Inside the “Sorority Girl”

1. Inside the “Sorority Girl” Cultural Analysis Ashley Evans

2. Abstract • In this paper, the “sorority girl” is deconstructed through three different concepts including, attitudes and ideals, body image, and consumption. The “sorority girl” is molded by the influences of the social “norms” and standards set for them to adapt to from theses concepts. This is demonstrated through scholarly articles with theory and research about these particular concepts and how they mold the lifestyles of women. The findings reveal that lifestyle and control vary heavily in the decisions made by women according to their status and class while primarily focusing on the influences of society and meeting a certain standard.

3. Three Concepts • The “sorority girl” is constructed from the following concepts: • Attitudes and Ideals • Body Image • Consumption • The “SG” is molded by the influences of the social “norms” and standards set for them to adapt to from theses concepts.

4. Methodology • Organized scholarly articles and books with research and theories referring to the 3 concepts of the “sorority girl” in society. • Through the research and theories of the scholars referred to in this paper, the idea of the “sorority girl” is justified in the three different concepts used to deconstruct the term by the findings of these scholars.

5. Attitudes and Ideals • Article published in 1975, Ann P. Parelius • Focuses on the attitudes toward sex roles through research • Questionnaire data was used to assess the attitudes of female college students toward various dimensions of their adult sex roles, their perceptions of men's attitudes toward women's roles, the degree to which these attitudes and perceptions have changed, and the possibility that strains are arising with these changes. • A marked shift toward feminism was found in the women's attitudes, but little change occurred in their perception of men as relatively conservative. Strains may be developing as more women adopt attitudes which they believe men reject (Parelius, 146-53).

6. Attitudes and Ideals • An article written by John Finley Scott demonstrates attitude of the college sorority with the focus on marital ideals after college. • Scott says, “The college sorority, though academically disesteemed, is sociologically relevant as an agent of ascriptive groups, maintaining normative controls over courtship which in simpler societies require less specialized expression. Norms of endogamy persist in industrial societies, applying more strongly to women than to men, and being harder to maintain in higher strata.” • Since young and sexually desirable appeal is high at collegiate ages, control by postponing marriage would disadvantage women. Ascriptive control therefore calls for an organization which simultaneously will discourage improper marriage and encourage proper marriage; further it must operate where opportunities and temptations for exogamy and hypo gamy are strong and at a physical remove from those most committed to control.” • Scott’s article demonstrates that women in sororities have a different thinking about marriage and the “control” aspect of the improper and proper marriage ideals. This correlates with attitude difference of women in sororities and their lifestyle choices.

7. Attitudes and Ideals • In Inventing the Cosmo Girl, Laurie Ouellette demonstrates that freeing women from the guilt of premarital sex by advising them to disregard the patriarchal double standard… also concerned with shaping and transforming the class position of the Cosmo Girl through a combination of self-management strategies, per formative tactics, sexuality, and upwardly mobile romance (Ouellette, 359-83). • “The aspirations of the Cosmo Girl were white, heterosexual, and upper-middle class…similarity to femininity, class was presented as a malleable identity that could easily be changed through per formative tactics, convert strategies, and cultural consumption,” says Schor.

8. Body Image • An article written by three psychologists, Lisa M. Groesz, Michael P. Levine, and Sarah K. Murnen, demonstrates the effect of experimental manipulations of the thin beauty ideal, as portrayed in the mass media, on female body image was evaluated using meta-analysis (Groesz, Levine, Murnen "The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body Satisfaction: a Meta-analytic Review”). • The methodology behind the study came from data from 25 studies, where 43 effect sizes were used to examine the main effect of mass media images of the slender ideal, meaning the super skinny model, as well as the moderating effects of pre-existing body image problems, such as eating disorders, the age of the participants, the number of stimulus presentations, and the type of research design. • The results of the study showed that body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing images of average size models, plus size models, or inanimate objects. This effect was stronger for between-subjects designs, participants less than 19 years of age, and for participants who are vulnerable to activation of a thinness schema. • The conclusion results in the support the socio-cultural perspective that mass media promulgate a slender ideal that elicits body dissatisfaction.

9. Body Image • In the chapter, “Still Killing Us Softly,” by Jean Kilbourne in the book, Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders, the effects of the media on women’s body image is driven from the excessive thinness for women in advertising’s power to influence our cultural standards. • Kilbourne says, “The tyranny to the ideal image makes almost all of us feel inferior.” An internal voice tells us to hate ourselves. There is convincing evidence that negative body image leads to negative self-image. In result, nearly half of adult women in the United States are currently dieting and over three-fourths of normal weight women think that they are “too fat” (Kilbourne, 395-97).

10. Consumption • In an article about the empirical tests of status consumption, with a focus on cosmetics, the authors,Angela Chao and Juliet B. Schor demonstrate that consumption ordinarily occurs only with publically visible products. They investigate brand buying patterns among four cosmetics products, and find that visible status goods have a lower price-quality correlation, a higher status premium, and that the pattern of brand buying favors higher-priced, status, brands. Also, as expected, income and occupational status are positively associated with the propensity to engage in status-purchasing, as are urban and suburban residence, and being a Caucasian (Chao, Schor, 107-31). • This study looked at the buying habits of women with their facial cleanser as well as lipstick. Women use facial cleanser in privacy at home, while they use their lipstick in public. This study showed that women typically bought drug-store brand facial cleanser, though the benefit of using the higher-priced kind shows more benefit. Women buy the higher-priced lipstick over the drug-store brand, in regards to the fact that they use it in public.

11. Consumption • A question to Schor in the interview asked, “What are people trying to achieve through these status-oriented purchases?” • Schor answered that, “… It is a class society, and the class system creates and perpetuates the social role of consumption, the status role of consumption. We display our class membership and solidify our class positioning in large parts through money, through what we have. Consumption is a way of verifying what you have and earn” (Schor, 21-24). • Schor’s answer to that question correlates the entire argument about consumption, especially in the lifestyle of women. The purchasing power is taken out of the lives of the women because of the vast influence that is evoked on them through social and status roles.

12. Conclusion • In conclusion, the “sorority girl” is important to women and society because of the many women that live this particular way and feel the need to adapt to the ideals of soci0-economic status, lifestyle, class, perceived body image, and consumption habits. The “sorority girl” is molded by the influences of the social “norms” and standards set for them to adapt to from theses concepts. Through the research and theories of the scholars referred to in this paper, the idea of the “sorority girl” is justified in the three different concepts used to deconstruct the term by the findings of these scholars.