Ranking Women by Susan’s Personal Opinion is Actually Feminist, Assures Pan-Hellenic

Early Sunday morning, Penn Pan-Hellenic assuaged community concern, clarifying that the rush system, wherein Susan Kornblatt of Kappa Gamma gets to rank freshman girls by her own perceived notion of their value, is actually feminist.

The clarification came after community activists feared the rush system promoted the snap judgement of other women, based on little information and personal biases. They were concerned that it perpetuates an atmosphere where, instead of treating each other as whole people, judgments are made based on whether women can make small talk with the confidence of a cheeky circus monkey.

Pan-Hel made note of these points but clarified that Susan Kornblatt feels very empowered by the process, so that counters the other stuff. “Feminism is all about empowering Susan, as well as those that Susan deems worthy of empowerment,” said the head of Penn Pan-Hellenic. 

She added that Susan can get a really good read on whether someone is genuine, very cool and devoted enough for her sorority in five minutes, so the judgments are actually pretty accurate.

Tess Kim (C '21) said she felt much better after understanding that the rush process was feminist. "I saw all of these girls crying in SweetGreen. They were questioning their value after getting cut from multiple organizations for just being themselves. I got worried something was wrong with the system. But now that I know it's feminist it's all fine."

According to Pan-Hellenic representatives, although it would seem problematic that hundreds of girls feel deeply hurt by rush, a system that leaves them feeling unseen and misunderstood, the process was still feminist because women were involved and such.

“When you have that many women doing a thing, it becomes feminist,” wrote the organization in their statement. “That’s how it works. Pageants can be feminist, a women's march against Anne Hathaway can be feminist, heck even a women-led rally against suffrage can be feminist."

"It’s really just a numbers game in terms of the number of women doing the thing,” wrote Penn Pan-Hellenic. "I promise we haven't misunderstood the concept."