The Waves: The Bama Rush to Trad Wife Pipeline

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4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s episode of The Waves, it’s rush time! Host Kat Chow is diving deep into the #BamaRush phenomenon that has taken over the internet recently. She’s joined by professor and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom to talk about her recent article, “In Alabama, White Tide Rushes On” They dig into the very specific “type” of college student that joins the Alabama sorority, the race and gender implications of the Greek “Machine” and the cuteness of it all. Fighter Reading: Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting by Sianne Ngai HBO documentary Bama Rush (2023) directed by Rachel Fleit In Slate Plus: Unpacking Tressie’s piece The Enduring, Invisible Power of Blond, and all the internet chaos it caused. If you liked this episode, check out: How Drake Betrayed Megan Thee Stallion Podcast production by Cheyna Roth and Vic Whitley-Berry with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to [email protected]. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The Waves, Slade's podcast about gender and loud synchronized
0:13.1	chance and very expensive bracelets, so kind of everything.
0:20.3	For the next four weeks, you get to hear me catch out, fall down this giant rabbit hole
0:25.8	of something I cannot stop thinking about.
0:29.0	And this week, that rabbit hole is more like a rabbit tick-tock vortex, if that's even
0:36.4	a thing.
0:38.4	Helping me out of that vortex, or maybe deep in it with me, is the sociologist and MacArthur
0:45.0	genius and New York Times columnist, Tressie McMillan-Cotton.
0:49.9	And you'll hear from Tressie in just a bit.
0:55.0	Two important words, Bama Rush.
1:01.0	Bama Rush is for the uninitiated, called Sorority Formal Recruitment at the University
1:15.8	of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
1:18.2	That's a mouthful, but that's a formal name.
1:20.3	And it's this global phenomenon, thanks to tick-tock, with so many young women documenting
1:26.0	the rush process, and millions of people at home following along.
1:29.9	Did I just make the first time in the Zaytahalba sorority house already losing my voice?
1:37.4	So in the Zaytah sorority house, there are only 48 of us and about two weeks, so I'm going
1:43.8	to show you what's in my rush bag.
1:45.4	Okay, so starting off, my bag itself is from Amazon.
1:50.1	And then that little Zaytahalba dress, and we had a big bid day brunch, and then we took
1:56.9	a ton of pictures, and then we all got to read the bid day list, which is literally my favorite
2:01.0	part of the day, because everyone is so excited to see their girl.
	...

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