Brian King Source 5

Brian King Source 5

What is the worth of sorority / fraternity life?

 DeSantis, Alan D. Inside Greek U.: Fraternities, Sororities, and the Pursuit of Pleasure, Power, and Prestige. Lexington: U of Kentucky, 2007. Print.

This source covers many different problems within sororities and fraternities, from hypermasculinity, elitist attitudes, insensitivity to the LGBT community, and eating disorders among sorority members. It also covers how sororities and fraternities often bolster traditional and often harmful views of sexuality and gender, and how these gender roles lead to things like eating disorders, date rape, homophobia, etc. The author does not, however, believe that  fraternity and sorority members are malicious, but rather he explores why the greek letter organizations may reinforce such roles onto men and women and why it leads to such destructive behavior.

This source made me think about a perspective that I had not yet considered; the effect that sorority life has on women and eating disorders. Its perspective on gender and sexuality within the greek organizations went to a depth not discussed in previous sources which helped form a greater understanding of the subject. This source makes me continue questioning what the best course of action is to correct the fraternity and sorority structure to help diminish the hypermasculinity and insensitivity to the LGBT community. Surely programs telling students to simply "stop being homophobic" will not be effective in its goals. And what is the root of the problem for greek letter organizations?

This source helped form the big picture by adding materials that I had not yet considered. It does, however, argue that hypermasculinity and being "a real man" is a product of fraternity life while one of my previous sources found no correlation in its studies. While the study conducted in a previous source may have found no correlation, I believe that, as many of my other sources suggest, that a certain masculine identity is found within the fraternities that is not as present outside of geek organizations.

While much of my topic is now covered, I still must explore various sources to get extra information to form a decision on many topics covered throughout my sources. So far, I can conclude that greek life may inhibit academic success and help social abilities, have no effect on cultural insensitivity, have negative effects on attitudes toward LGBT individuals, and form unhealthy tradition gender and sexual roles.