Beauty & Bounce: University of Alabama Sorority Slammed for Recruitment Video
A recruitment video for Alpha Phi University of Alabama has been removed from all of the chapter’s social media channels following criticism that it’s “worse for women than Donald Trump.”
The video, which was posted to YouTube last week and quickly received more than 500,000 views, featured young students in coordinating outfits (multiple changes were involved from bikinis to sundresses to game day jerseys with daisy dukes) laughing, talking, walking hand-in-hand, giving each other piggyback rides, and blowing kisses.
A.L. Bailey took issue with the 5-minute display of college life for a sorority girl, writing on AL.com: “It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so … unempowering.” The writer added that unlike other university recruitment videos, this one stands out in the "beauty and bounce" category. “Yes, sororities are known for being pretty and flirty; they aren’t bastions of feminist ideologies. But perhaps they shouldn’t completely sabotage them either.”
Commenters on the story weren’t all in agreement with Bailey’s assessment. “I’m a woman, and in my opinion there wasn’t anything condemning about the video. Looked like sorority girls having fun,” iwantin wrote. “It’s funny how perceptions can be so different. When I watched the video, I saw a sisterhood of girls having fun together,” AlabamaMom18 added.
Despite the controversy, the University of Alabama Panhellenic sorority system added 2,261 women on Saturday, making it the largest pledge class in the school’s history and likely the largest in the nation. Alpha Phi, the fourth-oldest sorority in the country, counts among its legacies the first female treasurer of the United States, Georgia Neese Gray, legislators, district judges, and various other prominent figures. In a statement, UA said the video “is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens.”
And UA’s Alpha Phi isn’t the only school to produce high-quality videos with the intent of enlisting freshman. A simple search on YouTube calls up University of Arizona Kappa Kappa Gamma (47,211 views), University of Miami’s Delta Gamma (176,183), Tri Delta Syracuse (29,584 views), and so many more. All have similar motifs of young girls parting, dancing, and taking selfies, set to club music.
The original AU Alpha Phi video can no longer be viewed, but a ripped version is available.
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