There seems to be a general dislike of fraternities

[Useful Dave]

...I don't get it.

I may only be in Collene rather than University, but I don't see why the hell a 'fraternity' is needed in university life. None of the posts in this thread have managed to teach me the meaning of them aside from that they give people a place to get together and lower their average scores.

University is looking like a minefield of debt avoiding, college work x 3, social experimentation and generally just trying to live. Is University completely different in America or something?

Maybe its just to early for me to poast...

 

[Rolling Thunder]

In fairness, 21 is a stupidly high drinking age

_____________

Death or Glory, Sturm und Drang


Fondant

 

[Deathsong17]

You talk about as if it's a cult

 

[Skeleon]

Huh, I don't know about fraternities in other countries, but over here, they're very politically charged. I don't like that. You have to be of a certain (to me unlikable) mindset to join most of these.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Frats rock. If you think getting drunk, parting, and general fucking around is wrong. Then I don't wanna be right. Its just like having a couple of bros that you can just chill and talk about chicks with. Its like having a group you can chill with

 

[BoxCutter]

Like everything else in this world not all frats are bad. Sadly a vast majority of them do things that the schools and the community would not approve of. Earning them the strange titles and stereotypes. I have a few friends that are in frats and i'll tell you right now everyone of them is a good guy, all a bit rude and obnoxious but great guys.

Not all frat boys are "bro" talking morons out for booze and "experimentation" just like not all politicians are corrupt. But because of the blunders of a few of their "brethren" they get a bad name.

 

[AgentNein]

While I must appreciate the effort you're making in attempting to humanize and defend fraternities and their members, your assumption that the animosity stems from a lack of knowledge or understanding of the workings of fraternities is, I assure you, mistaken. However, I'll play along:

Why is it that with all of the supposed focus on brotherhood and community, many (if not most) of the fraternities I've encountered in my university days been hotbeds of debauchery, illicit and illegal activity, and general douchebaggery? I don't mean this in a shallow "they pop their collars" kind of way, but in a much more specific "coming back to the dorms at two in the morning drunk of their asses and shouting loudly their desire for an icy-hot patch" kind of way.

If fraternities are supposed to be good organizations, promoting proper behavior, good works, responsibility, and all that good stuff, why are they consistently complicit in both underage drinking and alcohol abuse (even ignoring other drug use)?

Why is it that the vast majority of stories about a death by binge drinking, or about sexual assault/harassment, or about stupid pranks that do nothing but cause other people grief, involve frat boys? Why is it that I only ever hear stories about frat guys taking advantage of drunk girls in both violation of the law and of any kind of ethics?

Why is it that in class the frat boys tend to be the least engaged, least well-read, least thoughtful, and least quiet? Why is it that they can't seem to keep their ignorance and apathy to themselves?

Why is it that most of the traditions of fraternities either involve drinking or misogyny, if not both simultaneously?

Aside from the mainstay arguments of "it's about community and brotherhood", "we try to encourage responsible behavior", "it's traditional", and "you just don't understand/couldn't get into one, so you're jealous", can you provide one single substantive reason to allow them to continue to exist? They don't do anything to help the community (except the occasional fundraiser, usually some sort of drinking party, which could be done just as easily through other humanitarian and civic organizations without the costs of allowing frats to exist).

Oh, finally, would you please let us know:

1. Did you drink underage, or seen others in your frat (or within the premises)??
2. Have you ever done illicit substances in any context, or seen others on your frat's premises?
3. Have you ever hooked up with an intoxicated girl?
4. Do you, or any member of your frat get drunk and miss class?
5. Does your drinking and partying ever interfere with the lives of others who don't engage in such behavior?

If the answer to any of those is "yes", I think you'll have your answers about why people on this site (myself especially) dislike frats and frat boys. If the answer to all of them is "no", then either you have the single, solitary, good fraternity (I doubt it exists), or you're lying through your teeth

Wow. Here's a question to you: can you back up any or all of your numerous generalizations with hard facts? Statistics? No? Please, I'll wait.

No, anecdotal evidence isn't going to cut it.

 

[Kuliani]

I have yet to meet a Frat guy that wasn't a total meathead douchebag. By all means, prove me wrong.

I am an alumni of the North Carolina Delta chapter of Phi Delta Theta, a social fraternity, on North Carolina State University's campus.

We don't haze, do any illegal drugs, drink alcohol without an event mandated group of dry brothers, and no alcohol, drugs, tobacco products or such are even allowed in our fraternity house. We were the first to ban this nationwide for Phi Delta Theta and the first to do it at NC State. The amount of philanthropic events, community events, and other volunteer work is only rivaled on campus by the official campus staff (kinda outnumbered and out-moneyed). Our GPA was higher than the National Honor Society's GPA, our sports teams have done exceptional well, and the amount of honors and awards have grown so large that we had to transform one of the rooms of the fraternity house into an awards room to display them all. We rarely don't hold a student political position on-campus of some significance.

That said, I didn't even want to join a fraternity when I entered college. My RA happened to be in one and it shocked me (he was a bearded older guy that looked like a fat hippie and read books all the time). Essentially, he tricked me into joining in some Rush events, and I was actually pissed off when I found out what they were. Nonetheless, I stayed, enjoyed the events and when they offered me a bid, I reluctantly accepted. My "Why not?" attitude netted me the right decision. As such, we didn't advertise for pledges, we actively searched for men that would make quality, intelligent, and enthusiastic friends.

http://ncsu.phideltatheta.org/

Yes, there are many fraternity men out there that are stereotypically like a "frat boy", but I, and all my brothers, are examples that prove you wrong. I am truly sorry that you have not yet met a quality fraternity member yet, and if you never do, your campus has some serious issues to attend to in the greek community.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

I think it's mostly the hazing that make people dislike them.

 

[Inmate13]

I have yet to meet a Frat guy that wasn't a total meathead douchebag. By all means, prove me wrong.

Pleasure to meet you, my name's Jon, but my brothers call me Pirate.

Why do they call you pirate?

No seriously.........It's a weird name I want an explanation

Well, my natural swarthy personality and long hair complete with bandana and beard seem to liken to the pirate persona in the first place (leading my newfound rugby mates from New Zealand to give me such nicknames as Steve the Pirate and Captain Jack Sparrow) but the story behind my first christening as Pirate goes back to when I was but a pledge of the Gamma Sigma Chapter of Beta Theta Pi.

Pledge names are quite a tradition in my fraternity, much as I'm sure they are in all other Greek organisations. For us they serve as a way to introduce the new men to the notion of being an identifiable part of the house, seeing as names are given out at the beginning of Initiation Week when all of the pledges live in the house and begin following a brotherhood and ritual schedule.

Typically done on the first night of I-Week, all of the 4th-year members of the house go out to a bar and begin running down the list of pledges. For each man's name, the seniors try to think of whatever is on their minds at the time (I believe for me they said something akin to "you've always reminded us of a Viking, but we decided to start in the Caribbean") and from there, run with it in a stream-of-consciousness manner until they come up with a word or phrase that they feel fits best. Mind you, they are drinking during this time (they of course being seniors and thus all of legal age to drink... I even told you they were at a bar and not just in someone's basement) so the writing and ideas tend to get a bit messy down toward the bottom of the list.

Long story short, I believe the final stage in my pledge name crafting process was "Pirates" a.k.a. the most expensive porno ever made at the time (until, of course, "Pirates 2") and thus, my name: Pirate

 

[Keela]

How many have you met, and for what period of time? I'm not defending any brotherhoods or anything, I'm still 14, so I don't have a clue about this shit, but I do find this interesting. Also, this is one of the few topics I've looked at that doesn't have UTSBtrolls in it. Also, I'm in America, and after reading this, I'm thinking about joining a frat. Is your frat similar to most of them? Any idea where the stereotypes came from?

 

[Seldon2639]

Wow. Here's a question to you: can you back up any or all of your numerous generalizations with hard facts? Statistics? No? Please, I'll wait.

No, anecdotal evidence isn't going to cut it.

That depends on what you'll count as "hard facts", or, rather, what you're defining as my "generalizations". If I need to back up that fraternities (by and large) are complicit in underage drinking and other illegal behavior, that's no challenge at all. If I need to prove that all fraternities engage in illegal behavior at statistically significantly higher rates than the general college population it's more of a challenge. Can I include those who aren't members of frats, but go to their parties? That'll change the results.

In terms of underage drinking linked to fraternities, a very quick google search will reveal many, many, stories in the news about frat boys arrested for underage drinking or preferring drinks to minors. I'd quote them, but copying and pasting gets boring, but I promise you simply searching "fraternities underage drinking" will yield the appropriate results.

Your rejoinder will be, I have every confidence, that that's not because of the fraternities, they're no worse than the general college population. If so, fine, but how is that a justification for their existence and subsidization by the schools and society. Where's the benefit if they're not actually decreasing the amount of illegal and illicit behavior (which I would presume to be part of their facade of encouraging responsibility, brotherhood, ect ad naseum).

Can I prove substantially that frat guys all across the country scream routinely about their needs for icy-hot patches? No, that was a specific example of behavior to which I've been exposed. If you want to talk about noise violations, at least at my university, fraternities and their pledges managed to rack up more citations than any other group on campus (entire dormitories).

Let's see, I already dealt with the whole "they allow (which implies tacit complicity with) underage drinking" issue. I don't have as much research on the illegal drugs thing, but a quick googling gives us:

http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-4550-news-suicide-shocks-fraternity.html

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080507-9999-1n7drugs.html

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2009/02/09/news/latest_news/3d9b383e266a179886257558006c4be4.txt

http://blog.smu.edu/forum/2009/04/sae_fraternity_placed_on_defer.html

Now, I can't prove that every fraternity in the country has done this, but a pattern of behavior appears to emerge. Once again, if your response is (as I believe it can only be) that fraternities aren't worse than the general population (and no studies, to my knowledge, have been done), you still run into the whole "why do they exist if they don't provide a benefit aside from resume padding and giving people a place to live?" Issue.

The question about the number of stories is pretty simple to resolve, and I bet you can do it even for yourself. A quick tally of the number of stories about sexual assault at universities will reveal a huge number of stories about fraternities involved, and very few isolated incidents. Admittedly, there could be media bias, but I didn't ask whether the difference in coverage was justified.

The question of engagement and intellect in the classroom may be difficult to measure, but GPA might be a good approximation:

An honest assessment of a quick look at the data would suggest no statistically significant difference between groups. With huge numbers of students, and a large standard deviation within each of the groups studied (greek vs non-greek, or even broken down further), the relatively small differences would be insignificant (for an ANOVA test, you need a sufficiently small deviation within the variables, and a sufficiently large deviation between). So, I'll concede that there's no significantly lower value, but similarly no significantly higher one.

The drinking and misogyny has to be purely based on anecdotes, sorry. No study has been done, nor would one be valid. Self-reporting on these kinds of issues is notoriously terrible (since there's no way to ensure proper reporting), so the numbers on both sides (greek and general population) of the "did you ever drink underage" question would be lower. So, the only way to address this is through testimony. If what you're saying is "by golly, my frat didn't", that's fine. Perhaps the experiences of me and all of my friends (who went to different universities in different parts of the county) with regards to frats were all coincidentally terrible, but I doubt it.

You've asked me to prove my poor statements about fraternities, claiming that anecdotes won't count, but don't hold yourself or your side to the same burden of proof. You've provided no evidence that fraternities don't encourage (or at least accept) underage drinking (whereas ample evidence exists in the opposite direction), nor for claims that they don't allow illegal drug use, on down the line. Even if the initial burden of proof was on me to prove fraternities were "bad", given that I have provided evidence, it now falls to you to respond. I wait with bated breath.

 

[Seldon2639]

Seldon, that is a very well worded arguement, but I will have to disagree with you.

1) You say fraternities hot bed of debauchary. Yes, people in fraternities drink, however you will be hard pressed to find an orginization at a college where people dont drink with each other. At my school, University of Memphis, the marching band throws parties that are way more intense than any frat party and the cops are called to those parties on a weekly basis. Even the christian orginizations go out to bars after they meet. People drink in college, that is all there is to it. Also, your "debauchary" you mentioned about the icy hot patch, that sounds more like jackassary than debauchary.

Sorry, I rolled "debauchery", "illegality", and "rampant jackassery" into one point, I should have broken things down further. Your argument is specious, however. I didn't simply say that fraternities drink, but that they encourage (or, at least, are tacitly complicit in) underage drinking. Agree or disagree with the law, it's still the law, no? Further, the fact that there are other groups just as bad is no justification for blithely allowing poor behavior. In addition, I'd bet all the money in my pocket against all of the money in yours that I could easily find at the very least a handful of organizations which don't drink on any campus in America.

2) My fraternity does not ignore drug use. Hell, we have arranged interventions, psycologist and all, to come to the house and try to get people to stop, and when they did not we kicked their ass of property indefinitely so they would not fuck us over.

Your instinct for self-preservation is admirable, and I'll ignore that they should have gone to jail. Your fraternity may be unique, or at least rare, in that regard. I'll simply give you kudos for it.

3) The only reason people make such a big deal about fraternities and their interactions with the law is because we represent an orginization. Its like when a company gets convicted of money laundering or something. Its illegal and its an organization. Next time you are watching the news, just look. When a company/government gets found of illegal activity the media reams the out, but when a single person gets arrested for the same thing they get just a :30 second spot.

Even if you just look at the "30 second spots", the total number of reports of non-frat members being arrested for underage drinking and illegal drug use is far lower. Now, you can argue that the reporting is skewed, or the arrests are biased, but when they catch nearly a hundred frat boys in a sting with the DEA, that seems pretty widespread to me. Incidentally, your argument is still basically "hey, we're not worse than the bad people who aren't in frats"

4) Sexual harrassment. Dont you watch the news. People get sexually harrased every day and alot of those people are not in college! Sexual harrassment can happen outside of college and that is where it happens the majority of the time.

I'll grant that, most sexual harassment happens outside of colleges, as a pure percentage of the total number of cases that exist. But that's spurious statistics. You have to look at it as a proportion of the population in question. Sexual harassment happens more in fraternities on a per-capita basis (if one judges from news reporting) than in the general population. Fewer cases, admittedly, but a much smaller population in question

5) The idea of hearing only negative news about fraternities is simple. When is good news ever reported? Read the paper or watch the news. Its all bad news and when there is good news it only gets a 10 second mention at the end of the program. That is why you only hear bad news about fraternities.

Then, if frats weren't doing bad things I should hear no news. Instead, it's a constant litany of poor choices, poor management, and terrible enforcement of both school policies and the law. There's no other group we would look at in the same light and say "sure, you've broken the law a bunch, but we still don't want to shut you down". I included a few such stories in my other post.

6) If you take ANY Greek groups(males, females, black males, etc...) average GPA and compare their GPA to ANY Non-Greek groups average it will be higher.

Nope. There are as many examples of non-greek groups having higher GPAs as the reverse, but in neither case is it statistically significantly higher. I'll grant I may be wrong on this issue about frats in general, and it's simply the truly obnoxious ones that stand out, but the truly obnoxious ones (in my experience) tend to belong to frats. Coincidence? I doubt it.

7) Your belif in our ritiual involving drinking and sex could not be any further from the truth. You obviously have not actually talked to any greek about the traditions of their chapter or of their fraternity as a whole. Give it a shot, you might actually find that some fraternities have annual traditions that you might like.

I almost laughed. There's a yearly contest from the SAE chapter at my university in which the pledge who gets the most girls' numbers is given a prize. Admittedly, not the most egregious example, but still objectifying women (almost literally). The only bar parties hosted at my university are hosted by a fraternity (even those masquerading as "fundraisers for good causes"). Once again, perhaps your fraternity, and school, are the exceptions, and my experience (as well as those of my friends and acquaintances) are abnormal.

Finally, none of your responses justify the existence of fraternities. Aside from the insignificant GPA gains (selection bias, if nothing else), and the fact that they aren't worse than similarly felonious groups, you've provided no rationale for schools or society to support them.