Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities

[MoxieGrrl]

If there is another thread about this book out there, delete this one. I just found this to be interesting....

Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities:

Book Description
A fast-paced, behind-the-scenes book that blows the lid off the intriguing world of mainstream sorority life, by a New York Times bestselling author.
Alexandra Robbins wanted to find out if the stereotypes about sorority girls were actually true, so she spent a year with a group of girls in a typical sorority. The sordid behavior of sorority girls exceeded her worst expectations -- drugs, psychological abuse, extreme promiscuity, racism, violence, and rampant eating disorders are just a few of the problems. But even more surprising was the fact that these abuses were inflicted and endured by intelligent, successful, and attractive women.

Why is the desire to belong to a sorority so powerful that women are willing to engage in this type of behavior -- especially when the women involved are supposed to be considered "sisters"? What definition of sisterhood do many women embrace? Pledged combines a sharp-eyed narrative with extensive reporting and the fly-on-the-wall voyeurism of reality shows to provide the answer.

[33girl]

This is that same silly biddy from the Skull & Bones report on 60 Minutes. Get a life chick!!

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...threadid=40443

[carnation]

The only one of those I personally witnessed was a girl with an eating disorder--and her very concerned sisters who helped her out of it.

[GeekyPenguin]

Can somebody point out a college dorm wing where there aren't a few girls engaging in each of these activities? It's like "Hey, college girls are easy! Let's extrapolate that to sorority girls, since they're in college too, and it's they're fault that all the other ones are easy!"

[breathesgelatin]

Ok, if she really experienced ALL of that in one year, wouldn't it have come to the attention of the authorities?? Or the nationals? On second thought maybe it's not about a national.

[tld221]

a group of girls in a typical sorority.

and "typical" would be what? seems like she already had her intentions of what she was going to expose. just my opinion.

i seriously thought about buying her book, just because. but if the moral of the story is, "hey sorority chicks sure are slutty and do a lot of drugs..." then im not goin for it.

in anything publicated about greek life, itll always be:
1. how great, and sucessful the greeks are, and how much they do for the comunity.

--or--

2. how horrid and corny the greks are, and how muych of their "wrongdoings" get swept under the rug.

[AlphaPhiBubbles]

"Anywhere i go a fly girl will please me
East to west college girls are easy
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 days a week the college girls be beggin
to get a guy to sexually perform
so whenever i get horny i go to the dorm"

[rho4life]

WAs this the woman who lied her way into rush?

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Originally posted by carnation
The only one of those I personally witnessed was a girl with an eating disorder--and her very concerned sisters who helped her out of it.

carnation, I was thinking the same thing. ANAD Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders is one of DPhiE's philanthropies. Many beautiful, intelligent, successful teenagers and women have eating disorders. Eating disorders are diseases and need to be taken seriously in order for a women to be treated. In our society there is so much pressure on women to be physically perfect. Unfortunately, this has led to an epidemic of eating disorders in all kinds of women and men, not just sorority women.

[Lil' Hannah]

Originally posted by rho4life
WAs this the woman who lied her way into rush?

You may be thinking of Vendela Vida, who wrote Girls on the Verge: Debutante Dips, Drive-bys, and Other Initiations. She pretended to be a student at UCLA, and got a bid to a sorority.

[33girl]

Originally posted by rho4life
WAs this the woman who lied her way into rush?

No. That was a different obnoxious heffa. This is the one who did the big "expose" of Skull & Bones without mentioning that she was a member of a rival secret society.

I'm waiting to see how she "spent a year with a group of girls."

[honeychile]

Originally posted by carnation
The only one of those I personally witnessed was a girl with an eating disorder--and her very concerned sisters who helped her out of it.

Cosign!

When I saw that eating disorders was DPhiE's philanthropy, I was thrilled to death!!

[sugar and spice]

The only way she could do this "expose" on a national sorority is if she did it undercover -- which is pretty sketchy. Otherwise I'm guessing it's a local.

And while I have no doubt that there are sororities that have problems with everything she mentioned, I find it pretty hard to believe that she managed to find ONE with every single problem. I mean, yeah, there are sororities across that have drug issues, eating disorder issues, racism issues -- but all at once? That's madness.

[tunatartare]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
And while I have no doubt that there are sororities that have problems with everything she mentioned, I find it pretty hard to believe that she managed to find ONE with every single problem. I mean, yeah, there are sororities across that have drug issues, eating disorder issues, racism issues -- but all at once? That's madness.

Ditto, I really think that stuff's being overhyped for publicity's sake now.

[Little E]

Maybe this sounds bad...I doubt it would be hard however to find a sorority with that many problems. If you go to big chapters (100+ moreso) I think it would be fairly easy. Take an average group of college women, you will see these issues, now put some letters on it and people will buy it. Colleges are filled with so many dramas that can consume people. Ask anyone who works with Residence Life. I just don't think you'd have to go very far. Sorority women aren't perfect we refelect the general society around us.

It is skeezy as hell to be writing about it as though sorority women are the only ones who go through it, but it does happen. My chapter has a lot of those problems that people are dealing with in that horrid book...