Penn State students share encounters of ‘power, dominance and exclusion’ at doors of fraternity parties (2024)

Editor’s note: Some names of individuals interviewed for this story have been changed to protect their identities. The Daily Collegian has verified through fact-checking that all of the individuals interviewed for this story are current or prospective fraternity brothers.

Upon beginning her education at Penn State, student Emily Babinchak said she and her friends heard about fraternity parties in downtown State College “all the time” and decided they needed to “try it out.”

“It’s like just part of the experience,” Babinchak (freshman-communications) said.

But when the group arrived at a party held during the first week of school, she said they were quickly turned away at the door.

“We went to a frat… and they just yelled out the window like, ‘Oh we’re not taking anyone unless they're blonde,’” Babinchak said. “I looked at all my friends, and I was like, ‘This is stupid, we’re not doing this, that’s ridiculous.’”

Babinchak said she and her friends were “shocked” by the experience.

“I guess the perceived idea we had in the beginning was that, you know, girls have an easy time getting in,” she said. “That’s the ratio — you can’t get guys in unless you’ve got enough girls to hide the guy.”

Babinchak said she attempted to enter another party with her male cousin later on in her first semester.

“They stopped him, and they're like, ‘If you Venmo us $15, you can get in,’” she said. “I think by the end of the night, they were charging guys like $30, $40.”

Following these experiences, Babinchak wondered why fraternities “only let girls in,” and she decided to ask the question to a fraternity brother himself.

“He said something along the lines of like, ‘Oh, we’re just trying to find our girl for the night,’” she said. “They don’t want [other] guys there as competition.”

Babinchak said “almost all” of her friends have experienced a fraternity brother “approach them and try to make some sort of move” while at fraternity parties.

“It does sort of shift it to… less of a relaxed and fun social party when you know that there’s a reason that they’re only letting girls in,” she said, “which has always been a little scary… for me and any other girl that I’ve spoken to about it.”

Mark, a fraternity brother who wished to remain anonymous, said when it comes to letting more girls than guys into a party, there is “more to it” than hookup culture.

“Any guy can get into a party [and] just go and break something and start grabbing girls inside the party, and then it comes back to us… and there’s no way to hold them accountable,” he said.

Mark said he’s often on “door duty,” and there are many factors to take into consideration when deciding whether to let someone in.

“You can have the issue of having too many people and like a fire alarm going off, or… there’s like a stampede [and] someone gets crushed because there are like limits to how many people you can have into a party,” Mark said.

Other factors involved in the decision are if someone knows members of the fraternity, if they’re a member of another fraternity, if they’re a member of a sorority — especially an affiliated sorority — or if they’re not a freshman girl, Mark said.

“You don't really want random drunk freshman girls in, if you can help it, because they’re the most likely to blackout and need an ambulance because they don’t know their limits,” Mark said. “If you’re in a sorority, you’re much less likely to like blackout at the party… If you act like an idiot, it reflects badly on your sisters.”

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Looking out at a line of people on the street is sometimes “stressful,” Mark said, and he tries to empathize with those he turns away.

“I know how it is being like a freshman guy trying to get into a party — it’s not fun getting turned away while your girlfriends can sometimes go in,” he said. “But I’m at the point where I’ve accepted like… I shouldn’t get too attached because I have a job to do.”

Mark said he’s also noticed reasons beyond “liability issues” for why some people get rejected at the doors of fraternities.

“There’s definitely a role of sexism,” he said. “Guys are like, ‘Oh I want to see the girl with her boobs out,’ or like… ‘I’m not letting an ugly girl in,’ or… ‘I want to do this party with like the hot sorority’ or something like that.”

He said the atmosphere at a party, which includes the “people in the party,” the “number of girls in the party” and “how people are acting in the party” can affect a fraternity’s social reputation.

“Really, a good way to look at it is like middle school girl dynamics,” Mark said. “They’re always trying to one-up each other a little bit, and definitely, having a lot of guys at a party is a big turn-off for other frats.”

Penn State’s Interfraternity Council said in a statement it “strives to promote and create an inclusive environment for all attendees” at its chapter social events.

“In light of recent accusations, the Interfraternity Council would like to remind the members of the IFC community and the Penn State community as a whole that there is no place for sexism or body shaming on our campus,” the IFC said in its statement. “We must all work together to make this an inclusive environment.”

The IFC encouraged individuals to “report concerns” with chapters to the “appropriate parties,” such as through Penn State’s University Incident Report, the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response, the Office of Student Care and Advocacy or University Police and Public Safety.

A prospective fraternity brother who wished to remain anonymous, Drake, said going out to fraternity parties has been a “positive” experience for him during college.

“It’s really about who you know,” he said.

Drake said he attributes his positive experiences to the connections he’s made with fraternity brothers.

“Most of my experiences have been just meeting brothers, and when I have got to know them as a friend, they have invited me to come to their events,” he said. “They ask for a name, or I’ll text the brother that I know, and then they’ll come to the door and greet me with whoever I’m with, and we’ll be let in.”

Contrary to Babinchak, Drake said the gatekeeping methods at the door make him feel like he’s entering a “safe environment.”

“They’re not just trying to hustle people into the door,” he said. “The brothers are cautious of who they’re letting in.”

He said he plans to rush this semester.

“It definitely has great benefits when it comes to personal, professional and social lives,” Drake said. “You create a bond with people, as I’ve said, but there’s also major connections throughout a network of people that have experienced that life.”

For Madeline Van Dorp, however, encounters at fraternities’ doors have been quite the opposite.

She said she’s experienced women being treated “like commodities” when going out to fraternity parties.

“[Fraternity brothers] will comment on what you look like, as to why you’re getting turned away,” Van Dorp (sophom*ore-industrial engineering) said.

In one instance, she said she witnessed a woman being turned away for being “not the skinniest.”

“It was absolutely f---ing ridiculous… they were like, ‘We don’t do all that,’” she said. “We all just moved on, went elsewhere.”

Dominick Vender, a fraternity brother, said an “all-invite” system would “cause less issues” at the door.

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“The house — if they're having an event — they should invite people beforehand, and there should be no question about it at the door,” Vender (senior-finance and economics) said.

Vender joined Pi Kappa Alpha, commonly known as PIKE, during his sophom*ore year, hoping to be a dancer for Penn State’s THON. Since then, he has served as the philanthropy and community service chair and president, and he currently serves as the family relations THON chair.

“I just wanted to meet more people,” he said of fraternity life. “I think it really opened up a lot of doors in my life — I couldn’t be happier with my decision to do it.”

Vender said he discourages people from feeling the need to change their appearance or personality to attend a party.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Just be yourself. That’s not even a fun party if you have to change who you are to go — who wants to go to that?”

He said he wishes people would give fraternities “more of a chance,” because when it comes to greek life, no fraternity is “one size fits all.”

“It’s a huge system, so don’t judge all of them based on one bad egg, or a few bad eggs even,” he said. “I don’t think that's how greek organizations should be treated because they're all so vastly different.”

Rebecca Geiger, assistant director of Penn State’s Gender Equity Center, said when looking at fraternities and sororities, there are “power dynamics in play in terms of gendered roles and expectations,” especially when “historical context” is applied.

“Certainly, even if the individual members of those organizations may be more for gender equity or that sort of thing, we have to understand that these organizations stand on those legacies of power, dominance and exclusion,” she said.

According to Geiger, the Gender Equity Center is part of Penn State Student Affairs that serves students who have been impacted by a variety of campus climate issues — particularly those around power-based personal violence.

The experience of being objectified at a fraternity party, Geiger said, is not only harmful to the “greater society and culture,” but it also “produces lasting self-harm” within the individual.

“Viewing individuals based upon their body or reducing people down to their certain parts we know is the first part of committing violence against that individual,” she said.

She urged those who are struggling with body image issues to seek support from the Gender Equity Center.

“The message of the Gender Equity Center is that there is beauty in all shapes and sizes,” she said. “So if you are feeling pressure to conform to certain standards, whether it’s imposed by someone at the door of the fraternity or imposed by… society… we would hope that [you] would look to us.”

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