I’m sure everyone has seen the sheets hanging from buildings on Locust advertising a certain fraternity and “Free Shake Shack” or “Honest Toms and Chipotle.” I’m even more sure that after seeing those sheets everyone has desperately wished they were a freshman boy rushing one of those fraternities. Regardless of whether this is the first time you’ve wished this (it certainly isn’t for me), there is no judgment in wanting to throw your nametag out the TriDelt window and go knee–deep in a nice burrito with some fellow frosh as a form of rush.
The boys rush process is a dream come true. You roll up with your homies, dap up a few upperclassmen, play some beer pong, eat your body weight in fries or guacamole, and then head off to the next frat which is most likely just a few doors down. Truly the simple life. No one is asking you what your major is, or what you did over break. You just have to be able to hold your own in a game of pong, and know the team that’s playing that night. One of my dear freshman friends put it very succinctly: “Rush is bomb. I’ve been drunk for three days straight.”
Meanwhile, hello from the other side. While the eager freshman boys accept party invitations from their favorite frats, or make dinner plans with upperclassmen at Dim Sum Garden, 50 girls stand huddled outside of each sorority chapter, as the echoes of sorority chants rattle the front porches of each house. Regardless of what the temperature it was a few days before the process starts, it always rains or snows during rush. Without fail. There’s no time to eat besides the brief fifteen–minute hiatus one has between each house visit, which consequentially leads to starvation by the end of the day. Unless you’re me, and you choose to eat a chipotle quesadilla five minutes before entering the next round. But not everyone is this socially unaware.
Upon entering a sorority house, you are paired up with a girl and brought to a room where everyone seems to be screaming at the top of their lungs in order to hear the other person. There’s no pong. There’s no TV. There’s no food. In fact, if you happen to even have a water cup, you are forbidden to take it out of the house. It could be considered a “gift.” And we can’t have that. Meanwhile, some current Phi Delt rush is out getting wined and dined to his hearts content for a full week.
The best is when it’s “business casual” day. Whereas our fellow freshman lads come in hot wearing flannels and Timbs, girls must wear heels or dresses. You don’t know pain until you’ve stood outside of Theta in the pouring rain wearing nylon tights (that are inevitably cutting off your circulation) while nursing a blister from your pumps. Starving. In the words of most boys who recall what they know about girl’s rush, “it looks like slavery.” Not to mention, TriDelt isn't even allowed to give out their delicious cakes with your name on it during Pref Night anymore. What kind of world do we live in.
The mystery continues as to why the rush process for both genders differs to this extent. At the end of the day, most problems boil down to “the patriarchy,” including this one. While men hop from frat to frat, buzzed and full of Honest Tom’s chips and guac, girls stand lifeless outside in the freezing cold, attempting to emotionally block out the following days of girl flirting and fake smiles. Yet again, being a boy would be so much easier.
