Sororities get a lot of criticism as being bad for women. Just a few short weeks ago, Alpha Phi at the University of Alabama released this recruitment video, which has since been called "worse for women than Donald Trump." For those of you too afraid to watch the video, let me break it down for you: music that sounds like it belongs in a sex scene on the CW welcomes you to an opening shot of the Alpha Phi house and skinny white girls dance in slow motion as the camera moves through the chapter. Later, another faceless skinny white girl walks along a dock in a bikini that covers 35 percent of her butt and holds up an Alpha Phi flag behind her head. There are many more shots of skinny white girls in bikinis, as well as shots of the very blonde chapter wearing white dresses while soundlessly laughing at one another in their house, and even one of a member with tan, cellulite-free legs, wedges, and a short white dress running up stairs in slow motion.

While there is nothing wrong with being tall or thin or outgoing or liking to wear bikinis, there is something wrong with depicting your organization as full of girls who all look and act alike. Of course, this is being held up as just another reason why sorority life is a step backwards for women, but this one extreme, Stepford Wives-esque depiction is not even close to the reality for most chapters, and likely is not truly reality for UA Alpha Phi either.

When I made the decision to join a sorority two years ago, I knew I was going to be judged. Not by my new sisters, but rather by members of my very liberal community at home where Teva sandals, purses from a local Fair Trade shop, and Priuses are more common than Jack Rogers, Longchamp bags, and Range Rovers -- two out of three of which I did not know about before coming to college. Regrettably, I was correct in my assumption, and I don't like to wear letters when I go home for fear that my cool alternative girl persona from high school might be compromised. My high school friends often ask me questions about GreeklLife, wanting me to justify a decision that I should not have to be defensive about. I have been under far greater scrutiny from those individuals than I am with my sorority sisters.

There is this popular idea that sorority women are judgmental and value the similarities of their chapters over the diversity, but this is not what I have found. In my chapter, the sole common thread is that our women are intelligent and virtuous. In almost every other facet, there is a great deal of variation. Our members are short and tall, plus size and petite, black, Asian, and white, outgoing and introverted, blonde, brunette and red headed, American and international, liberal and conservative, and everything in between. And despite those differences, we come together for common causes. I have seen my chapter support sisters participating in not only beauty pageants, but also student government elections. A great portion of my chapter supported a sister running on the Democratic ticket for U.S. Senate last fall, a few of us even interned on her campaign.

We are involved in student organizations of all kinds, holding leadership positions in organizations both big and small. I have never felt judged for not having the physical characteristics or personality traits typically associated with sorority girls, and have been praised for the talents I bring to our chapter. Differences in opinion and personality are not only tolerated, but encouraged.

Within my chapter, I have learned to value women with different backgrounds and different viewpoints from my own and learned to lift them up and sing their praises instead of tearing them down as women so often do to one another. I have forged the kinds of relationships with women that I did not before college, when, though misguidedly, I identified as someone who got along better with men, and believed women were simply too much drama.

While I could write descriptions of each of my sisters to illustrate my point, perhaps just as effective would be to share with you my organization's symphony, the creed by which we strive to live our lives and the cornerstone of our sisterhood: