Frat Fashion and the Feminist Dilemma: Reconciling Our Party Attire and Our Values

Designed by Amira Dossani

Before I came to college, my two older sisters gave me plenty of advice, especially when it came to parties: “Always make sure you know where your friends are,” “Don’t drink from the communal punch bowl,” etc. No advice, however, was offered regarding frat dress codes, leaving me to make my own decisions in that area.

I attended my first fraternity party during the weekend of Halloween in 2023. Unlike what Cady Heron from “Mean Girls” once suggested, girls weren’t all wearing “lingerie and some form of animal ears.” Certainly, though, everyone showed much more skin than they usually would, including me. I had traded my usual jeans for a slightly above-the-knee skirt and my crewneck for a cropped button-down to create a vaguely “Heathers”-adjacent costume. 

While getting ready, I expressed some concern to my boyfriend. I didn’t know if I was wearing too much or too little relative to what everyone else had planned for the weekend. My boyfriend’s response was the age-old question: “Do we dress more revealingly for the frats because we enjoy it, or because it's a necessity of conformity and access?” 

I didn’t have an answer for him then, and I still don’t think I do. It wasn’t until my second frat party that I reconsidered the question. This time, however, the theme was Adam Sandler, a classic that by nature rejected any skin-bearing outfit. I was there last minute, and, as a result, with no outfit coherent with the theme. I arrived in my favorite oversized t-shirt, baggy jeans, a black raincoat, a belt and, of course, frat shoes. Not exactly the epitome of Sandler, lacking a baseball cap and gym shorts. As I waited in line, something felt off with my outfit.

Going across the road to Lisa’s, I deliberated on how I could do anything to make the look feel more “fratty,” concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get into the party. Once inside the Lisa’s bathroom, I began the movie makeover-style process of redoing the outfit as much as I could — rolling down the waistband of my high-waisted jeans and ripping the neckline of my shirt so it hung slightly off the shoulder. I returned to the party, my pocket weighed down by my belt and dignity a little bruised by my dedication to conformity.

As I continue reflecting on the lengths I went to to get access to the party, two feminist ideas keep popping up: ”If you’re not paying, you’re the commodity” and “Gender and sexuality are a performance.” This encompasses both the beauty and uncomfortable truth about dressing for frat parties. Frat parties are free for women in part because of the expectation that female partygoers are “available.” Frat fashion roots itself in the idea that when female-identifying people dress revealingly for frats, it is for the purpose of attraction. These roots are, thankfully, becoming dated, as frats start to become less of a matchmaking opportunity and more of a mixed-gender social space.

It’s impossible to talk about frat parties without acknowledging the heteronormativity. The idea of boy-girl pairings prevails, exhibited by gender ratios when going to frats in groups. Once I acknowledged and recognized the heteronormative standards, I began to see the idea of gender and sexuality as a performance everywhere. In a way, it felt almost campy; going to the frats became an opportunity to perform a hyper-feminine character, from getting ready to heading home. I talked about it with one of my friends, AJ Dickerson, and she expressed a similar sentiment.

“I see frats as a heterosexual and gender-normed place, so I would rather fit in with the heterosexual gender norm,” Dickerson said.

In this way, gender, feminism and frat fashion can be compared to learning how to write. People say that to be a good writer, you must first learn the conventions and rules of writing before you can break them in a way that works. Comparably, it feels like the healthiest way to engage with the heteronormativity of frat-party fashion is to first understand and recognize the way heteronormativity and gender roles present within it. Once realized, you can begin to experiment and play with the hyper-femininity and hyper-masculinity that characterize frats and fratwear.

Dickerson expressed the same fear as I did throughout this ongoing deliberation:

“There's some part of me that feels like a bad queer person or a bad feminist for dressing slutty,” she says. “I call it objectifying myself.”

However, I don’t think the clothing we wear defines us. We aren’t bad or good feminists for wearing more or less clothing. Wearing a bikini top doesn’t make you a slut and wearing pants doesn’t make you a buzzkill. The way we feel about the clothing we wear, and the context we wear it in, says more about us and our values than a piece of fabric does. 

I don’t think I’m finished reflecting on what my clothing choices mean in terms of my feminist values. I might just need to go to another frat party to find out.