Commentaries: The Search For A Good Bikini Waxer

I have changed my opinion. I love sororities. This past Sunday was bid day, and marked the end of rush for the nine chapters that belong to the Duke University Panhellenic Council. Hundreds of freshman girls (though supposedly less than in previous years) finally found their true sisters. Of course, Sunday night was the time to celebrate the continuity of these institutions of oppression and segregation.

 

Martin Luther King Day provided the rest these girls needed so badly. Irony? Probably.

 

Leon Dunkley, campus visionary and director of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture provided some excellent analysis in the pages of this paper several days ago: "Giving students the day off does not mean they will automatically spend it in reflection about King's life." Nope, they spend it recovering from substance abuse and filling in memory gaps.

 

"Did I, like, really do that?"

 

So instead, a rushee is judged on more substantial grounds. Her reputation. Who she knows. What she said on the bus three months ago when someone overheard her conversation. How much she drinks. Whom she sleeps with.

 

And of course her physique. Everything is perfectly graded on a five point scale.

 

This was the week that C2K was kicked off its pedestal by a faculty committee that Tallman Trask decided demand for housing on West exceeded supply and that Duke donated half a professorship to UNC in honor of Nan. But rush was more fun.

 

As a Durham police officer shot the suspect of a drug-related crime, a Caucasian girl on East Campus had to choose between Louis Vuitton and Prada. The classic defence of sorority rush is that it works. It results in good matches.

 

These matches, however, only work because new sorority members undergo a (sometimes drastic) personality change in order to fit in with their newly acquired family. I have seen this happen once too often. Peer pressure can be a bitch.

 

Perhaps the best matches are made through dirty rush. Despite the staggering amount of space points thrown around, this practice was not absent from the 2004 rush process.

 

Why should it be?

 

Dirty rush, for those of you who are blissfully ignorant of greekspeak, is the process where freshwomen actually spend time with members of a sorority chapter, go to parties, get to know wonderful women and discover that they like the group of people. This fondness can be mutual, which would result in a bid for the girl. Dirty rush is considered a heinous, unspeakable atrocity at our University.

 

Duke's collective memory is on par with that of America. Only a few months ago students publicly decried effortless perfection. In a touching column on these pages, we were given an insight into the world of depression encompassed by the notion from the Women's Initiative.

 

Since then, the term has found its way into a eulogy for Sasha Burakow as a positive attribute. I do not blame the author of the piece. It is the student body as a whole that perpetuates the ideal of perfection.

 

And rush is the time of year perfection matters most.

 

One high rush official told her chapter, after an efficient planning meeting, that she ruined the cookies she had attempted to bake for the occasion. Only to add that it will help them lose weight for rush.

 

We, as undergraduate members of women fraternities, stand for good scholarship, for guarding of good health, for maintenance of fine standards, and for serving, to the best of our ability, our college community.

 

That is the Panhel creed. And we have all heard the rants about leadership, sisterhood and GPA's. If these are truly the ideals of sororityland, why are their listservs dominated by missing underwear, AA meetings and the search for a good bikini waxer?

 

When I first heard that Tri-Delt had a particularly strong rush class last year, I assumed they had impressive resumes and lively spirits. It turned out to mean that the new members where particularly attractive. But the farce does not stop here.

 

A good friend of mine told a rushee she had to pee, which is apparently considered an awful faux pas during rush. Let me reveal a secret. Everyone pees. Pretending otherwise is absurd.

 

While General Motors and Elsevier Science are hijacking our University, I find peace in the mind numbing traditions on display during rush. Brodhead's presence on campus makes me nervous, but knowing that Kappa turned down a legacy puts me at ease. Mad Hatter's new laptop outlets were topped by a rumor about a first-year girl choosing Delta Gamma over Tri-Delat.

 

I love sororities. They are terribly entertaining and iniquitously harmless. I just cannot understand why rush numbers were down this year.

 

Joost Bosland is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every third Thursday.