Transcript: MHC Frat Party Story

“So, we should probably talk about our legacy.” 

Hannah: So, we should probably talk about our legacy. Because as first years, we were totally disconnected from social life…maybe we’re still disconnected from social life. I don’t really know.

Leah: Whatever we created our own social life!

Hannah: Yeah, as first years we decided to throw our own party because we weren’t going to any parties and we were like, “We need to have the normal college experience.”

Leah: And a bunch of our friends had birthdays around the same time.

Hannah: Yeah, it was like a quadruple birthday. It was for me, Molly, Saran, and our friend Kenza, who was an exchange student from France. So we decided to have a party and we really wanted a theme and for weeks we were trying to come up with a theme. We were just trying to be really intentional about the theme. We were like, “Maybe we’ll all wear costumes,” or “Maybe we’ll all do a George party where we all dress up like somebody named George.”

Leah: That was your idea. I don’t think anyone else ever wanted to do a George party.

Hannah: Man, nobody ever wanted to do that party. It would have been so good! Anyway, so by the end of however long we were trying to come up with an idea, somebody…

Leah: I think it was me. I think me and Kenza were talking about it.

Hannah: Yeah, basically like the question was “What’s the one thing we don’t have at Mount Holyoke?” And it was clear that that’s fraternities. We don’t have any frat parties at Mount Holyoke. Luckily, we don’t have frat parties at Mount Holyoke. I’m very happy about that. So we decide to do a frat-themed party and I’m pretty sure like no more than 20 people show up.

Leah: But we went all out. We were very strict about that theme. Kenza went and bought red solo cups…  

Hannah: And we had one of our friends be the DJ and come up with a good a frat mix of songs. And we all got really really into costume. I remember I wore three polos.

Leah: Collars popped.

Hannah: Yeah with the collars popped. And I borrowed another friend at Mount Holyoke, she was on the Amherst sailing team at the time, so I borrowed her jacket. I wore it on top of that. And I wore a backwards hat. I was very into it. You know what? That was actually a realization. That was a big moment of realization because I remember you also dressed up like a bro.

Leah: I did. And I wore Old Spice deodorant all over my neck and then the next weekend was drag ball…or maybe the weekend before. The weekend before had been Drag Ball. And I dressed pretty similarly for Drag Ball and I remember someone said to us as a joke, “Oh look at Leah, she looks like she’s so comfortable dressed as a boy. I bet she’s gonna start dressing like that all the time now.” And I just laughed it off like, “Ha ha, no of course that wouldn’t happen.” And then it did. And then I started dressing like that all the time.

Hannah: I don’t know if you remember this. The funny moment was, the two of us are usually the very responsible people in our group. We make sure everyone’s okay, we make sure everything’s cleaned up. We’re just like very on top of it. And for one night, basically of our entire college experience, we were not those people. We were gonna have fun. And we were talking, talking about how we both felt so confident and we were having such a good time and “How sad is it that we have to dress up like men to feel confident?” and all these things. And it was just like so Mount Holyoke even if we didn’t want it to be.  Like we were really trying to have this…

Leah: Even at this frat party we still were talking about internalized sexism and the patriarchy.

Hannah: Yeah, it was so funny. So that to this day has been one of our most fond memories. And you know, it was a great party. We all had an amazing time and we’ve thrown it…

Hannah & Leah: Every year since, yeah.

July 14, 2014