Hi everyone, I am not exactly sure what to be saying, but I will give it a try. Since we were all coming up with definitions for the word feminism, I figured it would be good to do some research and see what other people had to say on the topic. I found a few things that were interesting. However, on Sunday all of Maryland’s new Greek pledges had to go listen to a speaker about proper conduct and hazing. I always figured that by joining a sorority I would be going against feminism. I thought it had a stigma for being about girly-girls that were not interested in real life issues, just the social aspect of college. However, the speaker made the point that sororities enable women to work together and to support each other and make changes in the community. It is about coming together and breaking stereotypes especially ones based on hazing. I realized that maybe sororities are more than what people sometimes associate them with. I know that all of the Greek life in Maryland has various forms of fundraising and charities for people less then them. Does anyone agree, or is it possible that sororities do not have feminist qualities?
-Chelsea
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Hi Chelsea, If I can offer a few avenues for thinking about this further, I hope it can help and I also hope that it won't scare people away from the post. But I would encourage others to share their ideas about what you posted, since I am not in a sorority and hence cannot access the same knowledge that some of you can.
As you might guess, no one can answer that for you. Think about what the goals of sororities are, including how they are elitist/exclusive AND inclusive, think about what their goals are for the people in them, and the people outside of them, and how much of what actually happens meets these goals. Then, contrast that with what the goals of feminism are, how feminism can be inclusive or exclusive, how it affects people in groups and people outside of feminist groups, ans what it actually accomplish. You can probably start to see where the two might overlap and were they diverge.
Furthermore, in class, we have been talking about communities - feminist communities, intellectual communities, community art and community development. Think about how that relates to the types of community that is created in sororities.
Finally, as you mentioned, there are different kinds of sororities and I think times have changed....and don't forget that you might find certain aspect of this type of women organization empowering or even feminist, without the whole organization being feminist. It is not always black or white, like is more often in all shapes of gray and color!!!!!
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