I think all chapters should have her as a guest speaker on risk management, and how we an rid our chapter houses of the "drug room" (I would also like to know where my chapters "drug room" is especially since we don't have a house)

i loved the book. And for the people who chose not to read it...gently push your pride away...read it before you hate on it.

that's what i'm doing.. i reserved it and am fifth on the list.

None of the Toronto libraries have her new book.

Well I'll just have to wait because I have no intention of buying it.
Mybe I'll pop into chapters on a couple of lunch hours and read it there;)

LOL, I'd be happy to read the book if someone sent me a free copy. Then I would freely put the smack down on this woman in a debate.

From reading the excerpts, here is my opinion -- we have a woman who for whatever reason was not greek in college and has always regretted it. She wanted to write a book that allowed her to pretend to be part of the greek system but still let everyone know that she considers herself to be above it all. So far all I've seen from this book are things any of us could have written ourselves after reading GC and stalking people's AIM away messages. I know I'm older than the intended audience for this book, but I have to laugh if Alexandra Robbins thinks I'm stupid enough to fall for this pile of crap.

Oh high and mighty one, please forgive all of us GCers who care enough to discuss the excerpts, interviews, websites, etc. of the author without reading the book.

But if we read the book, could we talk about the other things too, even if we haven't seen them?

*begging for forgiveness*

:rolleyes:

<-- caved yesterday and bought a copy from overstock.com for 14 and some change... best price out there. Half.com and amazon should be flooded with used copies soon

A controversial book is going to sell more copies than one that is coated with fluff.

Non-Greeks are fascinated by the Animal House mythology of Sororities and Fraternities, and the media feeds on this. Outside of that, Non-Greeks really don't give a damn about what happens in our houses. We're an elitist secret society-- not everyone can be a member. So of course people will be a little curious about what goes on behind closed doors. Those same nuts are the ones who want to know that happens in the CIA, and the FBI, etc. And the more controversial, the greater the buzz.

The ages of an average collegiate chapter of a GLO range from 16-23. This is an age where people are experimenting with newfound freedoms from their parents and developing their adult selves. That's why college students drink to excess, experiment with sex and drugs, etc. It's also why GLO leaders get sadistic sometimes and create tests of loyalty for their members that lead to national headlines and lawsuits. Greeks are no different than any other college students-- it's just that group mentality at work and some bad decisions that make an otherwise honorable mission-- Friendship-Scholarship-Leadership-- fall by the wayside.

maybe not UNT
 

the school in TX she was referring to could be UTD? Big deal sorority girls are shallow and want members from the rich side of town, but a whole book about it? Truly is she is trying to depict sorority girls in Dallas as elitist with our LV bags she should have mention that EVERYONE in dallas is like that!

alpha-holics
 

If it is UTD my cousin is an Alpha Gam there, but she's no Alpha-holic! *LOL* I'll have to tell her that!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I've read the footnotes and who she considers as "credible sources" and that's ample information for me to discern what kind of book this is, and what agenda she has.

But let me guess...if you found this in your order from Mickey D's, you'd eat the rest of the nuggets, because they're probably okay, right?

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/chicken_head.jpg

So because I've read it and I think it's utter crap am I allowed to say that it's a big pile of stinky poo? Just checking, unless that is too prideful.:rolleyes:

like it or not i did write her an email. i didn't mention my glo, but if she or whomever is behind that screen name decides to look around the site, i'm sure they'd figure it out. i've copied and pasted what i wrote to her. enjoy and let the bashing of me begin!

Dear Ms. Robbins,
I find your post on Greekchat very odd and somewhat contrary to the interview that was on the MSN homepage just a couple of days ago where you stated that sororities have naked parties and breast relays (or however you put it). I'm not sure what sororities or schools you found this at, but I have a very very difficult time believing that this happens. And if it truly did/does happen, that's not the norm and you need to make that clear. To say that these things are sorority issues is wrong in my opinion. I personally saw more of the drug use, alcoholism, rape, and all around debauchary going on in non-greek groups. In that sense I feel that you've taken an anti-greek stance. I don't doubt that some of these things go on within the greek system, but make sure you mention that it's a college wide issue and not just a greek issue. I will say that I haven't read your book, and don't know if I will. To begin with I'd rather not put money in your pocket if you are going to write about this stuff. Secondly, I don't care to be offended any more than I already have been. I try very hard as a member of a GLO to represent myself and my organization in the best light possible. I also strive to help people understand what we stand for and that we aren't just a group of katty girls who drink a lot and sleep around. Thank you for putting me back a few steps in my efforts.

Not only are her "sources" in the footnotes not too credible (I mean she uses KD's norman sheild as a source quite a bit... but when she uses it in the book she quotes an early 90's version... in the footnotes she mentions it was updated in 2003 WHY NOT USE THE NEW ONE ??!! She also doesn't really refrences her footnotes back to where she uses the info in the book very well... in fact I don't know what citation model she used... but I've never seen it and I don't think I could've turned in a paper that was cited like that...

Oh I so can't wait to read this when it comes.
Early 90's version???? Talk about out of date.
She has no excuse not to cite the updated version. Every single page IS ONLINE AND AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC (check it out at www.kappadelta.org)

But then again, she was probably able to twist the early 90's version to suit her agenda more

Re: maybe not UNT
 

lol @ LV bag comment so true :p

I don't know how big UTD or even UTA are as far as their greek system goes, but as far as I know I don't think either of them have houses?? Maybe their "drug room" is a sectioned off part of a chapter suite? :rolleyes:

Like someone else mentioned, based on what I have seen, it doesn't look like she has very credible sources...for all we know, her entire "undercover sorority experience" could be just a figment of her imagination.

If she really wanted to write a "tell all" book she should at least have the ...erm.. guts to tell all... like who her "renegade sisters" were.. what school they were on... etc. I have a hard time believing someone when they say they had some really reliable sources but "can't tell" to protect their idenities.

How do we know that "robbins" really is who they say they are on GC? I find it kind of amusing that "robbins" has dissappeared after starting such a thread like this.

Ok, that is all for now :)

Yeah well most of us thought you were weird to begin with anyway.

I wonder my stick is? 33, Dani, have you seen it?

Do you know what would be funny? If the women she "interviewed" via email & IM sent their copies to thesmokinggun.com to show the kind of research that was really done on this book. That would be really funny. :)

^^^ yep yep! or maybe we can find robbin's log of everyone's away AIM messages :p

I think it was a very nice gesture for the author to take some time out to post here. The author of "The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities", Ross C. Lawrence Jr., also posted in the D9 Greek Letter forums in the past. Like Ms. Robbins this didn't mean he was able to stay around and become some long term contributing member; however, it was a nice gesture to try to take the time as an author to communicate to readers.
I am not commenting on differences/similarities between the books (one of which I've purchased, so far), just making the general comment above.

Thank you. :)

hey yall

sorry i didn't read all 10 pages so i apologize if i restate something already said

i read the original post and i have to say that i am furious. this "author" claims that the book is ACCURATE!!!??? i opened up the book while in a bookstore and glanced at random pages and i was disgusted to see the things she wrote in there.....things that do not happen on a lot of campuses. i have a feeling that this author went to campuses she KNEW were TROUBLE....because you know writing a book about sisterhood would be just so damn hard to do (sarcasm).

this is what i ask all of you to do: DON'T BUY THE BOOK! do not give this woman the chance to make a fortune off of something that is completely untrue. she is attacking our greek system across this country and we do not owe her ANYTHING, especially any way of making that book a top seller. tell your chapters, tell your friends......hopefully this woman will learn when she has nothing but a shitty book full of lies and outdated information

Say what you think don't hold back. ;)

Most anti-greek people will probably enjoy the book because it only helps to affirm the many stereotypes and the reasons they are anti-greek to begni with.

A few GCers should get together and write a response to this book and break it down point by point....Hell, I'd be willing.

In undergrad, I was a broadcast journalism major. In the second major class I took was Media Writing, the professor said the only way one should use an anonymous source is if they had 3 other credible sources to back up what the anonymous source said. Basically, use the anonymous source as a lead-type source.

Ya'll are good to catch onto the anonymous sources not being very credible. If they wouldn't expose their names, who's not to say the author isn't just writing a fictional story?

Damasa, I'll help ya but let me read it first!

I think it would be interesting to break it down point-by-point, but will the general public truly be interested? Think outside the Greek Box at the general interest. The only people who are angered by this book are the Greek Community.

Sometimes being the bigger person means not lowering yourself to other's sub-par standards.

It would be interesting if someone could dig up some dirt on Robbin's college career and see why she hates greeks so much. I wonder if she has a drug history? What was she like in college?Hmmmm...

Too bad not many of the readers will even have that thought cross their mind.


:o

Wow! This rocks! Robbins, can you write a second book about my story? It's not interesting at all, but hey, as long as I get my name out.

Paging ZTA headquarters.... :)

I doubt it would make a difference at all, but I wonder if everyone got people in their sororities or frats to write letters to her expressing their outrage to this book if it would be taken seriously?

My guess is no, but I wish there was some way for the people who know what greek life is like to show her how wrong she truly is. It makes me mad its like she just took all the lies you hear and added 4 names to back her so called story up. I wish she would reveal the school at least.

Do you think she's reading these posts and smiling to herself that she's gotten such a buzz from the Greek Chat community about this book?

I think it would be a good idea to read it, and see what she says. This book is bound to make the rounds among sorority PNMs this summer, and we'd be best off reading it and educating ourselves about the questions we might get from a PNM. I would hate to look ignorant in front of a PNM.

Let's not accuse her of yellow journalism until we've gotten OUR facts straight. Our belief is that her research was shoddy. But we're not up to writing a book review until we've read the book.

And let's also take this time to work with our chapters and our advisers to fish through some sorority "traditions" that really don't belong in our houses at all. If anything, let's take these reports of hazing, binge drinking, eating disorders and date rape, and work with our nationals to improve local programming. Maybe hold an all-campus workshop for non-Greek and Greek Women called "Debunking the myth: Today's Collegiate Women."

Let's put a positive spin on this instead of focusing on the Cliff's Notes.

Have I read the book? No. Will I read the book? Possibly. And if and when I do, then I can come to an educated conclusion about it.

We all thought MTV's Sorority Life would be the end of us. And that first fall, it didn't really make a dent. Focus on the positive.

You mean your nameS, don't you? :p ;)

I loves me some SHEETCAKE.

http://www.candiedflowers.com/Media/sheetcakeL.jpg

This is effing hilarious.

ROFLMAO!!!!

damn y'all are making me hungry. i want to bake a cake!

It is so obvious who it is. :D

So I read the book (everything so far except the conclusion) and here's what I've got to say: it's not that bad.

Really. Then again, I was also saying that the first season of "Sorority Life" was not that bad and most of y'all disagreed with me, but honestly, I don't think the picture she painted was as horrible as I thought it was going to be. A few topics I thought she handled particularly well, at least from my perspective, were how minorities, especially blacks, are treated in primarily white chapters, the sorority drama and politics (come on, the chapter on deciding who to serenade with should ring true for anybody who comes from a chapter of 40+ and probably many from smaller chapters too!), and the issue in Alpha Rho where strict anti-hazing rules meant confusion and a lack of conhesion in the sorority.

That said, she definitely has an anti-Greek bias whether she cares to admit it or not. I'm not sure if this is because she doesn't realize it or if she just doesn't want to own up to it, but I'm not sure how someone can call herself "unbiased" when she quotes liberally from "Rush: a handbook for sorority rushees," a book which is 20 years old, takes the quotes out of context (most of the things she quoted from that book are meant tongue-in-cheek) and deletes the positive parts so that only those that promote anti-sorority stereotypes remain. I think it's also clear that she simply does not understand Greek life, much like many of those who have never been Greek. She either confuses the NPHC and the NPC in some of her quotes or examples or leads the reader to believe they are one and the same (a particular example I can remember is a quote from an NPHC leader stating that hazing in sororities is on the rise, which I think was intended to apply to NPHC sororities but Robbins uses it to refer to NPC sororities instead). Especially in the ritual chapter, you can tell she's a fish out of water -- she reports several open mottoes as closed ones, a handful of ritual secrets that I know for a fact are wrong, and uses That Bad Website That Shall Not Be Named as a legitimate source. She focuses much more on the negatives than the positives, but that's a given.

Also, journalistically the piece is ridiculously shoddy. A review on one of the book-selling websites said it read more like a Sweet Valley High novel than a work of any seriousness, and I think that's definitely true. The format lends itself to sensationalism -- the "Here's what happened at State U./Now let's connect that to the broader scheme in sorority life" was just too much of a jump for me. Oh, Amy takes diet pills -- that must mean that sorority girls have eating disorders like mad and are all having puking contests and therefore sororities are the root of all evil because they promote bad body image. Also, she's a pretty poor sociologist -- there is way too much inferring causation from correlation. For example, she wonders why the sorority caused Amy's self-esteem to drop so much that she slept with the guy that date-raped her -- I'm not sure I buy that something like that wouldn't have happened without a sorority. By the time you join a sorority your self-esteem is already about 18 years in the making, and Amy's didn't seem like it was that high to begin with. And the whole not-revealing-sources thing seems pretty sketchy -- I wouldn't be surprised if the story was elaborated or a composite of more women.

All that said, I thought the book was pretty good. It was a quick read, the main characters rang true (I definitely related to Caitlin and Vicki at points throughout the book, and Amy to a lesser extent), and I felt like she did an ok job of covering what sorority life is all about -- some issues she tackled better than others, but as a whole I didn't think it was nearly as bad as it could have been. Many of the points she brought up criticizing Greek life were ones I have seen echoed by me, Kath, 33girl and many others here on GC. But as a whole, I don't think that this book was that far off from what many girls experience in their sororities -- I know it's not THAT far away from mine.

H, I saw a couple of the passages you're talking about where women expressed frustration with what they wanted to be vs. nationals' view, and I totally agreed. But then she screwed herself in the next paragraph by confusing HQ staff with national councils.

This reminds me of the TV reviewer who said that his biggest beef with Barney the dinosaur was not that the show was inane, but that the production values were so horribly bad. I know Greek life and terminology is complicated but I expect someone who went to farking YALE to be able to research it and get her facts straight.

Contrast this with a poster at another board I visit who wrote a book on the Romanoffs. Believe me, she knows everything about the structure and history of the Russian royal family (and the English royal family for that matter) that any human can possibly know.

Edited to add, that even if she is on the side of the chapters and sororities that DON'T fit the stereotypes, this book won't help them. It will only make it more difficult for them to convince people that there is anything positive to be gotten from the experience.

Thankyou Sugar and Spice for your insightful post.

It is far better to read a post like this than one that says everything in her book is true and that all sorority girls are trying to deny bad behaviour/wrong doing, etc.

Everyone will have a different experience with greek life. Some are bad some are good. It's very unfortunate that people have bad experiences.

The beef with the writer is, if she's going to right and expose, at least do some proper research and get the facts straight.

From reading Sugar and Spice's post it seems that her book is full of incorrect/outdated information, and whether or not this things actually occured, it's important to back it up with correct evidence/information.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4751618/

This is a link to an interview with the author... There is a picture (I will try to paste) on the interview page from Bid Day at the University of Southern Mississippi. I wonder if USM was one of her undercover schools?


http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Co.../040412_040419