Customer Reviews

Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(69)
3 star:		(50)
2 star:		(53)
1 star:		(87)

 

 

I began college as intensely opposed to sororities and the idea of "buying" my friends. Then, in my sophomore year of college, I met some girls in a sorority on campus, became friends with them, and eventually joined the sorority- an NPC group at a large state university.

It was one of the best decisions I ever made- I made great friends and developed so much as a person. I think many sorority girls would say the same thing. It was a great experience.

Had I read this book as a collegian, or recent graduate, I probably would have reacted the same as many of the sorority women's postings- "that is NOT true," "that never happens," etc. However, being removed from the situation by about five years gives you a different perspective.

I am not blind enough to sit here and say " I have NEVER seen any of these things Ms. Robbins talks about going on." That is simply not true. The alcohol, the parties, the date rape, the eating disorders- it's all there. Maybe it wasn't a part of my sorority, or yours, but it's been a part of someone's. Every chapter, on every campus, is different. One of my sorority's chapters at a major university was closed due to hazing. Yet, I was never once hazed in any way. It all depends where you are and the people who are there with you.

I didn't read this book thinking that Ms. Robbins was exposing "sororities everywhere." But I do think she provides a good depiction of how MANY sorority chapters operate. I think she also remained very objective in her writing. And, just think back to junior high or high school- the same catty girls, pressure to conform, etc. It's not all that different. The problem is there isn't really any other group comparable to a sorority-where 100+ girls can live together, attend the same meetings, share a common ritual, etc. You are thrown together much like real-life sisters live.

Yes, "pledge" is an outdated term. But not that outdated- only a few years. And many chapters still use it. Don't use things like this to try to prove the author didn't truly research. Alcohol has forever been banned in sorority houses- but it's always there. Paddles were banned- at least in my sorority- but people still buy them.

I really believe there are chapters out there who do emphasize scholarship, service, sisterhood, and the like. Mine was one of them, at least when I was there. Equally, there are chapters that do not. Several years before I joined, my chapter was completely different. It all depends on who is there at that particular time.

I hope that people won't use this book to determine whether or not to go Greek, but I would definitely recommend that everyone read it. If nothing else, it brings up things you will experience in college, whether in a sorority or not. It isn't fair to assume that these four girls' experience will be the same for you. It won't be. Yours may be better, it may be worse. I will recommend to my future daughters to rush and I would hope they had an experience like mine. However, if they ended up in a chapter that did not treat them with true sisterly values, I would also recommend that they leave.

The bottom line is that the experience you have depends on the school, the chapter, and the girls who are there with you. There is no "blanket" way to describe the Greek experience.

A sister of mine I hadn't spoken with in a while asked me to write a negative review for this book. So I read the book figuring, from all my sister's fussing, that it would be easy to pan. But there was a problem. The very sister who is angry about this book did many of the same things listed in the book -- hazing, drinking, partying a little too closely with a specific group of "hot" fraternity boys. I know, because I did it too. Look, not everything in this book jives with my college experience, but enough does. It's actually not a bad book, either.

As Alexandra noted in the end - it's not a book merely about the sororities, it's a book about women treating women. Yes, there is hazning in other organizations, clubs and such, but since they're not exclusively female they wouldn't be so helpful in analyzing the group dynamics. I've been working with the Greek houses on a state school campus for a while, and The book is very true. I can see how someone who's Greek could be offended by it, - maybe you don't see the bigger picture? I personally didn't even think the book was to critisize the Greeks - just give an overview of a group often overlooked.

As an alumnus of one of the nation's largest national sororities -- and one of the nation's largest greek systems I was, needless to say, very interested in Robbins' book.
I picked it up Saturday and didn't put it down until Sunday. What we have here is not only a very real, fair and balanced depiction of sorority life, but a very honest story about four girls trying to find out who they really are in the chaos that is college.
I have no doubt that sisters from all over the country will boycott this book -- but in the end Robbins' doesn't support or refute sorority life -- she merely gives us an outsiders view into the lives many of us led or are currently leading.

I am a currently graduating member of an NPC sorority at a large campus. I read this book out of curiosity, but I came out feeling like I'd just seen my life in the mirror. "Dress Checks",binge drinking, and "selling the sorority" were what I endured for several years. I did not encounter everything that Robbins talked about, like hazing and drug abuse, but I absolutely believe that this book is a fairly accurate representation of what goes on in these societies. I don't think that Robbins is trying to say that every sorority is like this, but the abuses she sees cannot be ignored in good conscience. Sororities will probably never change, but I hope that sisters will read this book and allow themselves to recognize their own lives in it.

This isn't going to be one of those one-star reviews where I start off by saying, "I'm a Delta and my sorority was nothing like the ones portrayed in this book...." For the sake of disclosure, I will say that I attended a university where fraternities and sororities were prohibited, and that I was not, never have been, nor ever will be associated with a sorority. Another reviewer said that this book was dripping with contempt. I will admit that I read this book because that was the perspective I was seeking in a book on sororities. Do I still have contempt for Greek life after having read this book? Yes. The only difference now is that I also have contempt for Alexandra Robbins.

The first major flaw in this book is that Robbins, quite laughably, accords most of her sources and subjects a level of anonymity previously shown only to Deep Throat. This book is filled with sentences that start off with phrases like, "When I spoke to a sorority alumna from a mid-Atlantic university..." or, "Experts I spoke to said..." After a while this becomes extremely tiresome and any halfway intelligent reader begins to question these assertions (who were these experts she spoke to? from what university or think tank? from what field? anthopology? psychology? women's studies? sociology?). About eighty pages in one realizes that Robbins's publisher must have told her to keep things intentionally vague, knowing that her supposedly factual allegations wouldn't stand up when confronted with a suit for libel. As a result, the book is repetitive and toothless.

Secondly, Alexandra Robbins portrays herself as an omniscient observer of her four sorority subjects. The problem with this is that unless the author followed these young women around constantly during almost all of their waking hours taking shorthand and following them with a dictaphone (a difficult thing to do considering that she was undercover), there is no way she could have reconstructed conversations between the parties, their family members, their sorors, and their fraternity dates with the accuracy she claims to be able to. After a few of these "was she actually THERE when that took place?" moments, it's only logical to think that Robbins either dramatized or outright fictionalized certain conversations or events.

Moreover, Robbins claims to have looked at four sorority girls who were not part of an extreme in terms of their attitudes towards life, college, or their organization. Yet all had significant issues with the idea of sorority life and/or dubious reasons for joining a sorority before pledging but seemed to have followed through with the process in spite of those concerns and against their better judgment. Just a note: if an author wants to write a supposed expose, it would probably be in their best interest to find a few girls who were gung-ho about the process and then became disillusioned later as opposed to cherry-picking the dissatisfied.

Last but not least, there are some odd and none-too-subtle racial undertones in this book. Robbins, from what I can tell after having read 163 pages of her book (I'll admit I might not make it through the rest), portrays only one character sympathetically - a long-suffering young black woman in a white sorority named "Sabrina" who toils away at her studies and works endlessly at a part-time job for the money to pay her sorority dues while her frivolous spoiled white classmates mull over purchases at Gucci. But here again, Robbins' tactic of holding "Sabrina" up as the one sensible one in the group breaks down on examination. The girl joined a sorority to be gain access to the "white power structure"? She "anguish[ed] that... her parents wouldn't be able to pay the rent," and rails against "largely spoiled girls who had everything handed to them throughout their lives," and who, "had no understanding of what it was like not to have food," (p. 162) yet struggles to pay onerous fees to be part of an organization she takes little pleasure in, and barely participates in? The girl comes across as an absolute fool, in spite of Robbins' exhortations. Quite frankly, you have to wonder what was going on in "Sabrina"'s mind when she thought that joining a group of women whose primary activities seem to be talking about T&A, getting their genitalia pierced, and binge drinking was a way to access the white power structure, or when she made the decision to invest hundreds of bucks in sorority dues to be provided with cheap T-shirts and irritating friends instead of say, perhaps, mutual funds. There are other points in the book where you get the feeling Robbins adheres to some code of "Radical Chic". After witnessing silly white Greek Week dance performances, and ridiculing white Greek traditions, Robbins describes the step performances of black Greek houses, which also contain "comical insults" and Greek-based hand signals, in shining terms: "I was awed by both the spirit and the talent," "a form of solidarity and identity pride that lasts far beyond a performance," "neither that description nor mine can truly do the art form justice." You can almost see Robbins leaning against Leonard Bernstein's piano, talking to denizens of the upper east side, shaking her head and saying, "Oh, white people are just terrible! But these African-Americans are so AUTHENTIC!" Lady, give me a break.

I shouldn't have even wasted my typing skills on this book review, to be quite honest, but the experience has been rather cathartic. The most important thing I can say is don't waste your money on this book!

I had heard of this book in relation to the recent MTV series "Sorority Life", which I did not see. Having been a member of a sorority in college, I was interested to see Robbins' study.
Overall, this book is a very clear look at the world of the upper-crust sorority, particularly in the culture of the South. Robbins does not claim that this case study pertains to all sororities or Greek life, and includes several interludes at other campuses to give contrast to the scene she is personally experiencing. Not as positive as it could be, but Robbins does not make this book into a passionate sermon. The message is more sobering than shocking or chiding. The writing is an easy read. I give it 4 stars instead of an average-3 because she does take the extra step to not only define problems but suggest patterns of change.
Bottom line: if university society cares about students, and in particular women, then the current Greek system needs more than a minor overhaul of its practices and (not always) silent assumptions.
Many girls have, are, and will find a great deal of identity, support, and yes, sisterhood from sororities. This cannot be discounted. But it cannot be used to justify the equal if not greater numbers of girls who have, are, and will be chewed up and spit out, many times out of nothing more than spite. Robbins does find a lot of sisterhood in her work among these girls, but sadly also discovers that the true meaning of sisterhood often gets left behind.

Being a member of a NPC sorority at a large Midwestern university made me want to read this book and I definitely was not disappointed! I have recommended it to all of my sorority sisters... and anyone else who would like to read it. While I dont think that the main characters of the book are a great protrayal of all sorority sisters, they were still so fun to read about. I felt that Robbins was fair in her writings but since she was at a Southern university, where sororities are everything, I feel that this book does give a slightly off idea to non-Greeks on what sorority life is like. Not all sororities haze or are as cruel or superficial as some of the girls are in the story. Even though they weren't your everyday sorority, they made for a great book.
What I also really enjoyed about the book is that Robbins takes about every other chapter to discuss different sorority topics such as black vs. white sororities, hazing, rush, and even the rituals of different chapters. She even focuses on topics that are avoided by some Nationals... such as rape at social events, drug use, and eating disorders throughout the book. These chapters intertwined with the story really complete the book and make it a great read for non Greeks and Greeks alike.
When it all boils down, this book was really, really good and everyone that I know that has read has said that they couldn't put it down until they finished. Definitely read Pledged!

I'm a proud sister of Kappa Delta and I love my sorority to death. But reading this book was like reading about my sisters. I will admit that all the girls in my sorority look the same and all wear designer clothes. I have a great time in my sorority but there is binge drinking, back stabbing, drug use, sexual favors, etc. Ms. Robbins hit it right on the mark when she described sororities in Pledged. I know that sororities vary from college to college and state to state, but she described my Kappa Delta chapter to a tee.

I went to a Southern university. I was not in a sorority. I never saw the point of "buying friends." However, I feel that Robbins went into her project with a view that sororities are bad. The ONLY bad aspects of sororities, I think is the conformity and superficiality. I remember watching girls during rush, focusing so much on appearance. I remember when my roommate was in tears b/c only the "ugly" sorority wanted her. I remember how sorority girls in the top sororities would only really talk to me, an independent, when their sisters were not around. I remember how my friends who were in sororities couldn't be themselves around their sorority sisters. I also think eating disorders really may be more prevalent among sorority members. On several occasions in the dining hall, I recall overhearing one sorority sister admonish another not to eat too much or to avoid carbs etc.

However, the sex, drugs and alcohol - that describes lots of independents too. People who were not Greek used to pre-party (same as pre-game) ALL the time. Plenty of independents were promiscuous, plenty did drugs. Plenty had abusive relationships. And the biggest man-whore I knew was not in a fraternity. Essentially, I think Ms. Robbins described that average college experience. The main distinction between the independents and sorority sisters was the fact that image was less important for the former.