#bamarush – It’s a thing!
And “Y’all” Doesn’t Mean All
My reaction was one of abhorrence and obsession - bordering on behavior reminiscent of voyeurism. I simply could not stop watching. It was redolent of times when I came across the Kardashians while channel surfing. The initial distaste was quickly replaced with a fascination for the absurdity of the situation. Perhaps a term such as “cultural rubbernecking” should be added to the dictionary. And yet, I began to wonder if my negative judgment of things divergent from my own experience was akin to what right-wing “culture warriors” do daily.
One of the luxuries of retirement is that when you encounter something interesting, you can burrow into the rabbit hole without remorse. Unfortunately, I go down way too many rabbit holes, but that is a topic for another day! This particular aperture swiftly widened and engulfed me with videos, books, and articles that have taken weeks to absorb. Now, I emerge with at least an opinion about White sorority culture, which is sure to anger some, intrigue others, and may be useless to many. And to think this all started with me listening to a Slate: Gender and Society podcast, “The Waves: The Bama Rush to Trad Wife Pipeline.”
After listening to the podcast, I started scrolling for the now infamous #bamarush TikToks. Wow, it was like getting hit by a pile of bricks – they just kept coming. Thousands of videos exist of young women in the sorority rush process from across the country, particularly in the South. The University of Alabama sorority rush is legendary, and the women experiencing the process document it in detail. The Outfit of the Day (OOTD) video is prolific. These daily videos explain in excruciating detail, including brands, what clothes, shoes, and jewelry each woman is wearing. Early in the video viewing process, it becomes apparent that rushing is not an inexpensive endeavor – Chanel, David Yurman, Tiffany, and Lily Pulitzer. My initial thoughts were that to be successful, you must have long, preferably blonde tresses, be near anorexic in weight, have acquired a professional spray tan, and have perfect, very white teeth. And it would be best to use “y’all” and “cute” several times in each video.
I should promptly acknowledge that I have no “lived” experience with sororities. As the first college graduate from my extended family, I certainly did not have women who could write the requisite recommendation letters – no legacy existed. My parents would have been appalled had I asked for the necessary fees required of sorority life, much less the purchase of clothes and jewelry. Not that the idea even occurred to me. The enticement of sorority life has always alluded me. I remember, as a freshman, telling someone that I would not participate in the process of buying friends. That was the shallow view of an eighteen-year-old, probably rooted in fear that I would fail miserably at sorority life, as I possessed none of the required traits. However, I am not sure that my opinion today differs significantly from my earlier impressions, but perhaps it is now better rooted in history and facts rather than fear.
Let me be clear, I think women supporting one another can be a powerful force. Some of my proudest professional moments were actualized not by achieving budgeted profit levels but by watching young women that I hired flourish and grow. I continue to receive notes of gratitude from women that I provided an opportunity and, at times, gave a push off the starting line. Helping women find their place in the world does not require an organizational structure. However, organizations can be successful in this endeavor. Black sororities are a prime example. While this essay is not focused on these organizations (coming in a future edition), it is worth noting that Black sororities were conceived and continue to operate differently from White sororities. Unlike their White counterparts, Black sororities have continuously placed future life success ahead of social frivolities. And that makes all the difference—an excellent place to begin our story.
In 1867, four women invaded a small liberal arts college in Indiana – really, they just matriculated, but the level of protest from male students was more akin to an invasion. Asbury College, later DePauw University, would be the birthplace of the modern White sorority movement. It is difficult for us today to fathom the level of vitriol these women were subjected to. The disdain for these women came not just from fellow male students but from faculty, staff, and community citizens. DePauw historian George Manhart wrote, “The town gossips also talked of the immodesty of the college girls, perhaps allowing their ankles to be seen as they ascended the stairs of the college building.” Aghast about publicly exposed ankles, the college and community shunned these four women.
Attempting to embrace the fellowship and support of other women students, Bettie Locke, two years after enrolling and with the help of her father, a professor at Asbury, conceived of the idea of a female fraternity closely mirroring the male fraternities. She quickly approached Alice Allen, a fellow student, to join her effort. The two women embarked on a journey to learn parliamentary procedure to write a constitution and conduct formal meetings. And then began the arduous task of finding other women to join them on the journey. Looking to select only the top female students from the eighteen now enrolled at Asbury, Locke and Allen waited patiently for grades and class ranks before making any decisions. When Hannah Fitch and Bettie Tipton emerged at the top of their class, they were invited to join the other two women. On January 27, 1870, the first female fraternity, Kappa Alpha Theta, was born as Locke, Allen, Fitch, and Tipton exchanged vows of loyalty.
Ok, I know some of you are throwing darts at me now. And yes, two women’s literary societies were started earlier, in 1851, at Wesleyan in Georgia (the nation’s first female college) - the Adelphian Society, later to be Alpha Delta Pi, and the Philomathean Society, later Phi Mu. And yet, these groups were on a female campus (and not dealing with the same issues as at Asbury) and were not explicitly Greek organizations but evolved into them. Literary activities were undoubtedly a cornerstone of these groups, but from the beginning, they were exclusionary organizations dedicated to policing the virtues of Southern women. Bylaws of the Adelphian Society required the president to monitor members and to “be especially attentive to propriety and decorum in all their deportment.” Compared to the bylaws of the Kappa Alpha Theta organization, “It shall be the aim of each member of this chapter not only to continue in the good standing which she had maintained, but to make as good a grade as possible improving on the former.” Propriety and decorum versus improving grades became the battle. Preparing women for marriage or preparing women for careers is the war.
For the next thirty years, most female fraternities focused on academic performance. But two factors converged in the late 1890s and early 1900s, changing female fraternities forever. First, the fear that women could not perform academically on par with male students was finally overcome. Women had been competing with men and excelling. The Kappa Alpha Theta Journal archived the numerous successes of these women: valedictorians, senior orators and historians, salutatorians, student newspaper editors, and class officers. Thus, eliminating the need for women fraternities to focus exclusively on academic performance. Exposed ankles or not, women could compete with men academically.
The second factor was the “race suicide” theory, which gained momentum around 1900. Social commentators G. Stanley Hall and Charles Eliot propagated the theory, but President Theodore Roosevelt spotlighted the concept in an address to Congress in 1905. Diana Turk in her book Bound by a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women’s Fraternities, 1870-1920, explains this concept, “White Anglo-Saxons in America were committing “race suicide” they argued, and none were more to blame than the highly educated, white, middle-and upper-middle class college-educated women who were marrying later and less often than their peers of other classes and races and who were bearing fewer children than their nonwhite, non-Protestant, and foreign-born peers. Unfeminine and self-centered, these women were focusing on their careers and leaving the future leadership of the nation ‘in the hands of immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe whose fertility was quite high, but whose intellect was deemed inferior.” And yes, you are correct; this same argument has been regurgitated today – different immigrants, but the same concept.
Consequently, sororities set out to prove them wrong. No longer hindered by the need to prove their academic prowess, the focus on academics disappeared, and attention turned to social standards for acceptance. As Diana Turk continues, “Whereas the fraternity women of the previous generation had spent their time critiquing one another’s academic and literary productions, the Thetas, Kappas, and Pi Phis of the second generation focused on appearances and social bearings when judging one another and providing instruction and correction.” Sororities made it their mission to prove that higher education for women, contrary to Roosevelt’s remarks, was preparing White women for marriage and to subsume their “proper” role in society. Thus begins the era of rush events and alignment with male fraternities that haunt the modern sorority sisterhood.
For sororities to position themselves as aligned with the “best” fraternities (those with the most promising marriage options), they had to attain the “best” girls. The “best” girls would be socially, economically, racially, and religiously appropriate marriage partners for these men. They are subsequently propagating a culture that is sexist, racist, classist, and not religiously tolerant. Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd explains in her book Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South, “Through successful romance with the right women, the right men would also be delivered.” She explains, “The competition was fierce because the sororities all wanted the same thing. They called it “the package.” Top rushees (about 10 percent of the total) had the GPA, the looks, the activities, the personality, the wardrobe, the poise, the money, the family, and that special oomph capable of sending an entire household of college women over the edge with desire.” One needs only to watch a few #bamarush videos to understand the concept.
Concepts developed over one hundred years ago by sorority women to “snag a husband” continue to be the underlying premise of sororities. Relying on ideas such as “freedom of association,” sororities have successfully remained groups that discriminate based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and class. The outrageous fees associated with belonging to a Greek group force some to jettison the dream. And while few Black women desire to belong to traditionally White sororities, it is worth mentioning that it was not until 2013 that the University of Alabama sororities were forced to integrate. Those rejected by these exclusive organizations must ponder if they were not attractive enough, not the correct race, not wealthy enough, or did not have the right family connections. As women, we can do better – we must do better.
Where does this leave us? I would argue it leaves us with a deeply flawed system of White female sisterhood on most college campuses. And while many of you will counter that your particular sorority experience was not like this, I would ask if you have ever really questioned the underlying principles of sorority exclusivity? Is it to surround yourself with those you want to associate with or, more importantly, to exclude those you don’t? Margaret Freeman, herself affiliated with a Greek organization in college, argues in her book Women of Discriminating Taste: White Sororities and the Making of American Ladyhood, “While the women in my sorority chapter would likely describe themselves as different from ‘typical sorority girls’ and our chapter as ‘not like most sororities,’ we too were part of the larger system…I doubt if many of us considered questioning the deeper history of the organizations or gave too much thought to problematic behaviors the Greek system was perpetuating.”
Maybe it is time to question the deeper history. Maybe it is time to consider the possibility that there is a better way for women to support each other. Maybe it is time to make changes. The first task is to determine whether a better way exists or something must be created. As I end this essay, I will say that after reading much about this history, my opinion remains the same about White sororities, but I also remained committed to the idea that women can and must support women, we need to find a better mechanism.
Until then, remember, our work is not complete until there are nine…
LeAnn
References and Suggested Reading:
Andrew, Scottie. “‘Bama Rush’ Takes Us into the World of Southern Sorority Fashion and Hierarchies.” CNN, 23 May 2023, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/bama-rush-documentary-fashion-cec/index.html.
Boyd, Elizabeth Bronwyn. Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South. The University of Georgia Press, 2022.
Corrigan, Julia. “‘Bama Rush’ Aimed To Expose The Inner Workings Of Greek Life At The University Of Alabama. Here’s Everything It Did And Didn’t Tell Us.” BuzzFeed, 7 June 2023, https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliacorrigan/bama-rush-documentary-recap.
Freeman, Margaret L. Women of Discriminating Taste: White Sororities and the Making of American Ladyhood. The University of Georgia Press, 2020.
Horton, Adrian. “‘Competitive Femininity’: Inside the Wild and Secretive World of Sororities.” The Guardian, 24 May 2023. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/24/alabama-sorority-documentary-hbo.
“It’s Bama Rush Season on TikTok Again. What You Need to Know about the RushTok Phenomenon.” Los Angeles Times, 18 Aug. 2023, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-08-18/bama-rush-tiktok-explained-rushtok-guide-university-of-alabama.
Mercado, Mia. “Here’s What Bama Rush Is Really Like.” The Cut, 23 Aug. 2021, https://www.thecut.com/2021/08/heres-what-bama-rush-is-really-like.html.
Mull, Amanda. “Bama Rush Is a Strange, Sparkly Window Into How America Shops.” The Atlantic, 23 Aug. 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/08/bama-rush-fast-fashion-luxury-american-shopping/675098/.
Murray, Conor. “It’s ‘Bama Rush’ Season Again—Here’s Why Sorority Recruitment Is A Viral TikTok Phenomenon.” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/08/18/its-bama-rush-season-again-heres-why-sorority-recruitment-is-a-viral-tiktok-phenomenon/.
Rascoe, Ayesha. “Rachel Fleit’s Documentary ‘Bama Rush’ Looks at Sorority Culture at a University.” NPR, 4 June 2023. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2023/06/04/1180030859/rachel-fleits-documentary-bama-rush-looks-at-sorority-culture-at-a-university.
Saha, Joy. “‘Bama Rush’: The 7 Biggest Revelations from Max’s University of Alabama Sorority Rush Documentary.” Salon, 25 May 2023, https://www.salon.com/2023/05/24/bama-rush-the-7-biggest-revelations-from-maxs-university-of-alabama-sorority-rush-documentary/.
“Slate Gender and Society: The Waves: The Bama Rush to Trad Wife Pipeline on Apple Podcasts.” Apple Podcasts,
.
Turk, Diana B. Bound by a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women’s Fraternities, 1870-1920. New York University Press, 2004.
“Which Sorority Was Actually the First?” Town & Country, 18 May 2017, https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a9660538/first-oldest-college-sorority/.
It is inevitable that the school with the biggest successful football program, at U of Alabama, would have very traditional social sororities that do the Southern Belle thing under tight supervision of Southern cultural traditions. When I was a young college student I learned from a female student in Tuscaloosa, that I could call the Tri Delt House and they would answer, in a very sweet Southern accent, "Which Delt would you like to try?" I fantasized about it for a year or so. And then thankfully, I moved on. That was the seventies though. Thank God, we have all moved on, Or have we?