Last week UVA’s Greeks showed up on the national news once again, this time thanks to a decision by sorority leaders to ground their UVA chapters on Boys’ Bid Night, a men’s pledging celebration and one of the biggest party nights of the year. The mandate infuriated sorority members at the University. Simmering discontent over the disparate treatment of women and men in Greek life—national rules dictate that sororities can’t host parties with alcohol, which some feel is sexist and potentially dangerous for women, who can’t party on their own turf—had reached a boiling point. There was talk of protests, of women donning khakis and bow ties and flouting the mandate that they stay home with their sisters and eat pizza.
Practically speaking, the lockdown didn’t affect fourth-year Lindsey Bond. She had just resigned from the ranks of Delta Delta Delta.
“I don’t consider myself a rabble-rouser and I think that anyone who has ever interacted with me would know that I am not one who seeks out or revels in conflict,” Bond, 22, wrote in her deactivation letter. “However, I cannot overlook something that is screaming in my face as wrong.”
What’s wrong, she said, is much bigger than a one-night party ban.
When Bond arrived at the University from out of state, rushing seemed like a good way to make friends, and the Tri Delta girls struck her as down-to-earth and humble. In the years that followed, certain aspects of Greek life frustrated and disappointed her, including the way national sorority organizations seem to hold women to a far higher standard than fraternities do men: no drinking in the houses; more serious penalties when rules are broken. The divide warps interactions between women and men on Grounds, she said, because it hands so much social control to frats. Women’s relationships with men are affected by that power dynamic.
“Girls are definitely feeling that it’s happening, but they don’t necessarily know why they’re feeling that way,” she said.
The path to resignation started when she spoke up publicly about her concerns. Bond was interviewed by C-VILLE in October for a story about the gender divide in Greek life, and the conversation went national last month when The New York Times covered the same issue. Bond ended up giving an interview to The Huffington Post just as the party ban issue started heating up. In it, she criticized national rules, and the response was swift. Bond said Tri Delta’s national leaders didn’t address her directly, but they told the UVA sorority that if members acted up again—talking to media as a member of the sorority is a violation of the rules, Bond acknowledged—they’d face sanctions.
“I’d imagined that the girls were more independent, and the type to speak out,” she said. But even as people railed against the Boys’ Bid Night restrictions, they feared rocking the boat. “Nobody wants to be a pariah for being the one who ruined it for everyone,” Bond said. So she quit.
Debates over Greeks’ role in improving campus safety are far from over, and though she’s graduating in the spring, Bond said she plans on staying in the conversation, and working to make Greek life more equal.
“Sororities, in their policies and missions statements, are all about empowering women, and I can’t see how silencing women is in any way advancing that,” said Bond. She may be out of the club, but she still plans to speak up for sisters. “I’m now advocating for the rights of people in a group I no longer belong to,” she said.—With reporting by Nicolette Gendron