!!!PUUURPLE!!!

Hot damn. Some crazy jonx went down at 45 Mt. Auburn earlier tonight.

It was the most rip-roarin’ event since the Big Bang. It was epic. It was Miltonian. It was… The Seneca Info Meeting.

Noice sent one of its bloggers (thaaat’s me!) to investigate the goings on of this semi-secretive and mostly just mind-bogglingly vague “women’s organization.”

Some of you may be wondering whether The Seneca is just a modified female final club with a paper application, or whether it’s a politically correct front for a money laundering scheme.

While I can’t guarantee that much information on the latter was gleaned, I bring to you the who-what-where and the who-wore-what of the information event of the week. Read more after the jump.

After receiving their courteous open invitation, I arrived a fashionable two or three minutes late.

The smiling faces of young Harvard ladies promptly greeted me at the door, though I felt like they were onto me already. After reluctantly relinquishing my contact info to them via purple gel pen on heavy cardstock paper (mmm, nice!), I proceeded to the name-tag table where I wrote my name in purple marker, picked up a glossy purple pamphlet and a seven-page purple application packet. Ah yes, purple! Because honestly, how else would I know this was a women’s organization?

No, but really.  Ease up on the color scheme, yo — it’s a little too matchy-matchy.

Once inside the actual mingling room, I couldn’t help but sense that every pore of my body was screaming “AHHHH ESTROGEN!” I could literally feel all our cycles syncing up with each other. And while I awkwardly cruised the refreshments table for chocolate, brownies and sparkling (purple!) grape juice, I couldn’t help but wish there had been potato skins, bratwurst and bacon, too. Note: Seneca is not butch-friendly and a little heavy on the carbs.

All around me were young ladies making a tableau vivant reminiscent of a dELiA*s catalog. The actual Seneca members were discreetly dispersed and only identifiable by a small serpentine “S” on their name-tags. After weirdly peering at a dozen chests to find this emblem, I tried to schmooze and dig for a little dirt, but am sorry to report that it was mildly uninteresting.

Sorry, no Ponzi Scheme here! To be honest, it was just a group of ladies talking to a group of ladies about what it’s like to be part of a group of ladies. And I can’t tell you how often they described themselves as “dynamic”…  I mean, seriously?

But the one thing that this blogger must relay is the sheer noise in that room. Girls, I hate to say it, but we are loud as all heck. It felt like standing next to a jet engine, it felt like stuffing my ears with live cicadas, it felt like… this! So I did dip out before 10 o’clock to keep my ears intact.

Anyway, the highlight of the evening was definitely the application materials. On every table there were the aforementioned glossy propaganda pamphlets (a tangible manifestation of their $335-a-semester dues + initiation fee). Chock-full of smiling (diverse!) women  prominently displayed along with vague testimonials about how great it is to be in communion with this select group of ladies.

And for those of you who want to know what was on the essay portion of their application: great questions like, “What is the most important issue women face at Harvard? How can a student group address this issue?” to go along with the inexplicable, “Describe yourself in haiku form… which celebrity or well-known character from a book do you identify with?”

In a nutshell, The Seneca promotes itself to be a “sisterhood” that works to make the social life of its ladymembers a little better while doing some community service alongside it all. But really, if you wanted to submit a competitive application to pay money to join an all women’s organization, you should have just gone to Wellesley. At least there you wouldn’t be blinded with purple.

And while this womanist, feminist, riot grrrl blogger realizes the pissy snark tone she’s affected, The Seneca doesn’t necessarily merit it. While there are undertones of troubling exclusivity and la-di-da, there are more troubling things happening on campus than punch season and The Seneca app. But the conclusion is, if you’re looking for a sweet community of ladies, just open yourself up to your neighbors and make some friends! At least there aren’t initiation fees… unless you buy your friends, and that’s just sad, honey.