Sarah Cantin | Feminism - sorority style

This weekend, the eight on-campus sororities are holding Open Houses, a time for informal conversation between sisters and interested underclassmen. If you had asked me as a freshman whether I was attending this event, I would have responded with a look of disdain and an emphatic, "No." But I'll be at Delta Delta Delta on Sunday - as a member, encouraging other girls who are as doubtful as I was that a sorority really isn't against everything I stand for as a feminist.

Of the many ways I imagined evolving and changing in college, this was not one of them.

I attended a preppy New England private school that saw sexism rooted in traditions like Homecoming Court and cheerleading squads. I arrived at Penn with a certain contempt for girls who would participate in such activities and saw sororities as a collegiate extension of those archaic "all-American" institutions.

But by the end of NSO, one of my closest new friends was a former cheerleader and member of Homecoming Court. She also knew Supreme Court history better than anyone I'd ever met. When she signed up for Recruitment in January, I followed suit, figuring that perhaps I held some other stereotypes in need of disruption.

Three years later, I still can't call myself a sorority sister without cringing - but it's an experience that has been both gratifying and surprising. While it's offered me plenty of opportunities to embrace my girly side, being in a sorority has also empowered me as a female, simply because it acts as a forum for young women with diverse passions to come together.

Even more practically, as Tri Delta member and College sophomore Kendall O'Connor observes, "In a sorority, the members run the show. Making a sorority function involves leadership skills, teamwork skills and excellent time management and efficiency - it's no easy task!"

Sororities were founded upon feminist ideals and were created to provide a sense of community to women attending mostly all-male universities.

Many female role models were sorority sisters: Margaret Chase Smith, a Sigma Kappa, was the first woman to serve in both Houses of Congress. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was in Chi Omega at the University of Alabama.

A sorority makes this huge campus feel smaller and helps create a sense of family. Sure, you may not always love all your sisters, but do you always love your real sisters? College sophomore Anabel Lippincott, a member of Alpha Chi Omega, says that though she never expected to join a sorority in college, the experience has made her feel "appreciated and looked after by an impressive community of women."

While universities in 2008 are far more gender-integrated than they were at the turn of the century, there's still a need for college women to have people and spaces that they can count on for support. A sorority isn't the only way to create this network - nor is it opposed to this goal, as I once believed.

Before joining one myself, I silently - and sometimes not so silently - judged girls who made the choice to be in a sorority. Sororities aren't for everyone, and admittedly, I probably wouldn't last a week in one at a Big 10 school. But don't write them and their members off as Satan's harem based simply on an episode of Greek or the recent bestseller Pledged. I'd like to believe that we're all better women than that here at Penn.

As O'Connor notes, feminism isn't limited to activism. It's also about women having the ability to make choices and women not being limited to specific labels.

I'm a sorority sister - and a student, a writer, a traveler, a photographer. And, of course, I'm a feminist.

Sarah Cantin is a College senior from Boston, Mass. Her email is cantin@dailypennsylvanian.com. Candid Cantin appears on alternating Mondays.

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