Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais

shouldn’t really be there anyway because it doesn’t mean anything to them. The only
reason they are there is so they don’t have to pay a fine.
Yet another indicated the physical presence of members at ritual ceremonies, but a distinct
absence of understanding the ceremony:
I know that there are definitely some people in my chapter that ritual is just not their
thing. One of my friends in my sorority has anxiety and she doesn’t do well with certain
retreats and things like that and sitting in circles or holding hands and stuff. She can not
do it because she gets so nervous and she hates it. The majority of the women in my
chapter come to ritual because they have to because the initiation fine is like $500. I
doubt they really listen. I have seen coloring books in the initiation.
Participants indicated that those members who saw the ritual ceremony as merely a required
activity of the sorority did not have a positive impression of ritual:
There are some members of my sorority who think that ritual is stupid and don’t want to
be there because it takes too long or the room that the ceremony is taking place in is too
hot.
On several occasions, the participants themselves expressed that ritual was “boring”:
I think that ritual is boring. Initiation is not my favorite event because it takes a long time.
We have other rituals and I like the ones that are more traditional to my chapter. Rituals
are good I guess, but I just think that initiation is boring and no one ever wants to go. You
have to sit there for a really long time and read this stuff out of a book and it takes four
hours and it is just not the most entertaining thing.
Participants who labeled ritual as a “boring” ceremony or as something “that they had to
do” indicated a lack of any connection between their sorority experience and their feelings
toward ritual. They may have enjoyed their sorority experience because of other aspects, such as
social or what they referred to as “sisterhood,” but for those participants, the ritual ceremony was
not one of their favorite aspects of their sorority experience.
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