From: aelman@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Adam Elman)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Frats
Date: 5 Nov 92 04:19:43 GMT
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA

mw4l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Matthew Paul Wakefield) writes:

>Excerpts from netnews.soc.college: 4-Nov-92 Re: Frats by Mmmm...
>Purple@ellis.uch 
>> As part of your positive and active public relations program, perhaps you
>> can explain which certain values preclude the admittance of women into 
>> fraternities.  (I'm curious to see if they're the same values that
>> precluded the membership of blacks thirty years ago.)

>Why is is such a god-awful problem that we don't have women in our house
>?  I simply don't understand why you insist on screaming discrimination.
> When I look at the greek system as a whole (Fraternities and Sororities
>combined) it seems to me a well developed coexistance.  I can see how
>there might be a problem if one half recieved unfair treatment or was
>unhappy with this division, but that isn't the case.    

>why is there a problem with this ?

I see a problem with this.  The fact is, there are no real benefits of
a single-sex organization, and plenty of problems.

The statement above is a flame-baiter -- let me clarify. :-)  In my
opinion, the eventual goal of our society should be that men and women
will be considered absolutely equal -- gender should be irrelevant.  I
think that the country is moving in this direction; just look at
yesterday's election results, particularly here in California.

However, single-sex organizations such as fraternities (or male-only
clubs or what have you) hold back this type of social change.
Fraternities and sororities do have a "well developed coexistance" for
sure -- but they are separate.  The problem is that the very nature of
a fraternity or a sorority encourages one to form one's deepest
friendships _only_ with others of one's own gender.  At the surface
level, this violates the social change I want to see (like I said,
this is a personal opinion).  But more deeply, there are other
problems.  I lived on an all-male _floor_ in a coed dorm my freshman
year -- looking back on it, some of the "male bonding" -- homophobia,
objectification of women, etc. was downright _scary_.  I can't imagine
the fraternity system being any better (and the statistics I've seen
back this up).

Why can't a social organization like a fraternity be open to anyone
who wants to join: man, woman, or anyone else?  Most every other type
of organization in this country has made this switch; why not Greek
organizations?

I could also rail on the whole idea of selectivity -- as one who has
often felt "left out" by social groups (I never bothered to try and
pledge a fraternity, so don't try to blame it on bitterness towards
that :-), I can imagine feeling _really_ bad being turned down
formally as a friend by an organization.  It's bad enough just being
casually rejected by individuals.  Why put people through that in the
first place?

>At CMU, a private university, the greek system forms the backbone of the
>campus social structure.  No part of the Greek system is recognized by
>the student senate, and no funding is provided to any house.  Who we
>initiate is our business, as we (and the college) see it.

I suppose so -- the same way an all-white country club or the Ku Klux
Klan has the right to initiate anyone _they_ want.  Doesn't mean I
have to like the organization.

Adam Elman
aelman@cs.stanford.edu