Alexandra Robbins...
 

So I have read up on this...and it does not make me happy. She talks a lot of bs that is magnified to make sororities as a whole look not so great. Yes there are eating disorders, drinking, and partying...but we are in college and some of that stuff just comes with the territory. Anytime you have a group of girls as large as most chapters, you are going to experience these problems. I know that in high school I was on the dance team, and we had the same problems in that group of girls, that there are in sororities. So basically if this Alexandra Robbins wants, she should go around and just do a group study on female organizations, because I am positive she would encounter the same things...Maybe she should tell Mothers not to allow their daughters to experience anything at all. It is funny how she forgot to mention all of our rituals and what sisterhood is based on. I really do not understand why sorority women are degraded so much. Joining a sorority is the best decision I ever made, matter of fact I think that it is the only decision that I have ever made while in college that I do not regret. The women I have met have been my family away from home, and have helped me through tough times in my life. I think that because of joining a sorority I have become a better person as a whole. And honestly if I had a daughter I would want her to experience all that I have as well. Anyways, I just felt like I had to voice my opinion on this lady who is slandering something that I believe so strongly in.

Co-sign on that. I want to know the real reason why this woman is so interested in uncovering all the bad things about sorority life, specifically NPC sorority life, and cannot focus at all on the good.

from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

because she went in "expecting" to see the normal affirming girl stuff and "saw" awful stereotypes as being reality, so she had to "expose" the "truth" behind sorority life, and that just doesn't include sisterhood and positive stuff, because that isn't "realistic" enough.

plus it doesn't sell.
i kind of feel like she's being an instigator in some aspects, because i had never even heard some of the rumors/speculations/stereotypes she talks about having heard and then witnessed before reading summaries/excerpts of her book.

if she honestly thought going into it that sororities were a positive thing, and just social organizations, then why would she go through all the trouble/effort to get the "behind the scenes" sorority experience?

generally journalists go into this type of endeavor knowing what route/angle they're going to take it, and so i just don't buy the "suprised at what i witnessed" act.

also, i've seen that she thinks NPHC sororities are more what she thinks greek orgs should be like. If this is true, and she had such a bad experience with the NPCs, then why didn't she follow one of the NPHC orgs, and write a book about enjoying greek life, and thinking it is purposeful? because she obviously has respect for those orgs, so i guess she just felt better about writing about groups she has no respect for instead.

one thing i've learned in my journalism classes is to not let your opinion/feeling about something get in the way of what you are writing if you are trying to present facts and write a credible story in a report/news style. instead she went the sensationalized op/ed route and presented it as fact, without seriously stressing her opinion weighed heavily on those "facts".

the people who use this type of journalism aren't termed muckrakers for no reason. she's just a muckraker hell bent on showing a negative side of NPC groups. the question, however, is why?

ETA: I forgot to say this before, I also think this book is going to encourage waaaaaaaaay more negative press coverage of greek life. if it becomes a popular best seller, a lot of papers/magazines/shows are going to hop on the greek bashing bandwagon.

Re: from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

Does that mean that Fox News people didn't go to Journalism class ? :p

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lyrica9
[B]



one thing i've learned in my journalism classes is to not let your opinion/feeling about something get in the way of what you are writing if you are trying to present facts and write a credible story in a report/news style. instead she went the sensationalized op/ed route and presented it as fact, without seriously stressing her opinion weighed heavily on those "facts".

the people who use this type of journalism aren't termed muckrakers for no reason. she's just a muckraker hell bent on showing a negative side of NPC groups. the question, however, is why?

[QUOTE]

Re: Re: from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

lol, a lot of people would agree with that statement :p

Re: Re: from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

lol, probably not.

Re: from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

because it wouldn't sell ... simple as that.

very similar to the MTV Sorority/Fraternity Life series... they edited the shows in a such a way to only show the cattiness/drama because that is what made people watch. If each entire episode showed them doing nothing but philanthropy and/or sisterhood events, people wouldn't have watched it for very long. It is basically like a train wreck... even though you know it's bad, you can't help but watch.

Question for the NPHC GLO members: If a "reporter" (Note: I am using that term very loosely here) came to your GLOs and asked questions as she claimed to have done with NPC sororities, are your members allowed to speak to them?

I know with my sorority, no members are allowed to speak to the press concerning our chapter. Only our chapter president or the national office can do that. In that Today SHow interview yesterday she sounded all dramatic that in the beginning no members of the sororities would speak with her so she sounded so convinced everyone was trying to "cover up" :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It's funny...
 

this "author" cites GC in her book, but does she cite all the concerns and discounting that we all had to say about MTV Fraternity and Sorority Life???????

Re: It's funny...
 

No, of course not. Look at our media -- nobody is interested in hearing about people who are happy and growing as individuals from the things they do. The media is full of crime and scapegoating and things that will sell.

If Ms. Robbins had written a book about how sororities really are, nobody would buy it.

All this woman cares about is PR and book sales, and guess what? Every time someone posts a message about her or her book, that's exactly what she gets! Please, let's not give her any more free PR. We all seem to be in agreement that her book is misrepresentative both of sororities and Greek Life as a whole. By all means, continue being enraged, but don't give her what she wants.

Re: Re: It's funny...
 

Well why not? The book doesn't bother me, more power to her.

Re: Re: Re: It's funny...
 

Well of course not.

But what if she was writing about fraternities, and how all the members were drunka ll the time, and they did drugs, and they were all rapists. What is she talked about your organization like that? Would you be happy?

Re: Re: Re: Re: It's funny...
 

Wouldn't phase me much actually. I am the wrong kind of person to use that kind of counter argument on.

Although . . your example is a little extreme versus what she actually wrote.

I would like to know where she founf these absolutely marvelous sorority chapters that run around naked and have breast line-ups.

Did anyone get the impression, assuming she actually interviewed girls, that some of them maybe just made funny stuff up . .. just because?

Some of it sound slike made up stories we might have told in our . . . what was it thread? The one where we created stereotyes and rumours?

Oh yeah, this is the link she may have gotten some crazy stories from lol

http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showth...threadid=12770

Which is exactly the reason that reputable journalists do not use websites (unless they're connected to a educational institution or the government) as a source. Although it would have been quite funny to read things credited to "assntitties" or some of the other colorfully named posters who have passed through GC.

As I stated before, she posted on stophazing.org asking if circle the fat and weighing girls was real. That is not someone who was interested in finding out the real truth....that is someone who knew what she wanted to write and just wanted something, anything, even if it was a sarcastic kidding reference on a web site, to back it up.

Apparently CNN did not either.

In my sorority, as the President, I am the only person other than my GA and Province Presdient that can speak to the media, and I think most sororities are like that. I would be very interested to see where she found this willing sorority that let her interview and tag along with them. The book sounds like a fake to me.

Re: Re: from the viewpoint of a journalist...
 

And regulations such as these went into effect way before MTV's Sorority Life. As Director of Public Relations for Panhellenic, this is what I taught to the chapters back in 2000 and it was in my "guidebook" way before then. It's not that we're trying to "cover up" anything, it's just good media relations.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's funny...
 

Well I guess that just means you're dead inside ;)

How exactly did she cite GC...and in what context?

Re: Re: Re: It's funny...
 

Co-sign. I could care less if someone writes a terrible book. The people who buy it are sheep.

>How exactly did she cite GC...and in what context?

She mentions it a couple of times in the text in the context of describing Greek culture, but there are also explicit citations in the footnotes. For example, she recommends a particular thread in the Rush forum for its explanation of how the NPC quota process works (an excellent recommendation, btw...I never understood it till I read that thread).

Here's what I don't understand.....

She keeps saying how she wants to maintain the anonymity of the four main characters...wouldn't sisters who had interaction with this woman be able to figure it out for themselves, especially considering the interviews on TV? They know what the woman looks like--they apparently spent time with her. Would it really be that difficult for them to then figure out which sister(s) assisted her in writing the book?

Not necessarily. Let's say that for the time she was researching she was in long dyed-blonde hair and colored contacts, and then when she was done she cut her hair to a short style, dyed it dark brown, and wore glasses. You might not recognize her. Especially if she also wore heavier makeup when on campus.

ETA: if she was in one of those 100+ member chapters and mostly talked to seniors, it's quite possible that those sisters currently on campus would only partially remember her, and that those who assisted her may have transferred or graduated or deactivated by now. Does she specifically say that she talked to freshmen? Or what year(s) she was on campus?

Actually, since I haven't read the book, I'm more wondering if she got bids to all four of these orgs, or did she just get all of her info from one sister from each org?

She only shadowed two orgs--I think two women in each. She wasn't a sister and didn't receive a bid--more like she became friends with the four girls and just hung out at the house a lot.

And she said she was disguised enough to the point that the four girls would not recognize her as she is today (normally).

So she was abnormal then??:p

I think so, yes. :D

I havent been around GC for months, but I did go to Barnes & Noble to check out the book (no way am I buying it....I also propose a boycott of Hyperion Press). But how do you feel about the secrets she revealed about nearly all sororities. I mean initiation ritual, passwords, etc....?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha
 

Ha ha ha - I don't know what book YOU read but it sure as hell is a different one to the book everyone else saw!!!

Thank you for the amusement though!!

You can bet there would've been uproar from hundreds of thousands of people weeks/months ago if your joke above had been actually serious!

:D :D

Re: Ha ha ha ha ha ha
 

Ummmmm... did you READ the book, decadence? She has a valid point. There is an entire chapter devoted to secrets and rituals. I'm assuming though, ivysis, that the "ritual" revealed in Robbins' book is actually part of open ceremony. It may not be common knowledge, but it isn't actually a part of their ritual. I'm not certain though, because there was nothing about my own sorority in that section.

In general though, I felt that entire chapter was unnecessary... it didn't seem to mesh well with the rest of the book, like it was thrown in there just for fun. I was sad to read that the girls shadowed in the book didn't place much value on their ritual, saying it was "just a hassle." :(

It was definitely in there just for "shock value." There were just bits and pieces, and definitely not every sorority was represented.

As I stated in the other thread what she "revealed" about ASA was completely incorrect and I'd wager that the rest of the "secrets" she published are just as far off the mark.

I was really concerned when I heard that Sigma Kappa was mentioned in this chapter, so I went to 4 bookstores until I found the book and read the chapter, when I got to the part about sigma kappa I just busted out laughing in relief. I found the funniest part to be about how we make our members wear white dresses for initiation.

She didn't go into detail about the whole initiation ceremony of any orgs. But she did reveal some "secrets" which... thank goodness were WRONG... I think she just did it because she wanted to make the secrets seem frivolous... which is why she included the part about the members saying they felt is was a "hassle" and later after citing something that was written about in one of the sororities' handbooks she refers to ritual as "nothing more than passwords and handshakes" or something to that effect... to make it seem that ritual isn't really that important a part of greeek life, or really that important.

After all, this is coming from a woman who, as a member of a secret society, "joined out of curiousity but stayed for the beer." So I'm sure she puts a lot of stock in ritual.

I found that quote in an interview with her, I'll have to see if I can find it again.

I'm lost
 

Why are there still two threads (at very least) on the Greek Life forum on this, including this one with her name as thread title not the book title?

I thought duplicate threads if there was already a current one on same page were not encouraged?:confused:

You used the word secret society so I'm guessing it was deliberately chosen as the group wasn't a sorority or fraternity but was in fact a secret society á la the Skulls. I imagine lotsa people out there in the world are curious about such groups. No idea about the quote; I hadn't seen it before - maybe she said it maybe she didn't; in any case I've no idea of the context it was in. And hell, a lot of freshman frat boys join for the beer (though admittedly hopefully become fraternity men with better & nobler reasons for sticking around!) :).

Is Alexandra Robbins hot? Anybody got her pic?

Not all of the "secrets" in that book are wrong. There's only one that I'm in a position to know, but it's true. All the rest could easily be wrong, of course; I'm just saying she did have at least one informant from one group who knew what she was talking about. I don't know whether that makes it worse or better; maybe some of each.

For decadence:


transcript from an interview from Democracy Now, published January 22, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-10.htm
And from the Yale Alumni Magazine, February 2003
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/is..._02/faces.html

I'd wager that more of them are correct than anyone would give her the satisfaction of admitting!

A lot of what she "reveals" is public knowledge that she tries to make it seem like a secret.

She takes the descriptions of our first, second, and third degree ceremonies right out of our pledge manual, which is online, and public knowledge. Sure, those descriptions are correct. But they're not secrets.

I loved the white dresses part.... thats the vast majority of NPC groups.... and it's certainly not secretive!

Ugh.... this book is a fluff piece. Her "citation" system drives me nuts.... she has all the endnotes in the back of the book, but there's no numbers or particular references in the actual text of the book.

For a Yale graduate, it's incredibly poorly written. It jumps all over the place and is hard to follow. And it's more of an insight into the lives of several college girls than much to do with sororities.

Agreed. I know for a fact that some of them are wrong. I also am pretty damn sure that some of them are right. Anybody familiar with NPC sororities should be able to pick out some of the false ones -- open motto reported as a secret one, etc. Honestly, the more detail she goes into and the more "out there" the information seems, the more likely it's true . . .

On that note, I don't think that coming on GC and saying "It's not true" is going to sway most people's opinions. ;)

upsetting
 

All I have to say on the issue of this woman is that she really upsets me. I mean, who would make a living out of hurting organizations that have been secret for hundreds of years. These organizations are secret for a reason and to be a member of Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key or any greek organization is a privalege. How dare some woman write not one of these "outing" books but two. Get a life.