Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
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.
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
Inside the “Sorority Girl”
Cultural Analysis
Visual Comm. 219
Ashley Evans
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
The term, “sorority girl” is drawn from three different concepts that all
come together. The concepts are attitudes and ideals, body image, and
consumption. All of these concepts play a role in the development of the “sorority
girl” according to scholarly studies.
Attitudes and ideals correlate with the lifestyles of women, especially in
the case of the “sorority girl.” An article published in 1975 by 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).
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.” The type of school also plays a role in the
effects of the sorority. “Religion- and class-specific schools provide control, but
most students today attend heterogeneous "public" campuses” (Scott, 514-27).
Since young and sexually desirable appeal is high at collegiate ages, control by
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
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.
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.
Body image also plays a role in the construction of the “sorority girl.” 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 Metaanalytic Review”). The methodology behind the study came from data from 25
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
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 (Groesz, Levine,
Murnen "The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body
Satisfaction: a Meta-analytic Review”). This study demonstrates the strength of
the dramas discussed in content analysis. The consistent occurrence of the thin,
body conscious females on the television shows influence the “sorority girl.”
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
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
are “too fat” (Kilbourne, 395-97). The messages sent by the media and overall
society put pressure on women to have unrealistic weight and body image issues.
Another aspect to the “sorority girl” is consumption and the influence it
has on the lifestyles of women. Consumption plays a huge role in women’s lives
from an early age with the clothing worn and the “status” of their purchases. 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. This study demonstrates the argument made in
the textual analysis about consumption habits and choices made by women
according to their status, ethnicity, and class. Also, the message that the women
want to portray to society though their purchases is very important in regards to
consumption.
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
In an interview of Juliet B. Schor, in the Multinational Monitor, a question
was asked about the role of status in purchasing decisions. Schor answered, “…
much what determines our sense of what is adequate and desirable is the social
context of consumer goods and services…. There is a group of goods which are
consumed visibly, their use is public, other people can see that you own them,
wear them, live in them, drive in them- and those public goods become very
important in the competitive “keeping up” process.”
Another 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.
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
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
idea of the “sorority girl” is justified in the three different concepts used to
deconstruct the term by the findings of these scholars.
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
Works Cited
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<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11835293>.
Running Head: “Sorority Girl”-Cultural Analysis
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