact is so
Speaker 1: many of these college presidents or vps of administration, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and and women that were interviewed in these articles were
Speaker 1: like you would not believe, how better, how much better
Speaker 1: the culture is on campus the overall culture, not just
Speaker 1: talking about sexual harassment or anything like that. You're a woman,
Speaker 1: you can't even walk past this house because you'll get
Speaker 1: cat called and have obscene things screamed to you. But
Speaker 1: just an overall culture that is maybe more one of
Speaker 1: acceptance overall. Once the Greek system is either marginalized and
Speaker 1: minimized or done away with, well, and it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unfortunate too, because there are upsides, as we've mentioned,
Speaker 1: to Greek affiliations. I mean, Greek affiliated students tend to
Speaker 1: have higher graduation rates. They tend to be generous donors,
Speaker 1: which can then possibly improve school. Um, you know, they
Speaker 1: it is a powerful network professionally for not just fraternity
Speaker 1: members but also sorority members. Um. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: just I'm really curious to hear from people listening who
Speaker 1: have been in fraternities and or sororities on this, because
Speaker 1: I feel like anytime this comes up, there's always a
Speaker 1: counter argument of that's just a couple of you know,
Speaker 1: rotten apples in the barrel. We can't there there were
Speaker 1: so many there's so many good things about this the
Speaker 1: outweigh the bad things. So I wonder from an inside
Speaker 1: perspective then, because neither you or I were in a sorority,
Speaker 1: nor were we in a fraternity. I was, although well
Speaker 1: you were in a co ed honor fraternity, not the
Speaker 1: same thing. Although I have been, I've been in fraternity houses.
Speaker 1: I was in fraternity houses in my college career, And
Speaker 1: I would like to know from an inside perspective, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you leverage those two things? And
Speaker 1: because it can't, the excuse of just it's a couple
Speaker 1: of bad apples isn't flying anymore. It's like, no, really,
Speaker 1: how how do you could? I mean, do you just
Speaker 1: continue to make excuses for it? Or can you acknowledge
Speaker 1: the fact that something happens, something goes terribly wrong in
Speaker 1: certain houses sometimes and it continues to And why why
Speaker 1: isn't it stopped? Why aren't there better examples? Why aren't
Speaker 1: guys stopping other guys from this kind of behavior? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the whole the whole discussion that you and
Speaker 1: I have talked about before of saying boys will be boys,
Speaker 1: but on a massive scale, massive nationwide, college wide scale. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely it certainly ties in with drinking. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a tough one. It is a tough one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, my my brother and my father and so
Speaker 1: many men and my family before them were in fraternities
Speaker 1: and really really loved the experience. But I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that my brother at the University of Georgia in
Speaker 1: a fraternity had a different experience than my great great
Speaker 1: great great uncle at Dartmouth. Yeah, well, he was probably
Speaker 1: not writing by candle light. And um my, yeah, And
Speaker 1: and my great uncle George had a mustache. Fancy mustache.
Speaker 1: I want to see that mustache. He's yes, snapping, smashing
Speaker 1: young men. Well, at this point, we want to turn
Speaker 1: it over to you listeners. We really want to hear
Speaker 1: from you on this issue because it's something that is
Speaker 1: talked about so often in the media. It is an
Speaker 1: issue that by no means is going away anytime soon.
Speaker 1: And absolutely if you're a college student or if you
Speaker 1: are an alumnus of a Greek organization, we especially want
Speaker 1: to hear from you on this. Mom Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com is where you can send us
Speaker 1: your letters. You can also message us on Facebook or
Speaker 1: tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, and we have a
Speaker 1: couple of messages to share with you right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Peter in response to
Speaker 1: our Women in Tennis episode during which we discussed the
Speaker 1: issue of grunting, to which Peter says no. He says,
Speaker 1: speaking as a fan and a player, grunting by either
Speaker 1: sex is just plain annoying and distracting. I would totally
Speaker 1: be in favor of a loosely enforced, outright ban on
Speaker 1: continuous rally grunting my terminology nothing official. I understand that
Speaker 1: here and there people let one fly after a long rally,
Speaker 1: a big stretch shot out of frustration, but it is
Speaker 1: completely unnecessary to grunt over and over and over after
Speaker 1: all shots. That was in all caps. By the way,
Speaker 1: Get two grunters together and O MG, you might say
Speaker 1: you did. Who cares well? I do. If I turn
Speaker 1: a match on TV and I hear too much grunting,
Speaker 1: I turn it off. It distracts me from everything I enjoy,
Speaker 1: from the fast footwork and positioning to that beautiful ball placement.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, it is the ladies who grunt more in
Speaker 1: my watching as are is all. I tend to watch
Speaker 1: more men's tennis. If you would like, I could now
Speaker 1: do my impersonation of a sellus Sabbatini match circle ninety three.
Speaker 1: It is the first instance of incessant grunting I recall,
Speaker 1: and it is burned into my mind. I am all
Speaker 1: for women playing five sets, equal paychecks for both sexes,
Speaker 1: and for all men, women, transgender people, exceptionally skilled chimps
Speaker 1: with rackets. Everyone to chill out on the grunting, all right,
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you really feel Peter. Peter not a
Speaker 1: fan of the grunting, so thank you for that letter.
Speaker 1: I still think grunting helps me on the court. And
Speaker 1: if you ever see a game of chimpanzees playing tennis,
Speaker 1: let me know, because I need to see that they're
Speaker 1: probably more coordinated than I am. Well, I have a
Speaker 1: letter here from Megan, and it is a podcast topic
Speaker 1: request that I wanted to read to the Sminty community
Speaker 1: at large to see if you all would like to
Speaker 1: hear this podcast. She writes, amidst all this hubbub about
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision on Monday. She's referring to the
Speaker 1: hobby lobby birth control court case. She says, I got
Speaker 1: a chance to read some of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's response
Speaker 1: to it, and it struck me that I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: you've never done a podcast about her. You are correct, Megan,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot to say about her, So
Speaker 1: here I am requesting it. So, folks, would you like
Speaker 1: to hear an episode on the notorious RBG Let us
Speaker 1: know you can. You can just tweet us or something
Speaker 1: mom at mom Stuff podcast for that one, just just
Speaker 1: shoot a Slottle note. And if folks want to hear
Speaker 1: about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then by all means we will
Speaker 1: talk about her. And if you have podcasts request to
Speaker 1: send our way or have feedback on fraternities and sororities
Speaker 1: and all that jazz, you can email us mom Stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is where your letters
Speaker 1: can go. You can also tweet us again at mom
Speaker 1: stuff podcast or messages on Facebook and for links to
Speaker 1: all of our social media as well as podcasts which
Speaker 1: include our sources so you can follow along. And for
Speaker 1: all of our blogs and videos, there's one place to go,
Speaker 1: and it's stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com