Going to college is a strange but exciting time in any young person’s life. It’s a fresh start, a chance to have new experiences and new friends. You can join a club or become friends with people in your classes, but the best way to instantly make hundreds of friends is to join a sorority. That’s what now senior Alex Purdy did when she started school at Syracuse University.
She went through recruitment and joined a house. Ultimately, she decided to drop her sorority, as unfortunately happens sometimes. She then took her decision to leave her sorority as an opportunity to send a message. She thinks she knows “how Greek life can change for the better.” She filmed a video on why she dropped her sorority, which was unsurprisingly picked up by numerous media outlets who will take any opportunity to vilify and place Greek life under a microscope.
Watch the video below to hear her reasoning for why she quit her sorority.
The video was uploaded just four days before hundreds of girls would receive bids from their new sororities, which is something Purdy says was “unintentional.” I don’t believe that in the slightest, but sure, let’s go with that.
She says she gave it her best shot, and she “did the whole costume thing.” Um, excuse me, but does SU recruitment involve dressing up in costumes? Because if so, I’m moving. That seems fun AF. I think by costumes, she means the suggested attire for each day of recruitment, which is by no means a costume. It’s just called dressing nice.
In the video, she said she decided to join a sorority because of the values. She joined “because it was full of women who encouraged each other to be their best self, full of women who want you to develop intellectually, and full of loyal friends.”
According to Purdy, that was not what she experienced in her chapter. She says the problem with sororities as a whole is the “overwhelming lack of compassion for one another.”
Her chapter allegedly told their members to “dress sluttier at the next formal so the guys like us,” and banned FUPA’s (you know what those are) in the house. She even mentions overhearing one member talk about putting Hydroxycut, a weight loss supplement, in a little’s basket.
Purdy does mention that she hopes her experience is an outlier, and she says she “hopes that the structure of sororities isn’t broken across the country.”
I’m sure there are thousands of us who can agree with her in saying that her experience is not representative of sororities as a whole, because it is absolutely nothing like mine.
While I can applaud her for speaking up about the problems her previous chapters had, I think her energy would’ve been put to much better use if she had taken her concerns to her school’s Panhellenic council. By making this video, she is generalizing sororities as places where women are narcissistic, stupid, and bad friends. The real problem, Purdy, lies not within the entire system, but your chapter.
Purdy hoped her video would “start a conversation” around fixing the “broken” system that is sororities. She calls viewers to “act now to make sure no one has to endure it in the future.” And how does she plan to do that, you ask? Why, a hashtag of course. #SororityRevamp is going to change the culture of Greek life in America. Who knew it was that easy?
I think Purdy, a senior PR major, knew exactly what she was doing when she uploaded this video. And right before graduation? Genius. She managed to bring attention to herself and a “hot button” topic. She timed it perfectly, and she even included a hashtag, so like, someone hire this girl ASAP.
EDIT: Purdy’s opinion of sorority life was certainly different in January 2014, as evident by this tweet that leads to a deleted Instagram.
#ΔΔΔ #Thankful #Indescribable http://t.co/1aFOlmOdcx
— Alex Purdy (@purd_istheword) January 20, 2014
It’s also no surprise that she chose to “start a conversation” by uploading a YouTube video to her account, which up until six months ago was a “beauty” channel that I can only assume she gave up on. Her name and her “brand” is all over this announcement, and let me tell you, it smells fishy.
Unfortunately, I don’t think a hashtag will save sororities. At the very least I hope Purdy’s chapter gets a wakeup call and stops being a major B to their members, because if that really is her experience, I legitimately feel bad for everyone in that chapter. They deserve better, and they deserve what I think most of us have: sisters we can be ourselves around and who are supportive, kind, encouraging, and our absolute best friends. .
[via Daily Orange]
Image via YouTube
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Cristina Montemayor
Cristina is a Grandex Writer and Content Manager. She was an intern for over two years before she graduated a semester early to write about college full time, which makes absolutely no sense. She regretfully considers herself a Carrie, but is first and foremost a Rory. She tends to draw strong reactions from people. They are occasionally positive. You can find her in a bar as you're bending down to tie your shoes, drinking Dos XX and drunk crying to Elton John. Email her: cristina@grandex.co (not .com).
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