Women of Discriminating Taste: White Sororities and the Making of American Ladyhood

by Margaret L. Freeman

Women of Discriminating Taste examines the role of historically white sororities in the shaping of white womanhood in the twentieth century. As national women’s organizations, sororities have long held power on college campuses and in American life. Yet the groups also have always been conservative in nature and inherently discriminatory, selecting new members on the basis of social class, religion, race, or physical attractiveness. In the early twentieth century, sororities filled a niche on campuses as they purported to prepare college women for “ladyhood.” Sorority training led members to comport themselves as hyperfeminine, heterosocially inclined, traditionally minded women following a model largely premised on the mythical image of the southern lady. Although many sororities were founded at non-southern schools and also maintained membership strongholds in many non-southern states, the groups adhered to a decidedly southern aesthetic―a modernized version of Lost Cause ideology―in their social training to deploy a conservative agenda.

Margaret L. Freeman researched sorority archives, sorority-related materials in student organizations, as well as dean of women’s, student affairs, and president’s office records collections for historical data that show how white southerners repeatedly called upon the image of the southern lady to support southern racial hierarchies. Her research also demonstrates how this image could be easily exported for similar uses in other areas of the United States that shared white southerners’ concerns over changing social demographics and racial discord. By revealing national sororities as significant players in the grassroots conservative movement of the twentieth century, Freeman illuminates the history of contemporary sororities’ difficult campus relationships and their continuing legacy of discriminatory behavior and conservative rhetoric.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

268 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book, the purpose of sororities started to make sense to me... ESPECIALLY the discriminatory practices at sorority rush. It was definitely a major "ah hah" moment as I reflected on my own sorority experience within the context of this book. I give this book 5 stars because it is thorough, well written, and does a great job of showing and not telling. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the world of sororities and especially to anyone considering joining one of these groups.

[Shannon Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and was so compelled by it! I think it helps fill many gaps in the literature and blows a hole in the gilded revisionist history that still exists around Greek Life. It gives important historical context to contemporary white GLOs (especially Panhellenic sororities) and their influence in conservative political/social movements over time…

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first thought is that the author definitely needed both an editor and a devil's advocate, but it was brought to my attention that this grew out of a Ph.D. dissertation, so maybe the author needed padding to give the impression of heft. Regardless, repeating an allegation a hundred times does not inherently make it more credible than saying it once or twice. I was strongly left with the impression that this could have been a Facebook rant, not a Ph.D. dissertation.

I borrowed this book after seeing another Goodreads review of it from one of my friends who is a non-Southern sorority alumna. I was never in a GLO in college (unless Phi Beta Kappa counts). But I developed extensive working and personal relationships with many of them over the course of four years in undergraduate student government, which drew substantial Greek involvement. The caricature of antifeminist, misogynist, sexually and otherwise reactionary, neo-Confederate nostalgics painted by this author describes basically zero of the Greek women that I knew in undergrad, to the point of being so risibly off-base that I don't even know where to begin prying it apart. And while I'd normally hesitate to critique based on anecdotal evidence alone like that, the author doesn't even attempt a more broad-based, empirical analysis of either active sorority sisters or alumnae. It's a narrative argument (a very superficial and sweeping one), and on that level, anecdotal counterevidence has weight.

Of course, the author's historical frame of reference jumps from the 1970s at the end of her main text to the 2010s in her epilogue, so that may have something to do with it. But the fact that the sources she relies on for her narrative stopped in the 1970s (and mostly well before then), e.g., sorority handbooks on style, grooming, appearance, rushing/recruiting, should maybe have caused her to back off assuming that sororities still operate like that in the 21st century. Nope. The author concludes her epilogue (recall that this book was published in 2020):

all of these women want their shot at ladyhood as build on the foundations of the southern ladyhood imaginarwy [sic], despite the antifeminist and misogynistic culture that is upheld by the GLO system. By bringing new young women into the white privilege of the sisterhood, sororities continue to normalize discriminatory behavior for succeeding generations of Americans. Armed with an understanding of these organizations' ideology and how little they have changed their positioning over the past century, we can more forcefully ask members, alumnae, and college administrators why they still wish sororities to occupy a significant position on many campuses across the United States and to consider the ramifications if their power remains unchecked.

In the back of my mind as I picked this book up, I was curious if it would convince me to try dissuading my mixed-race daughter from rushing and/or dissuade me from covering her sorority dues if, more than a decade from now, she decides she wants to be the first sorority sister in the family. I gather that the author might like me to draw that conclusion, either because my daughter shouldn't desire association with such organizations per se or because she should worry about possible adverse emotional effects of being discriminated against by these alleged bastions of white privilege. I don't think this book was at all persuasive on that front. If she wants to go Greek, she'll have my support--and I honestly am not going to cite to this book to give her overly alarmist warnings about her chances of getting a pledge offer, either.

[Beatriz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 54 of 2023 - ☑️! Folks - I’ll be honest: Women of Discriminating Taste by Margaret L. Freeman took me entirely too long to finish. As someone who never had an interest in joining a sorority, but has always been fascinated by people’s obsession of wanting to join them and the secret society aspect of them, I came to this book after listening to Lucy Taylor’s podcast, Snapped, after she referenced it multiple times.

Admittedly, I went in on a bit of a deep-dive regarding Greek life this summer while not working (I had too much time on my hands, but I digress) and with the highly-anticipated Bama Rush documentary (we can off-line about that, but I didn’t feel like the documentary was marketed accurately).

Almost immediately after starting Freeman’s book, I realized it was more of a dissertation or a thesis that was published, instead of a book. Freeman brings up some interesting points, and if you haven’t given much thought to how Greek-life looks at the majority of college campuses and how these organizations have operated, she does a good job of outlining it (relatively) quickly, in about 300 pages. That said, I did find it to be a little bit repetitive at times.

2.75/5 ⭐️ ‘s (rounded up to 3) for this book - 📚 🏛️ 📑

[Lionel Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the history of the Southern Sorority movement from 1900 to the 1970s. The author's main argument and the focus of the book are that Southern sororities have defined their membership by defining what were the acceptable standards of upper-middle-class white womanhood by imposing standards of certain looks, social backgrounds, and modes of behavior on its members. By doing so it has cultivated a culture of exclusion keeping out women who were not white, conventionally pretty, and middle and upper class. This exclusivity continued while the surrounding college environment changed as more nontraditional students enrolled and attitudes towards women changed.
As the college and university system began to change in the late 1960s the Southern sorority system resisted many of these changes and became bastions of conservatism of a certain type on college campuses. This book is a thorough investigation of the Sorority system and how it has influenced the culture in its presentation of white middle-class womanhood and the “southern belle” aesthetic and has had to adapt to the changing times and campus culture.

[Shelly Cerullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genuinely one of the more accessibility written academic histories I’ve read (which is a triumph tbqh) but also it’s a little painfully obvious it started off life as a dissertation that got passed because the author wasn’t going into a tenure track job. So, uh, I don’t QUITE know what to do with it???

[Annabel Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would have given it 0 stars if that were an option.

[Amanda Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a lot of information and just facts, not really anything revolutionary that isn’t already suspected. It was nice to see all the facts in one place though.

The writing style was tough to follow at times which made it hard to finish.

[allisonmcmurry1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all sorority people! Explores the history of discrimination in the NPC system and the ties of southern culture and sororities.