COLUMN: No way to treat a sister

From Sarah Giulian's, "From Under My rock," Fall '97 From Sarah Giulian's, "From Under My rock," Fall '97 I want to degrade myself, be tortured, be stripped, deprived of sleep, ordered about and enslaved by others. I want to be disrespected. Rushing in the Greek system has always struck me as being entirely ridiculous. It's not the system itself, but what you have to do to get into it; convince the house you're worthy of being a member, that you can be like them, and that you would be an asset to their community. But this isn't like a job interview. It's a process of harsh judgments and degradation. The InterFraternity Council might be able to convince the administration that hazing is within all regulations, but the student body isn't fooled. We've all heard the stories of torture. We all know what goes on behind closed doors. I can't imagine wanting to be part of something so badly that I would partake in the hazing activities that make their way through the grapevine to my ears. In an era when groups are fighting for respect and freedom from enslavement, when minorities and women vehemently criticize anyone who belittles and disrespects them, why are intelligent college students willingly putting themselves in such powerless positions? I thought college was about learning to be free and how to exercise this freedom. I thought we were supposed to find ourselves and our strengths and apply them. I thought we were supposed to attain our goals through power and integrity. But then there's the Greek system, a world that one third of our campus willingly partakes in, a world that no one at Penn can even pretend to avoid. It's a world of the harshest judgments and the pompous elite. Of coures, not everyone in the system is a "pompous elite." Many people involved are really quite pleasant, yet we all know the attitude that arises in many Greek members, the attitude that they have been accepted and that you, the non-Greek, have not. I cannot understand why one would want to be accepted by running a gauntlet and passing a series of severe tests. Pledges are never forced to participate; their willingness is what confuses me. Instead of writing in a rampage my hundred and one reasons for the necessity of self-respect, I spoke with a few seniors from Penn and other universities who are in fraternities. How could they allow themselves to be so degraded and then spend the next three years degrading other people? They offered me loads or arguments. Nothing new. We're all familiar with the "common bond of the brotherhood," the idea that pain and hardship bring people closer together more than anything else. My buddies argued that the communal torture of hazing established healthy solid friendships within their fraternities. Hm. Maybe. But it seems like an unfortunate way to find strong lasting friendships. Most people have close and trusting buddies; most of us didn't have to share a degrading experience to find them. Then I heard the common respect argument. Undergraduates develop an tremendous amount of respect for the upperclassmen in the house; those old birds who had accepted and withstood the equivalent tortures. And the upperclassmen can respect their pledges in recollection of what they had to endure a few years back. It brings tears to my eyes. But I don't respect people for subjecting themselves to torture. And I don't respect people for insulting others. I'd rather admire intelligence, creativity, and motivation. One "chief of hazing" in a fraternity at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told me a lot of careful strategy and planning goes into the development of hazing activities. They want to create bonding, he said, not mockery. "It's not one kid blind-folded and on his knees eating a jar of mayonnaise. It's all the kids blinded-folded and on their knees eating a jar of mayonnaise." Beautiful and very touching. I was moved. Am I the only person who sees the tragic nature of these arguments? Why do I feel like our society is regressing instead of progressing? And why are one out of three people at Penn supporting this? Forget about their parties. Forget about their community activities. But remember each October when hordes of freshman roam from house to house and party to party with so much excitement and respect for the Greek system that they're about to burst. They are ready to do anything to be accepted. It's a good thing they're up for it.