The College Fix

Apparently, some of today’s best and brightest female college students don’t mind eating live goldfish and chowing down dog food so they can hang out with the guys and get wasted on alcohol.

That’s one part of a feature article published in The Atlantic on Thursday that detailed some of the debauchery and shenanigans that go on at Princeton University’s infamous eating club “Tiger Inn.”

Eating clubs, which have been co-ed for about two decades, are described as similar to fraternities, complete with hazing rituals and membership. Tiger Inn has gained a reputation as the “Animal House” of eating clubs, off campus homes in which students don’t live, but visit to eat, drink, study, hang out and party.

The article was written by Princeton senior Caroline Kitchener and it pointed out that: as of late it seems more girls than guys aim to gain membership to the club; once in, these girls often get wasted on alcohol, and it’s not unheard of for them to brag about passing out or not remember the previous night.

The ladies of Tiger Inn can be found amongst guys who strum their naked penises or say things like “tits for beer,” according to the article, which pointed out these talented and ambitious young women apparently enjoy this atmosphere because they say there’s no expectations or pressure to be feminine and proper.

Here’s the highlight reel:

Walk down Prospect Avenue in Princeton, New Jersey on the first Sunday in February, and you’ll find a horde of shivering college sophomores huddled together on a front lawn, smeared in ketchup, maple syrup, and egg yolk. They’re organized into stations: one group choking down live goldfish, the other pounding out push-ups as senior members shovel dog food into their mouths.

These are the students trying to win membership at Tiger Inn (or TI), widely known as the frattiest and hardest-drinking of Princeton University’s 11 eating clubs — exclusive institutions similar to co-ed fraternities. This group is loud, unafraid, and endowed with a collectively remarkable gag reflex. But the most striking thing about the students standing on this lawn? Most of them are girls. …

I’m a student at Princeton, and before I even arrived on campus my freshman year, I heard the Tiger Inn stories: competitive projectile vomiting, harmonious chanting of “tits for beer,” and naked guys standing on tables while strumming their “penis guitars.” I looked on–kind of horrified, but also transfixed. …

(During recaps of weekend revelry) “Girls can say, ‘Last night I blacked out somewhere,’ or ‘I woke up somewhere,'” a recent female TI graduate said. “No one cares.”

The article does an excellent job of pointing out the copious amounts of alcohol that fuels this eating club’s party atmosphere and citing stats which find female college students now binge drink more often than their male counterparts.

Reaction to the piece has emerged via a write up on the feminism website Jezebel that defended the girls’ decision to join, saying sororities “suck,” and that “equal opportunity for women to succeed means equal opportunities to act like liver-shredding idiots.”

Jezebel writer Erin Gloria Ryan goes on to claim these girls are content with their decisions:

“When college women are free to do what they want, some of them are going to want to behave like college jackasses. They’re going to drink, swear, hook up sloppily and indiscriminately, barf in the streets, and generally act like boorish male characters in straight-to-DVD sex comedies. Oh, and one more thing: despite what an entire subgenre of concernmongering Little Girls Lost trend pieces on the phenomenon might have you think, they’re perfectly happy.”

Readers, we invite you to share your thoughts on our comments section below:

Are these college ladies just modern gals who need to blow off steam and be one of the guys, or are they desperate, misguided souls who seek acceptance and gratification in all the wrong places?

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