Alexandra Robbins, Authoress of PLEDGED, said:
 

The biggest problem with sororities is their national leadership, which is
often out of touch with the personalities of individual women and chapters,
Robbins said.

Sorority members should work with their national headquarters to reform the Recruitment process and make sororities less image-focused, she said.

"It shouldn't have to be about fitting into a certain mold," Robbins said.
"Question authority - fight to make sure your sorority values are things
you think are important."

For women planning to participate in Panhellenic Formal Recruitment, which
begins Sunday with the Philanthropy Round, Robbins recommended going in
with an open mind.

"Don't think about the labels of the house," she said. "Pay close attention
to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can be
friends with."

(I got this from an email of an article from Northwestern that somebody cut and pasted)

Thoughts?

Who Does She Think She Is?
 

Yeah-she came to Penn State too. All the NPC sororities had to go and listen to her for some insane reason. It was weird that we saw girls in the crowd listening to her speech who didn't receive a bid from ANYONE...so, I feel like it was not only supposed to be "helpful" to the sororities it was also supposed to be an outlet for people who were rejected by the Greek System at our school...I realize that not everyone is rejected because they are losers but, at such a big campus if you were rejected by all the NPCs (when we have such a large amount of greek orgs.) it was probably because you were rude, obnoxious, etc. I feel like Alexandra Robbins speech helped piss off the sororities that much more by blasting Greek Life (which-if you read the book...and I have...you'd see she does that) and make other girls who didn't get bids have another reason to hate Greek Life instead of trying again!

One of my sisters at her Speech got up and asked how she knew all the secrets of some orgs. without being a member. Alexandra replied, "How do you know I wasn't a member of those particular organizations as I wrote my book?" That tells me that she probably pledged or initiated only to write dirt on sororities...if that's the case-I think she helped make a mockery of the system by showing people you can join our Greek Organizations, drop them when you get bored and then write about their secrets, rituals, passwords, knocks, etc. without caring. If the girls in her book knew what she was all about from the beginning-then they should give up their membership. If I knew members of my org. did that-I would want them to relinquish their badge! Ugh-I'm sorry but, she just really upset me.

Eh...she was right on going into recruitment with an open mind...even I was told that before I rushed. But her book reads more like fiction...I would take it with a grain of salt.

Alexandra Robbins is not a subject matter expert on Greek Life despite what she may believe.

If she was a sorority alum, and worked several years at the HQ/EO or attended a groups convention (where a lot of key sorority policies are often discussed and voted on) then I think people might actually take her seriously.

Unless she's been on "that side" she doesn't know what happens behind closed doors at the HQ of our sororiites.

Besides what she may think, not every sorority woman in America fits a cookie-cutter-Malibu-Barbie mold. Not every chapter of every NPC is full of beautiful tanned blonde girls with teeth that are so white they may glow in the dark.

Yea, I think going into recruitment with an open mind is great advice, but any monkey could tell pnms that.

She's right to a point. Especially when it comes to things like dry housing, men in the house, etc. I think these deter a lot of women from pledging. Plus a lot of the time, women who are in national positions have been from very strong chapters (even if the chapter isn't that way now, it was when they were active) and they don't always understand the problems of chapters that struggle.

But NPC is set up to try to make things fair for everyone. The reason every sorority on campus isn't the same size is because people are different. There's always going to be a popular and unpopular sorority - that's human nature. The only way all the sororities could be "equal" is if women were randomly assigned groups - and that defeats the whole point of a sorority.

Oh, she's not talking about NPHC sororities.

You do understand what is problematic in this statement, right?

I would think it would be harder for her to try to infiltrate NPHC sororities since we have a tendancy to 'scope people out' before we invite them to join. ;)

We've been infiltrated and written about. Just not in this way.

What was problematic?

That she essentially calls women who are cut from ALL sororities rude and obnoxious (in some way inadequate) and then says that they should try to pledge again.

Not to start any arguments, but the post itself is problematic.

Wow,that is problematic. Either she was angry and furious or she really meant it.

Because you needed to be a full-time enrolled student working on her first bachelor's degree in order to pledge, Alexandra, and clearly you weren't at the time you wrote your book. So if in fact you were a "member" at the time you wrote your book, you obtained such status under false pretenses--- and thus your claims of being a new member or any member are null and void.

That's how we know she wasn't a member. And we know that any secrets she obtained were done under the guise of impersonating a member or gaining the trust of a disgruntled member, again under false pretenses, in an effort to get her "story."

I mean, if I believed that all of the women in a system thought that I was rude and obnoxious (which is the reason that I got cut), why would I want to be a part of that system. Why would I respect a system that held me in such low esteem?

I know she didn't put it across too well, but I think she was talking about 2 different groups of women:

1. Those who get cut by EVERY group (in this case, 19 of them) because they were so rude and obnoxious, who felt "validated" listening to AR spew anti-sorority garbage;
2. Those who got cut by one or two groups and were invited back to others, but dropped out because they were upset that their favorites cut them. These are the ones she wishes would "try again" but might not if they keep listening to AR spew anti-sorority garbage.