{"id":3200,"date":"2007-02-25T20:01:39","date_gmt":"2007-02-26T03:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/25\/too-fat-too-dark-and-too-smart\/"},"modified":"2007-02-25T20:01:39","modified_gmt":"2007-02-26T03:01:39","slug":"too-fat-too-dark-and-too-smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3200","title":{"rendered":"Too Fat, Too Dark, and Too Smart??"},"content":{"rendered":"

The national\u00a0office of Delta Zeta Sorority was disappointed with its chapter at DePauw University, so they decided to come in and conduct a review, which resulted in them purging the sorority of all of the women of color and the overweight women.\u00a0 The New York Times reported on the story<\/a>.\u00a0 Here is a quote:<\/p>\n

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta\u2019s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.<\/p>\n

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men \u2014 conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.<\/p>\n

\u201cVirtually everyone who didn\u2019t fit a certain sorority member archetype was told to leave,\u201d said Kate Holloway, a senior who withdrew from the chapter during its reorganization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article also suggests that one of the “problems” with the sorority was that it had a reputation for attracting brainy women, who were in math and science.\u00a0 In order to revamp their image the national office of the organization tried to remake the sorority in a way that would make them more attractive to white fraternity guys, which apparently in their view meant that the women had to be skinny, white, and dumb.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the sorority\u00a0engaged in discriminatory behavior.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time that the DePauw chapter of Delta Zeta has stirred controversy. In 1982, it attracted national attention when a black student was not allowed to join, provoking accusations of racial discrimination.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, an Alabama lawyer and several other DePauw alumni who graduated in 1970 described in a letter to The DePauw, the student newspaper, how Delta Zeta\u2019s national leadership had tried unsuccessfully to block a young woman with a black father and a white mother from joining its DePauw chapter in 1967.<\/p>\n

Despite those incidents, the chapter appears to have been home to a diverse community over the years, partly because it has attracted brainy women, including many science and math majors, as well as talented disabled women, without focusing as exclusively as some sororities on potential recruits\u2019 sex appeal, former sorority members said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It sounds like the sorority was doing just fine.\u00a0 If they needed to get their numbers up, they should have no problem attracting other intelligent women.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this story supports all of the worst stereotypes of fraternities and sororities–they’re bigoted, party animals, who don’t care about school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks to Rory<\/a> for the link!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The national\u00a0office of Delta Zeta Sorority was disappointed with its chapter at DePauw University, so they decided to come in and conduct a review, which resulted in them purging the sorority of all of the women of color and the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31,34,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-gender-and-the-body","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}