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Alex Purdy wanted to join a sorority when she entered college because it promised a “sense of belonging” and “friendship.” “Naturally, it seemed like a next step for me,” she says in a video posted on YouTube. But after joining a sorority, she couldn’t believe what she experienced. Her problem with the group was the “overwhelming lack of compassion for one another,” Purdy says. “I was so upset to see the way that women were treating other women.”
Purdy entered the Greek system hoping to find herself, build lasting relationships, and give back to the community. But instead she found herself in a toxic environment, where she saw “women in leadership roles telling us that we should care more about what other people think and what we look like.” Being in the group also put her in a setting where women explicitly coerced one another into being sex objects. She saw “sisters telling sisters to ‘dress sluttier’ at the next formal ‘so that guys like us.’”
Purdy doesn’t want to condemn the entire institution, though; she sees that it can also be a societal good. “It’s built on such good intentions, I hope that my experience was an outlier … there are so many great minds in the Greek community and they should be encouraged to speak up and reach their full potential.” She tagged the video with #sororityrevamp to encourage others to join the growing number of voices that want the Greek system to return to its roots.
