In advance of their annual Bid Day, in which prospective sorority members are told which sororities they’ve been accepted into, the University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi released a Bid video promoting their sorority, part of a longstanding tradition of sisterhood self-promotion.
Alpha Phi sorority posted a video on YouTube to recruit new members, but instead they got major backlash.
After an Alabama writer saw the video, the sorority found themselves under fire being called ‘worse for women than Donald Trump’!
Alpha Phi, who are based at the Tuscaloosa campus, uploaded the footage to YouTube and it has since been viewed over 700,000 times. But after receiving so much backlash, the video was removed from the site.
They made a video to show what life is like as an Alpha Phi. But while the girls look like they’re having a blast in the video, critics have accused them of selling themselves on looks alone while one writer has said they are doing more damage to women than presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The four-minute video shows the sorority’s 72 members wearing bikinis and short shorts, running across the football field, jumping in a lake, and blowing handfuls of glitter, ABC News reports.
The video, which seems to be professionally shot, makes no reference to academics or individuality. It also shows a lack of diversity in the sorority and objectifies women, according to some viewers.
One in particular, a writer named A.L. Bailey, called it “unempowering,” and many others agreed.
“It’s a parade of white girls and blonde hair dye, coordinated clothing, bikinis and daisy dukes, glitter and kisses, bouncing bodies, euphoric hand-holding and hugging, gratuitous booty shots, and matching aviator sunglasses,” A.L. writes.
“It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so … unempowering.”
Since their video went viral, the University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi chapter has deleted its Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr pages. The homepage of the chapter’s website is the only thing that remains online.
Watch the video below.
