A sorority at the University of Alabama has removed a recruitment video that one commentator has described as worse than Donald Trump for women's rights.
The video shows a group of all-white and mostly blonde members of Alpha Phi wearing bikinis and "Daisy Duke"-style shorts as they hold hands, give one another piggyback rides and repeatedly blow piles of glitter from their hands.
"It's all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition," wrote magazine editor A.L. Bailey for AL.com. "It's all so ... unempowering."
The video quickly racked up more than 500,000 page views -- but Bailey said the target audience seems more to be "hormonal college-aged guys" or "older, male YouTube creepers" rather than prospective pledges to the sorority.
She said the video, which fails to mention any of the sorority's core values or any community work the group undertakes, "completely sabotages" feminist ideals -- much like Donald Trump's insults against Fox News broadcaster Megyn Kelly.
"(Trump) proved the point that women, in 2015, must still work diligently to be taken seriously," Bailey wrote. "The continued fight for equal pay, the prevalence of women not being in charge of their own healthcare issues, and the ever-increasing number of women who are still coming out against Bill Cosby after decades of fearful silence show that we are not yet taken seriously."
The sorority took down its copy of the video, which remains available online, and the university released a critical statement against it.
"This video is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens," said Deborah Lane, associate vice president for university relations. "It is important for student organizations to remember what is posted on social media makes a difference, today and tomorrow, on how they are viewed and perceived."
Watch the video posted online here:
