Tom, she went to Yale. Her first book was an "expose" of Skull & Bones. She went from that to college sororities.

There's a reason there's a disclaimer on this section of the site that says, "No more Pledged threads!"

AGDAlum

What I wanted to say but couldn't find the words for.

Not only that, but notice how that's the only photo that's ever used ;) ? Good camera angles and heavy makeup can do wonders

At first I thought you meant here = GC, and then I realized that here = you guys' school. :)

She def blew things out of proportion and acted like the sorority was the cause of everything bad and if anything good happened to them because of the sorority it was just a fluke.

When I assisted with freshman comp classes as a grad student, I was always frustrated that people didn't know how to write a good review and defend their points. Feel free to forward my site to any professors who are teaching the book at any school... and I say this from both the standpoints of being Greek and being an English teacher! ;)

You know, if she had an insert of a bunch of pics ala Girls Gone Wild sorority types, the book would sell better and have more cross gender appeal.

Maybe she will consider pics with frontal nuditiy in the sequel? :p

I think it would be a great idea for her to hire James as the creative director for the sequel! The copy might read a little like something out of alt.sex.stories, but that might make the book appeal to a new market.

Oh gees.... My Indian friend already thinks that sororities are for lesbians. This would only confuse him more.

Summer 2005... one year later...

This morning, I got an email from an alumnae panehellenic -- it was an email forwarded from a Greek Adviser inviting us out to GMU the night after Bid Day to hear Alexandra Robbins speak about her book, Pledged...

The English Dept is footing the bill, apparently, but the Greek Adviser supports it and is encouraging alumnae to attend?

:confused:

Oh noes, has the greek advisor even read the book? I can't imagine the Greek advisor at Butler supporting Robbins coming to speak as she was outraged when the book was released! :rolleyes:

I can't believe the English department would sponsor it either. It's not exactly a well-written piece of literature. Unless it's a "how not to write a book if you want to be respected for your research and writing skills".

Of what value is it bringing her to campus?

I just came across this thread, I am a non-greek and I did read the book, and I don't wish to debate the issues that GC'rs have with it, but what I have noticed as I make my way through this very long thread is that many have stated "that was not what my greek experience was like". It has been a while since I read the book, and although her use of language and structuring of the anecdotes she relates may be suspect, she doesn't claim to represent every single woman's greek experience. So you can't say she is wrong in what she says because YOU didn't experience it, any more that you can claim your great experience represents that of every other greek woman across the country.

I am prob going to get ripped a new one for this, but it is just food for thought.

GMU as in George Mason University???

I asked the same thing when I heard Michael Moore was invited to speak at Dickinson College. :rolleyes:

He has made some good films and I can see where he would be a popular speaker and colleges would ask him, but as far as that particular college...yeah, I would think it's kinda like asking a vegan to speak at a meatpackers' convention.

Yes.

I think the book could be taken more constructively if national offices took a formal stance on it... or used it as a teaching tool in that "We don't want to be THAT chapter."

You missed my dripping sarcasm. Obviously, we're on opposite ends of the political poll. :)

Set aside politics, it would make more sense for a school to have Moore then Robbins. Moore is a more famous person by far and would attract publicity to the school. Plus, if you're charging people to hear him speak, you'll be making very good money.

But they both write fiction and can't get their facts straight! :D

Some more food for thought
 

As I continue to go through this thread, it seems as if people are criticizing AR but following in her foot steps at the same time. People are up in arms because they feel she hasn't presented a true/holistic representation of geek life, she doesn't have credible sources, etc., but the same goes for those that are criticizing the book without reading. Should you approach the book with apprehension and an eyebrow raised most likely, but again you can't really comment on the content unless you are familiar with it, the same way that most have stated she can't/shouldn't comment on greek life because she isn't greek or in the know.

And in general for all of those that say she is just another person bashing greeks, review some posts on GC there are plenty of threads that come to mind (recent T-Shirt slogans thread) that only serve to substantiate her allegations. And when someone highlights the potential PR damage that such slogans, info, acts, etc. can cause a common response is "it is all in fun"....

Yeah, but if you're an event promoter, would you rather hire Moore or Robbins? Remmember, money is the number one factor.

You said it yourself...The problem with the book is that it IMPLIES that ALL organizations are that way, she purposely write it in a way to make the implications. After all, who'd want to read a boring book about the hazing and activities of XYZ sorority at Wherever University? She doesnt come right out and say so, but to the average person, all she has done is confirm the BS that people think.

Makes you wonder if she went through recruitment herself and things didnt turn out the way she wanted, and this was her revenge.

Thankfully, there are enough sane people out there who are smart enough to ignore her garbage. Because that's all it is.

Re: Some more food for thought
 

Okay, I've read the book and i see the point you're making about not criticizing until you've read it. But I wouldn't say that a thread about t-shirt substantiates anything. The t-shirt thread is an obviously humorous thread playing off stereotypes of greeks. No one in that thread is claiming to "reveal" anything about greek life on GC, they are just joking around and talking during the day at work/school. Pledged, however, is making money for the author and the publisher and was obviously written with that intention. I really don't think a book about a group of sorority women living their lives for philanthropy would have quite the marketing appeal.
I don't have a problem with someone criticizing or questioning my organization or my beliefs but I think she should have at least presented a total picture of greek life.

The book is a fluff piece. She wrote it to make money.

My problem with her and her book is she appears to be selling it as an academic/journalistic piece.

Her book as no journalistic/academic integrity whatsoever. Her sources cannot be verfied and her research is flawed. She tries to pass herself off as an academic and she is not.

Agreed.

This book caused an uproar among collegiate Greeks last summer-- when it was published. The book asserts that NPC collegiate chapters encourage a culture of drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, promiscuity and hazing-- and that their alumna advisers cover it up.

I feel the book is representative of COLLEGE LIFE these days, and not necessary sorority women-- the methods by which the author obtained her sources are sketchy at best, and she cites old out-of-date texts and "anonymous" sources to depict a year in the life of a small set of sorority women at an unidentified southern campus (some believe it is SMU).

The author intended this book to be a journalistic work that exposes sorority life as an obsolete social outlet that has been overtaken by modern problems that go unaddressed by national officers. It is instead a salacious novel and a page-turner. Collegians I have spoken to have been very passionate about the book and feel its depiction is unfair. There were fears the book would affect recruitment numbers this past school year, but it doesn't seem they did.

I do enourage everyone to read the book, too. Problems, on various levels, exist in all of our sororities' local chapters (again, at varying levels) but I feel this author didn't really do a adaquate job of exposing anything but her ability to compile a bunch of Spring Break stories and hazing urban legends.

Take this book with a grain of salt... I hope it will open a good dialogue among collegians and alumnae who attend these forums, but I'm not 100 percent certain that this book (which has been found in the non-fiction AND women's literature section of bookstores) has any real academic merit as a treatise on modern sorority life and I am surprised that the GMU Greek Adviser would support Alexandra Robbins on campus when she used some very unethical methods to go "behind the scenes" of Greek Life at another campus.

I guess it could be worse... they could have scheduled it during recruitment or before recruitment began... This way at GMU it is the day AFTER Bid Day and one good thing that could come out of it is that any suspicious behaviors are under tighter scruitiny by the chapter Exec Boards and Panhellenic....

no, Moore is totally Non-fiction all the way... where he leaves off is that he doesnt present all the facts. He tells what he wants to hear and leaves off some whys and hows

But buy a used copy off ebay or check it out of the library. :)

LPP, I said the exact same thing on my sorority's listserv...that this book is neither fish nor fowl. She could have either written an in-depth research piece on sororities of all kinds, or she could have written a fun, trashy novel and I don't think I would have been as offended. The problem is when she takes 4 women whose reality is questionable (i.e. I doubt they are 4 real people), tells their stories and then follows it up by spouting statistics that supposedly "confirm" them.

I mean - when she wrote the Skull & Bones book, she didn't have Skip, Chip, Wally and Bunny detailing their experiences in it.

Oh and blueangel - I loved Roger & Me but after that things just went downhill. After all the praise he got for R&M he just got too wrapped up in I! Am! Michael! Moore! And! My! Opinion! Matters! If he's speaking on a filmmaking point of view, bring him on - on a political point of view, that's another story.

Re: Re: Some more food for thought
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by OtterXO
[The t-shirt thread is an obviously humorous thread playing off stereotypes of greeks. No one in that thread is claiming to "reveal" anything about greek life on GC, they are just joking around and talking during the day at work/school.

This statement supports my earlier argument. Many in the Greek community are in an uproar about the book and its supposed claims about greek life (whether chapter specific or greeks in general) because it paints greeks in a bad light and only shows one side of the story, but at the same time, members can be their orgs own PR nightmare. And while the T-Shirt Thread (I went back and looked and it is actually a Greek Slogans thread) may be in jest it sends out the same bad message and reputation that many feel "Pledged" does.

And I am familiar with the adage "From the outside looking in, etc", but really from the outside looking in many greeks do themselves and their orgs a diservice. I can only imagine how difficult it is to be an individual as well upholding the values of your organization but I THINK (my personal opinion) is that many in the greek community immediately get their feathers ruffled when someone has something negative to say or a critique (although I recognize that greeks can/have/are targets for many things) instead of evaluating what is said. It is not impossible for the claims that she is making to actually have happened. And maybe along with the criticism of the book, can come measures to make sure that representation of sorority/greek life is/remains an inacurate one. And remember not only the things that non-greeks/haters/greek bashers have to say about the greek community is damaging, many of the things that actually go on are just as, if not more damaging.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by amanda6035
After all, who'd want to read a boring book about the hazing and activities of XYZ sorority at Wherever University?

I agree. I think it is pretty clear that fame and/or money was a primary motivation for this project.

She doesnt come right out and say so, but to the average person, all she has done is confirm the BS that people think.

But has she confirmed it? Yes there are many people that have absolutely no clue about greek life, but anyone with enough intelligence to matter, be they non-greek, PNM, etc. are going to have enough sense to decipher suspect motivation, references, research integrity, etc. from the book just as have many of these posters have.She doesnt come right out and say so, but to the average person, all she has done is confirm the BS that people think. After all, who'd want to read a boring book about the hazing and activities of XYZ sorority at Wherever University I agree. I think it is pretty clear that fame and/or money was a primary motivation for this project.

I see no other possible purpose for her being here other then to attempt to stuff a few more bucks in her pocket.

A lot of the comments are a bit too thin-skinned! I actually read the book; I checked it out of the public library in my city. The only problem I see is that she sometimes extrapolates from the narrow perspective of what she was personally privy to, in order to pontificate on larger issues. Let's be real! Catty behaviour, hazing,racial insensitivity, excesses of drink,sex, drugs, date rape do occur in Greekdom. It may not be the whole story or even major problems. They are importnat enough that sincere Greeks should want to deal with these things and not "sweep them under the rug."

The real story which made the book interesting and attractivewas the narrative thread of the young women's experiences in the context of their lives as ordinary human beings in this Greek context. Her final assessment on sorority life is a very ambivalent one, not wholly negative. Sort of like life in a variety of institutional settings, I suppose.

"Que Psi Phi 'til the day I die!"

I also read the book and I will stand by my original comment. This is not an academic piece. It was written to make money. And I'm sure she's made quite a bit of it.

However, the problems she discusses in her book are not solely Greek problems. They are problems that happen all over university campuses in North America. They involve greeks, non-greeks, members of the student government, etc.

The problem with her and her book is her implications that it is only a greek problem and the problem would be solved if we got rid of greeks.

In reality that's not the case. If we got rid of greeks, hazing would still occur. Only this time it would probably be the athletic teams that would do the hazing. Campuses would still have racial insensitivity, students would still continue to drink and abuse drugs. There would still be date rape.

Her conclusions are far too simplistic and she does not offer any real solutions for problems that plague university campuses throughout North America. Her only interest is in laying blame, and laying this blame on a subsection of college populations that are not wholly responsible (while yes, are quite probably contributors) for these problems.

I don't think anyone here is saying that these things don't happen. But you can't imply that these are problems (and she does do this) on college campuses that are only greek problems. One cannot base research on one school and state facts that cannot be verfied because no one knows which school it is and if these women actually exsist. This is not how one conducts research.

Most of the people who have posted to this thread HAVE read the book

I know, but our new member has already accused us of judging the book before we've read it. I'm just clarifying things for him/her.

No problem, that wasn't directed towards you, sorry if you thought it was. :)

I was just reiterating to the poster who said most of us hadn't read it. I think nearly all of us have read it by now :)

This reminds me that I have to list my copy back up on Amazon.

No problem. It was my mistake.

I am not defending AR or making claims that the girls interviewed are real, maybe she doesn't sound credible/isn't credible because of her writing, lack of sources etc. But,

1. had she listed the names of Suzie Q, R, S, & T and their respective organizations ya'll would be even more up in arms over her lack of discretion. Not to mention that hell would probably reign down on that/those particular organizations, and members involved in her "story".

2. Despite what ya'll think of her, her tactics, her approach, her tackling the subject, etc. and whether or not you believe that the book is of a journalistic/academic nature, she doesn't have to reveal the identities of her sources, especially IF she is trying to protect them. Hell there is a legal battle over confidentiality of informants/sources battle right now.

3. As for her footnotes or whatever, how "credible" could any of her sources be if no Council or Org HQ would deal with her. Because she isn't using "official" sources that would please most people, she did use the sources that were available to her, and many times in research that is all that you can do. I know from extensive academic research on topics that have yet to be well researched and thus have no significant body of sources.

If you are refering to me, I never accused anyone of judging the book before they read it.