Written by Shamira James
Picture this; a group of college girls are out for the night, and they’re dressed to the nines, and even the tens. They’re drinking and having the times of their life but Becky (or whichever friend you have that fit this M.O.) had a little too much to drink, and now she’s falling all over herself. She’s up in people’s faces and making everyone uncomfortable. Naturally, people are now telling her friends that they need to get her back home while simultaneously making it seem like the friends’ fault. Now, ask yourself a question, do guys do the same thing?
There is a stigma around the college partying scene especially when it comes to how girls hold each other accountable for their drunken actions versus the way guys do. Unfortunately, we still live in a time where “boys will be boys” and “he’s just that way” are still phrases that condone the thoughtless and stupid actions of men while women are often looked down on and talked about long after with less than kind words for doing the exact thing.
We see it more often than we think, and even more than we’d like to admit, but it does happen, and it needs to stop. That doesn’t mean you cut off your friends after you see them maybe getting a little loud or when people have out their phones and are recording your friend because they’re tearing it up on the dance floor, but you do it because they are making an absolute fool of themselves and you need to interject.
This gets into the Greek Life world across the nation, where it’s more apparent of the loose definition of what being a “brother” is. Of course, every organization has different core values, but ALL organizations seems to pride themselves on the idea that they are a family and they care about one another.
So act like it. It seems that they have no problem kicking out non-brothers when they act out-of-pocket, but when it comes to their own, there always seems to be an excuse.
Here’s the official plea to all Greek Life, especially men, this weekend and every weekend: you don’t have to be everyone’s parent, but just actually do what you signed up to do: be an actual brother.
