Sorority Hazing Increasingly Violent, Disturbing

Submitted by anthony on Wed, 2010-02-17 19:12

Story here. Excerpt:

'Joanne said she had to stand silently with her nose touching a cold, dirty wall while her potential sorority sisters screamed that she wasn't worth their time. If the pledges moved at all, Joanne said, one of the four Penn State Altoona sorority members would shove their heads into the concrete bricks until they had lumps or bruises.

Even now, Joanne said, a year later, she still gets harassed by her former sorority sisters, which is why she asked that her real name not be used. When she first decided to pledge as freshman, and eventually join, a sorority at Penn State-Altoona, Joanne had hoped for the comfortable camaraderie of a close-knit group of friends; not "the semester from hell."

"One night the sisters made us cook them dinner," she said. "Since I obviously wasn't into cooking and then cleaning their dishes, the sisters forced me to clean the kitchen floor. I didn't have any gloves and they would tell me to do it again until it was spotless. I used my fingernails to scrub the ground.'

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Rhea Almeida, founder of the Institute for Family Studies in New Jersey and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, said one reason violence and male-oriented hazing activities are becoming more commonplace among females could be because "in opposing femininity, girls feel popular and strong."

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Submitted by Demonspawn on Thu, 2010-02-18 01:22

Why anybody would WANT to be in a sorority or fraternity. Why would you desperately want to be accepted as a "friend" by people who would smash your face into a wall, stand outside in the snow for 24 hours in your underwear, or make you eat feces?

Men's Rights + Women's Rights = HUMAN Rights

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Submitted by Boy Genteel on Thu, 2010-02-18 05:23

Why anybody would WANT to be in a sorority or fraternity. Why would you desperately want to be accepted as a "friend" by people who would smash your face into a wall, stand outside in the snow for 24 hours in your underwear, or make you eat feces?

Men's Rights + Women's Rights = HUMAN Rights

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Submitted by Boy Genteel on Thu, 2010-02-18 05:23

I am a member of a fraternity with possibly the harshest "hazing" conditions of all time: Military elite forces. You are focusing on the hazing rather than what the hazing really is, a test to determine the nature of the person.

What a frat/sorority does is give connections to the people who are in the frat. These connections will serve them over time by giving them business references, job opportunities, and the like. The hazing serves two main purposes: Will they endure hardship for the good of the group... will they put themselves above the group and refuse the hazing and to also to be a bonding experience... look at what we have all endured to be a part of this group.

Because of my membership in my frat, I know if I need help (a hand, someone to listen to me, just about anything really) I can go to someone within my frat and ask and know that I will likely get a yes and that I can trust that person based on our common bonding experience and that the hardships we have both endured prove that we are people who put the group above the individual.

When you remove the "hazing" (which as described in the article made me almost cry as to what is considered harsh... being called fat? Having standards of dress? PLEASE!) and allow anyone in, then you don't really know the nature of the person and you remove a lot of the strength from the the common bond. In doing so you remove the strength of the frat. Once you do that, there is no real distinction between being in and being out.

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Submitted by Demonspawn on Thu, 2010-02-18 08:31