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Poster Name:
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Poster Message:
I don't really know how to describe my reaction upon discovering the details of the process in which I would need to take part at the beginning of my junior year. I guess I would say that I was surprised not by the qualifications but rather by the importance of them in deciding whether girls would be invited back, and, I was appalled but, admittedly, also flattered. It was clear from our wide mouths and our chorus of "you can't be serious" scoffs that my two fellow recruitment chairs, the chapter president, and myself were in a shared state of disappointment, disgust, shock, and strange amusement. ​ It wasn't so appalling only because I had learned that the process that had brought me to my closest friends was truly just a deliberate beauty competition or because girls' worth and value to this friendship-based organization was being quantified by physical appearance—the worst part was that I would have to lead it, and the national organization would tell me exactly how to do so. ​ I realized that I knew exactly what the recruitment chairs had meant when they said, "If you can't think of a Beta Delta she reminds you of, she probably doesn't belong here." How could she "remind us" of a current sister if all of our current sisters look a certain way, and she doesn't?  ​ I realized that appearances factored into my decision-making even when I was not consciously admitting that to myself. I never would have allowed myself to even think, "I'm giving her a 4 even though the conversation was fine because she's not pretty enough to be in this house." I never would have admitted that the only reason I gave that girl whom I had a boring conversation with an 8 was because she was beautiful. ​ And now, a year later, I was telling the sophomores to score PNMs on a 1-10 scale of "how well the PNM fit into Beta Delta," knowing those scores to be completely meaningless. ​ I learned that Chapter Scores were only a mask: a way to avoid telling everyone what they subconsciously already partially knew. Beta Delta's national policy demanded that our decision to invite girls to the second round was determined completely independently of their time spent at Beta Delta. It was determined by their "External Prescores" weeks before sorority recruitment even began. ​ And so it goes: 1,200 names fall off recruitment profiles and into the Facebook search bar, where we must ask a series of important questions, created by nationals, of her public photos that will determine her "External Prescore" on a scale of 1-10. ​ 1. Is she naturally pretty? 2. Does she look like your current sisters? 3. Is she trendy? 4. Would you want to see her in your letters? ​ 10: She's "ideally beautiful"―thin with silky hair, great style, and an appealing face―and therefore we want her in Beta Delta. 1: She is definitely not "pretty enough" to be in this chapter.