by Kiley Roache
The first two rooms are furniture-less, and one has a giant fireplace with a composite photo above it of all these fuckbois in suits and ties.
Lipstick on a pig.
The next room is almost as empty, except for a large wooden bar piled high with thirty racks of the usual suspects: Pabst Blue Ribbon and a bunch of Lights—Coors, Keystone and Natural.
I grab a Natty and head back to the other room.
“Hello, everyone.” An older guy steps onto a makeshift stage at the far end of the room. There’s a slight ruffling sound as everyone turns to look. The boy smiles, and his blue eyes sparkle. “My name is Peter, and I’m honored to welcome you to the Delta Tau Chi house. I know some of you are still filtering in, and that’s all right, but I just wanted to take a second to say hello and hopefully put you at ease.” His eyes scan the room as he speaks, like he’s talking to each of us and none of us. “Some of you may understand the Rush process, but for others this may be new...” His eyes reach me, and he falls silent for a second. He looks at the floor, and shakes his head before looking up with a picture-perfect smile and beginning again. “Basically we’ll spend this week hanging out and getting to know you guys, and then we’ll vote and some of you will be asked to join us on a Rush Retreat this weekend. After that we’ll vote again, and those young men will be invited to pledge. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask an active—that’s what we call current members. Thank you. Have a great night.”
He steps off the stage to light applause, and people return to their small clusters of conversation.
Do I walk up and introduce myself to someone? Or hang back and let them come to me, like I’m too laid-back to do the whole ass-kissing thing?
“Hey there.” I turn around to see a short but muscular guy. His hair is spiked, like he’s trying to pick up a few inches any way he can.
“Hi,” I say.
“I’m Jackson,” he says.
“Cassie.”
I switch my beer to my left hand so I can shake his with my right. “You a freshman?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, like he doesn’t know that answer should be given timidly. I nod and look past him, trying not to be rude, but knowing I should be talking to upperclassmen. I’m working right now; I don’t have time to chitchat.
“What’s that, a Natty Light? Interesting choice.”
“Thanks.” I give him a smile. “I’ve always thought that, of the shitty beer, Natty is the best. It knows what it is and owns it. It tastes like water, but who cares, you barely paid anything, and we all know taste’s not why you’re buying it.” I take a sip before continuing. “Now, other cheap beers, they put this fake ‘beer flavoring’ in, because it’s too cheap to naturally taste like beer. But that fake stuff is what tastes so bad. They should just admit what they are, an inexpensive, tasteless beer, you know?”
He looks at his own Keystone, his eyebrows drawing together. “I guess so.”
He starts to say something else, but from across the room I catch Jordan’s eye, and everything else fades to a blurry buzz. He sees me, too, and looks confused, if not kind of...heartbroken.
Do I go say something?
No, we just met. There’s no way that sad look in his eyes is about me, right?
Someone taps my shoulder. “Excuse me.” I turn around to see the boy from the stage. My blond friend from sign-in loiters behind him.
“So sorry to interrupt. I’m Peter Ford, chapter president. I was wondering if we could have a quick word.”
Whoops, already in trouble.
I nod and turn back to Jackson, raising my hand in a small wave before following Peter up the stairs.
He looks like he’d be president of a frat. Much better dressed and carrying himself with more confidence than the rest. Charismatic and handsome, the type of guy adults would say was going places but with a little bit of player still mixed in. Like the college equivalent of JFK.
“That was quite the analysis of beer,” he says as we climb the stairs.
I shrug. “I like to party, but I’m also a huge nerd, what can I say?”
He laughs. “Well, welcome to Warren Greek Life,” he says, spreading his arms.
And for the first time, I feel a small bit of hope that I might actually like it here.
We reach the top of the stairs and pass a calendar that features a photo of a different topless model every month. August’s is licking a popsicle in a way that...well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be the typical way someone might enjoy an ice-cream treat.
Aaaaaand my brief feeling of hope is gone.
Peter gestures for me to enter one of the bedrooms. The blond and baseball-cap guys follow, and finally Mr. President himself. He closes the door behind him and crosses his arms.
I glance around this room. Luckily there are no sexy calendars, just an American flag and a Warren ROTC poster. The rest of the room is pretty minimalist: navy bedding and a desk stacked with books and a large protein powder container. It’s a very boy room.
The two henchmen flop onto the bed. I take the desk chair.
“Is this some sort of stunt?” Peter studies me.
“No.” I stand up and straighten my dress, pulling on the short hem. “Um... I know this seems weird, but my dad was a DTC, and he always talks about it being the best time of his life. He didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, and he kind of raised me as a boy because of it, buying me video games instead of Barbies, and playing catch instead of going to the daddy-daughter dance.” From the DTC alumni websites, I know that the whole legacy thing is a huge deal. Like, if I was Chase Davis instead of Cassie, they’d be in big trouble for denying me a bid.
I clear my throat, and they don’t jump in, so I continue. “I know that if I want to party in college I’ve got to go Greek...” Everything I know about Alex and life in general is counter to this, but one of the DTC frat members tweeted it once. “But I’ve always been friends with dudes more than girls, and, honestly, shotgunning beers and throwing amazing parties sounds a lot better than wearing pearls and baking cookies.”
These aren’t all lies. It’s true that my dad was a DTC, but he would definitely not be a fan of me doing this. And I do happen to like a lot of things gendered toward men—beer, baseball, Call of Duty—although I also like boy bands, Nora Ephron movies and cheesy prom-posals.
“Are there rules against it?” Peter asks the two boys on the bed.
“No,” I interject, holding my head high. “I checked.” I smile to soften it. I figure the name of the game is to have enough alpha confidence to demand their respect but enough softness so as not to rub against their perception of how a woman should behave.
The mission is to find out how living inside the environment of a frat house is for women, so when I’m inside I will be a woman, a real human person. I will be, as much as possible, “myself” as I would be if I wasn’t conducting this experiment, so I can get the most accurate result.
But first I need to get inside.
So, not unlike a lot of people here, I will lie my way through Rush. Hi, my name is Cassie, and I will be reading for the role of frat boy’s wet dream.
It feels kind of gross, like I’m betraying my sex. Or like I’m playing a character out of some porno.
But I remind myself of the higher cause, buckle down and silently repeat, like a mantra: pizza, beer, video games, boobs.
After extensive research on Reddit and Urban Dictionary, these are the things I decided.
I will be a size four but eat burgers and pizza.
I will not be a bimbo, like the rest of those dyed-blonde, fake-tanned sorority girls. But I won’t be smart enough to threaten the boys’ ego or intelligence.
I will be feminine looking but not stereotypically feminine.
I will drink cheap beer like water.
I will get fucked up, and seem t
o be queen of all drinking games, but somehow never be an emotional or sloppy drunk.
I will like nerdy things like sci-fi movies but look more like gold-bikini Leia than the female equivalent of Peter Parker.
I will be sexual but not. Always down to talk about masturbating or threesomes but never do either. I will be flirty and hot, but never have sex myself. Otherwise I risk being demoted from “guys’ girl” to “group-ho.”
I will love sports and action movies. And I will know more about all these things than the boys do, even if I don’t always show it, so I don’t become a “fake guys’-girl,” which is the worst offense, because then they’ll know I’m just doing this so they’ll like me.
And then there’s the most important part: to give no fucks.
To be the kind of girl guys would let into their frat, you need to “not care what anyone thinks” and “do what you want,” while making sure what you “want” is to do everything in a stereotypically masculine way.
The whole idea of this cool girl is to hollow a woman out to just her body—the part they see the most value in—and then fill her with the things they think are worth something.
The title “one of the guys” is an honor. And it’s sexist as hell.
I flutter my fake eyelashes and look up at Peter with a sweet, mischievous smile, like I’m considering sharing a secret with him and him only.
On the inside, I’m trying not to vomit.
“Well, in that case, I don’t see why not,” he says.
The blond guy looks shocked. Baseball-cap guy is laughing his ass off.
“You’ll have to earn your bid like the rest of them, but I don’t see why you can’t try,” Peter adds.
The blond stands up. “She’ll mess with the rest of Rush, distract the other pledges.”
Peter turns to me. “Don’t do that.”
I laugh. “No problem.”
“There’ll be sorority girls here, so just don’t draw too much attention to yourself, and the other rushees shouldn’t even notice.”
I nod.
“Good luck, pledge. Now get your ass back downstairs. It’s members-only on the second floor.”
Chapter Five
“One of the greatest hurdles for sociology is the Hawthorne effect, when subjects alter their behavior because they know they’re being studied. The effect referenced in the name comes from a study about productivity, when, as you might guess, workers picked up their pace when they knew they were being watched.”
My Sociology 101 professor, an eighty-year-old woman in a navy pantsuit, slips off her reading glasses, and looks out to the class, an auditorium of freshmen (mainly) and seniors (more than there should be) who almost forgot they had to fulfill this requirement.
“This is a bit like how cell phone usage might go down in this class if there was a team of scientists filming you instead of just a half-blind old bat at the front of the room. But then again, I still see, say, you there in the third row with the blue phone case.”
Everyone shifts in their seats. The boy in question turns red, and a few people laugh.
“Tell your mother I say hello. I do hope the only person you felt the need to contact during my class is the woman who brought you into this world. Otherwise, do put it away.”
He sheepishly slides the phone into his backpack.
“Now, where was I?” She puts her glasses back on. “Oh, yes. The Hawthorne effect. So now, knowing this, it makes sense to conduct some studies covertly, although, that of course carries its own array of risks...”
The door in the back of the room swings open, but luckily, Professor Abbott is too engrossed in her notes to notice.
I see someone walking down the aisle out of the corner of my eye, but I am too terrified of my tiny, fierce professor to look.
“Excuse me,” a familiar voice whispers.
My heart skips a beat as Jordan shimmies past the rest of the people in my row and settles into the seat next to me.
I steal a glance. He’s fishing through his backpack for a notebook, so luckily he doesn’t see me staring. He’s wearing a checkered button-down and light blue shorts, impeccably dressed for a nine o’clock class. And he looks good, like so good I have a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was hoping he wouldn’t live up to the memory I had replayed in my mind as I lay in bed the night before. But instead he’s even more beautiful than I remembered. I’m painfully aware of how close he’s sitting to me, scared I’ll give myself away, like he’ll hear my breath catch or my heart race.
He looks over, and my eyes dart to the front of the room, where Professor Abbott is rambling on about things that honestly would probably be very helpful for me to know. But I can’t focus, can’t hear anything but my own heart beating wildly.
I keep my eyes forward as he leans over and whispers, “You could’ve just told me you were going to DTC.”
I glance over. “I didn’t know what to say.”
He stares at me like he’s trying to figure something out. Then he shakes his head and turns to his notebook.
He doesn’t say anything for the rest of class, taking notes in tiny, neat handwriting and meticulously organized columns.
My own notes are an appalling scrawled mix of cursive and printing, sometimes veering off the lines.
When the lecture ends, he leaves without saying anything to me.
Okay, then, bye.
I head out into the fresh air and feel a bit better in the California sun. I cut through the sandstone quad, past the dry fountain and toward the coffee shop.
I am here, I keep telling myself, but it doesn’t seem real as I walk through scenery I’m used to seeing on postcards.
I grab a cappuccino so I won’t be too dead for my first meeting with the professor who will be helping me with my independent study.
My project coordinator, an uptight blonde from the Upper East Side who’s constantly checking one of her countless social media accounts on one of her two smartphones, is not my favorite person. We’ve had several Skype meetings, and she is always wearing designer business wear and telling me that this topic “is so hot right now” and “will generate so much buzz” once we go public. That’s her favorite word, I think, buzz. She truly sounds like a bee during most of our calls. It just worries me that she doesn’t seem to care what people will say about the project as long as they’re saying something.
But I do have to give it to her; she hooked me up with about the best faculty adviser in the history of ever. I’ve been a fan of her for years, reading her entire body of work the summer I first heard about her, and impatiently anticipating the release of everything she’s done since. One of the top women’s studies professors in the world, and she’s going to sit for an hour a week and listen to me rant about frats. I almost feel bad for her.
The imposing door in front of me opens. A beautiful, tall black woman smiles at me. She’s wearing a patterned dress that complements her headscarf. She looks polished and smart, but also like she exudes sunshine. A bit different from the salt-and-pepper-haired old men in heavy black and navy suits who teach so many of the classes here.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Eva Price.”
I know. I’ve read all your books. “Cassie Davis.”
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water, juice?” she asks as she leads me into her office.
There is a grand dark-wood desk, and ornate bookshelves overflowing with easily hundreds of books, as well as vases and boxes covering every available surface.
Most notable are the pictures on the wall behind her desk, so that when she sits she’s flanked by photographs of her at the Fruitvale Station protests, holding a sign outside the Supreme Court during Roe v. Wade, meeting Malala on the floor of the UN, deep in conversation with Nelson Mandela, shaking hands with the president of the United States. Jesus.
Sh
e sits, and so do I, feeling about an inch tall. There is no way she should be taking on my project. She’s light-years too big for this.
“Well, I’m going to make myself some tea, if you don’t mind.” She grabs a mug off her shelf.
Speechless, I nod. It’s always odd to see larger-than-life people do such mundane things.
She settles into her chair. “So, I know this is the last thing you want to hear right now, but as feminists—You do consider yourself a feminist, yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. I always like to avoid the whole ‘feminism means equality’ conversation when I can. You do not understand, Ms. Davis, how exhausting it is to have to urge young women to align themselves with a movement that simply fights for their dignity.”
She takes a sip of her tea. “So, as I was saying. As feminists, I don’t know if this is exactly what we want to or need to be getting behind right now, and I know that’s scary to hear. But I think as a researcher, an activist, or a writer, that sort of self-reflection, continuously asking yourself, Why am I doing this? Is this the best way to go about it? Is this what the cause needs right now? is endlessly important.
“When it comes to creating a just world, you have two main fights, in my opinion. There’s the legal and the social. Do you know the slogan ‘the personal is political’?” She gets up and scans her shelves, finally grabbing a book and handing it to me before she sits back down.
“It comes from second-wave feminism,” she says. “The idea that we aren’t just fighting for the vote, which we had by that time. It meant that the issues women continually face in personal relationships, like gender roles in the traditional family, are a huge social problem and not isolated incidences. It’s similar to the philosophy that microaggressions—those little acts of prejudice, like asking a biracial person ‘what they are’ or touching a black woman’s head in public because you want to feel her natural hair, or assuming all Hispanic people are Mexican—can add up to become a major contribution to the continuation of systematic oppression.”
