Social Life & Fraternities – Page 2 – Forty Years: The History of Women at Bowdoin

Orient: Chauvinistic Oinkings

In the years following coeducation, the presence of women students raised many unanticipated questions for the College. These ranged greatly in scale, from large issues, like gynecological health and coeducational fraternities, to much more quotidian matters, like intramural sports.

This Orient editorial, which appeared in the April 27, 1973 edition (Document AW, 48), illuminates some of the unexpected complications that accompanied coeducation—specifically, the implications of coeducational fraternities on interfraternity athletic competitions. Having women on a fraternity’s track team, it argues, gives an unfair advantage to the coeducational fraternities; however, not allowing women means an unfair disadvantage. The author suggests that a separate White Key competition should be established for women, just as there are less competitive leagues for male athletes who do not have varsity-level skills.

Although the tone of the article is light—its title comes from a tongue-in-cheek joke—it does bring up some of the questions that coeducation raised for the Greek system, besides the obvious ones of membership and housing. As trustee Ellen Schuman ’76 said, Bowdoin’s administration “in some ways they had no idea what they were doing” when they began the process of coeducation, and often, issues were confronted and solved on an ad hoc basis (Trustee Focus Group, 3:20-3:54).

Orient: Golden Age for Bowdoin Greeks

Before they were phased out, beginning in the late 1990s, fraternities were an important part of Bowdoin’s social life. This article, which outlines the history of Greek life at the College, ran on the front page of the Orient on September 28, 1973 (Document AW, 49). It notes, “fraternities at Bowdoin have never been quite as exclusive as they have been at other schools. By and large…any student who had the inclination could belong to a fraternity.”

Even before the advent of coeducation at Bowdoin, however, there were some flaws in the fraternity system: “most, if not all” Bowdoin fraternities discriminated against black, Catholic, and Jewish students, in part as a result of the national fraternities’ regulations. A local fraternity, Alpha Rho Upsilon (whose letters were chosen to stand for “All Races United”), was founded in 1936 in response to this exclusion.

While over 95% of the Bowdoin student body was composed of fraternity brothers in the late sixties, by 1971, only 50% of freshmen joined a fraternity. In the late 1970s, however, years after this article’s publication, fraternity membership once again rose, and comprised a solid majority of the student body.

The article notes, “coeducation presented the most serious threat to the fraternities’ dominance at Bowdoin.” At the time of this article’s writing, “most fraternities” accepted women, and “a large percentage of women” chose to join them. Even so, the very word “fraternity” suggests some fundamental incompatibility with a coeducational institution, particularly since there were no sororities on campus. Although women students did pledge as brothers, they were often limited to local or social memberships rather than full voting memberships.

The essentially exclusive nature of fraternities was an important factor in the College’s March 1997 decision to phase them out.

AW49-1 - Orient: Golden Age for Bowdoin Greeks

AW49-2 - Orient: Golden Age for Bowdoin Greeks

Fall 1975 Rush Booklet

Bowdoin’s Interfraternity Council issued annual rush booklets (Document SS, 50), which served as an introduction to the college’s fraternities. After an introduction and some rules, the booklets gave individual fraternities the opportunity to describe themselves to the students. Most of these features are about three paragraphs in length. John Cross ’76, the then Interfraternity Council president, wrote the introduction to the fall ’75 rush book, in which he states, “The image of small, snobby clique does not apply to Bowdoin’s fraternities.” This blanket statement of inclusivity is interesting as, in 1975, women were still quite new to the college.

By 1975 the fraternities as a whole were not single-minded in their approach to women. The institutions range from praising themselves on remaining single-sex (Alpha Kappa Sigma), to devoting several sentences to women and stating that women could live in the fraternity houses and be full members (Delta Sigma). Most fraternities fell somewhere in between. Most felt the need to mention women in their profiles, but would not grant them full membership. They limited women to social membership, which meant that they could engage fully in social activities associated with the fraternities. Social members typically did not live in the fraternity houses and were not permitted to vote on fraternity matters. The way these fraternities addressed women shows that the Bowdoin social scene, in which fraternities predominated, still did not grant women the same privileges as it did men.

DKE Member Photo

In addition to administrative and practical concerns, coeducation at Bowdoin presented complications for campus social life, which was, at the time, dominated by fraternities. Even though women had been on campus, and were often bused in from women’s colleges across New England for parties, they now had to be incorporated into the College’s residential system, as well.

In the early years of coeducation, women students were permitted to join fraternities as local “social members” of the organizations, who could attend parties and some (though not all) meetings. Many women readily joined the fraternities as “brothers,” but some chose to pledge as a matter of necessity: at the time, the only dining hall on campus was Moulton Union, and students by and large relied on the fraternities for meals.

By the 1980s, however, women had been far more integrated into the College’s fraternity system. In this 1985 photograph (Document AW, 52), two female members of Delta Kappa Epsilon pose at an annual “boxer shorts” party. Some fraternities disassociated themselves from their national chapters so that women could join as full voting members.

In the mid-eighties, when this photograph was taken, fraternities continued to dominate the social scene for both men and women, although the fraternities continued to be, themselves, most often dominated by male students.