from the author of Pledged

[jharb]

My mom was very unsure of me joining a sorority and if this book had come out the spring before my freshman year I wouldn't be greek. She has read it already and calls me daily asking if "such and such" happens. I just wish that there was a positive account to counteract this but in America it wouldn't sell! People don't like exclusive organizations such as greek organizations and this just gives them an excuse to bash us!

I think that Ms. Robbins needs to hear how upset the greek community is over this book. The greek community is powerful if we all band together and if she realizes how upset the book has made us she might do a positive look on greek life or at least change some of the stories in future editions.

[adpiucf]

I really don't think she would change anything. Senationalism sells, and it is what gets her a paycheck. The best way to combat this book is to look within your own chapters, reward yourselves for what you're doing right, and work with your local alumnae officers/directors to eliminate activities that do not promote a healthy chapter. You will also be successful by promoting a positive image of Greek Life to Greeks and non-Greeks alike. These kinds of books and movies will continue to be made because there are chapters that take it to extremes. Don't be one of them, and don't cover for those chapters. You're better than that, and you're above being insulted by yellow journalism.

[Rudey]

Video

This woman has to be one of the stupidest I've ever watched. LOL At least she's not talking about fraternities.

-Rudey

[IvySpice]

I watched the video, and I've also read the book, and I don't think she comes off as stupid at all. Sensationalist, yes...she's trying to move copies. And she's clearly more a novelist and less a journalist than she believes herself to be. But she's not dumb and a number (not all) of her critical comments are quite justified and valid in my experience.

[damasa]

Originally posted by decadence
Don't you all have anything better to do with your time then tear apart a book looking to publically "expose" the school [and thus the women involved] ?

It seems some people do, like writing the author no matter if it will change things or not.

Honestly, I feel the time is spent well because people like Robbins allow the stereotypes of Greek Life to continue to live on. And she didn't help any by publishing a book full of "facts" and "true stories."

Like it was previously stated, she decided to publish a book and that book is open to criticism.

People that aren't part of the "greek world" have a hard time understand how hard it is for people to battle the stereotypes...and trust me, there are many efforts to clean up chapter images and "bad chapters," these things aren't simply ignored.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by IvySpice
I watched the video, and I've also read the book, and I don't think she comes off as stupid at all. Sensationalist, yes...she's trying to move copies. And she's clearly more a novelist and less a journalist than she believes herself to be. But she's not dumb and a number (not all) of her critical comments are quite justified and valid in my experience.

You're serious? Aside from the blank look in her eyes, the depth of her material is ridiculous. Sororities are funny...like we talked about breasts pretty much captured it for me.

-Rudey

[ISUKappa]

I also watched the video. Is she stupid intellectually? No. Is she still completely clueless about Greek life and sororities even though she spent a year in one? Yes. And unless you have actually lived that life you can't really understand it. I believe she is just unwilling to look beyond into the deeper. She found what she wanted to on the surface and ran with it.

I'd be interested to find out more about her involvement with Scroll and Key. One would think that being involved in a secret society in college would help her understand more about what sororities (or sorarities as she said) are truly founded on, but whatever.

[navane]

Originally posted by 33girl
Supposedly she interviewed "thousands" of sisters from across the country on a variety of topics

Hrm...ok, math was never my strong suit; so, someone please help me out on this.

"Thousands" is plural, meaning 2,000+. If she interviewed 2,000+ women, wouldn't some of us know about it?? I mean, I doubt she interviewed 1-2 women at each chapter of a sorority at each university in the US. It just seems that, statistically, a couple of women here at GC should have been approached by her, or know of sisters in their chapter who had been approached for an interview.

Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that she interviewed "thousands" of sorority members and yet no alarms were raised by national HQs? That is, ALL 2,000+ participants gave interviews without telling their chapter presidents or anything like that?

Can someone confirm that she actually said she interviewed "thousands"?

I'm also confused about this "research" she claims to have done. Generally, someone who conducts qualitative research does NOT conduct personal interviews with THOUSANDS of participants. In general, qualitative samples tend to be smaller and more detail-oriented. For example, my own master's thesis research involved personally interviewing 30 university administrators and then looking for patterns among what was said via the tape recorded sessions and my field notes.

On the other hand, if she gave out surveys to thousands of people, translated the answers into numbers and crunched them on a computer using statistics software...then that would make more sense and her study would be quantitative in nature. Since it sounds like she does not present her statistics, or refer to them in such a way that shows she did some, then this work is not likely to be quantitative research.

So which is it? How could a "researcher" possibly interview thousands of women in such a short period of time? Is she lying? Has she actually interviewed that many but has done so over a decade (and not one year)? Did she log in to GC, read thousands of posts and then decide to call them "interviews"?

So which is it? Is she a sociologist? A researcher? A journalist? Was this a research study? Or was it "just" meant to be a book?

Researchers normally intend to publish their work in a professional research journal in order to present new information for the benefit of the community. In other words, if this was a proper study, she could have submitted it to the NASPA Journal which is published by the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators in order to encourage university administrators to take a more active role in assisting with the problem areas of Greek Life.

But, no, this lady wrote a book for sale on the mass market. So that, combined with the fact that her research methods sound awfully sketchy, makes me uncomfortable. She better not be passing this off as "research".

.....Kelly

[33girl]

I stand erected, LOL. The email I have says she interviewed "hundreds" but I distinctly recall the word thousand somewhere. I'm going back in this thread and changing what I said since someone was smart enough to question.

[sageofages]

Didn't you know...being in the same room/house/campus/town/state counts as an interview!

Originally posted by navane
Hrm...ok, math was never my strong suit; so, someone please help me out on this.

"Thousands" is plural, meaning 2,000+. If she interviewed 2,000+ women, wouldn't some of us know about it?? I mean, I doubt she interviewed 1-2 women at each chapter of a sorority at each university in the US. It just seems that, statistically, a couple of women here at GC should have been approached by her, or know of sisters in their chapter who had been approached for an interview.

Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that she interviewed "thousands" of sorority members and yet no alarms were raised by national HQs? That is, ALL 2,000+ participants gave interviews without telling their chapter presidents or anything like that?

Can someone confirm that she actually said she interviewed "thousands"?

I'm also confused about this "research" she claims to have done. Generally, someone who conducts qualitative research does NOT conduct personal interviews with THOUSANDS of participants. In general, qualitative samples tend to be smaller and more detail-oriented. For example, my own master's thesis research involved personally interviewing 30 university administrators and then looking for patterns among what was said via the tape recorded sessions and my field notes.

On the other hand, if she gave out surveys to thousands of people, translated the answers into numbers and crunched them on a computer using statistics software...then that would make more sense and her study would be quantitative in nature. Since it sounds like she does not present her statistics, or refer to them in such a way that shows she did some, then this work is not likely to be quantitative research.

So which is it? How could a "researcher" possibly interview thousands of women in such a short period of time? Is she lying? Has she actually interviewed that many but has done so over a decade (and not one year)? Did she log in to GC, read thousands of posts and then decide to call them "interviews"?

So which is it? Is she a sociologist? A researcher? A journalist? Was this a research study? Or was it "just" meant to be a book?

Researchers normally intend to publish their work in a professional research journal in order to present new information for the benefit of the community. In other words, if this was a proper study, she could have submitted it to the NASPA Journal which is published by the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators in order to encourage university administrators to take a more active role in assisting with the problem areas of Greek Life.

But, no, this lady wrote a book for sale on the mass market. So that, combined with the fact that her research methods sound awfully sketchy, makes me uncomfortable. She better not be passing this off as "research".

.....Kelly

[Lady Pi Phi]

So I watched her video.

But now I wonder about the today show.

I think the Today show should have a balanced approach, or they would if they too were real journalists.
The today show should have interviewed a sorority member with a positive experience...even if it was a member of her staff.

And rush consultants...I would like to know where you would find one of those.

Maybe a google search is in order.

[adpiucf]

I watched the video, too. And while some of the information she discussed was incorrect (southern mothers forcing their child to attend college freshman year in the cold wintry north just to pledge THE sorority, and then coming back to the deep south to get instant acceptance into THE sorority's deep south chapter), I felt like she was trying really hard not to bash the Greek system. I know 90% of you will disagree with me. I have not read the book yet, and I don't like the fact that she uses so many anonymous sources b/c it hurts her credibility, but I DO believe this is a good time to pat ourselves on the back for all the good things we're doing, and to take this time to look though our chapters at some traditions we are perpetuating that are not in alignment with the goals of our parent organizations.

I also feel that she was off-base in saying in the bit of the book's excerpt that the nationals were hiding something by refusing to grant interview. I think the nationals were trying to avoid unpleasant scandalous slants, as journalists have no interest in reporting on the "softer side" of sorority life. Soft doesn't sell papers, nor move books. I also do find it hard to believe that she was able to find 4 women so easily who kept their mouths shut about what she was doing, and wonder about those "rejects" who didn't want to cooperate-- wouldn't they have told someone? Again, I find it hard to believe that this book chronicles just 4 women at one university in one year. Yes, a lot happens in a year, but for 3 out of the 4 to be date raped sounds like a very strange set of circumstances.

I think most pageant consultants would be rush consultants? And I am sure in the south it is more word-of-mouth, and I doubt those consultants make this a full time job!

[ISUKappa]

I had to laugh because the way she answered the media question made it seem that the "media blackout" mandated by all 26 NPC organizations headquarters was all because of her.

Um no. That's been the policy for a while.

[LionTamer]

I just heard her on "Air America" (liberal radio). GRRRR. Not enough to make me switch over to Fox, but still.....

What kills me is that she occasionally qualifies what she says with "not everyone is like that" or "the nationals are cracking down on hazing" and then proceeds to tell horrifying stories of hazing and sexual hi-jinks. She claimed sorority girls are obsessed by boobs, boys, boobs, boobs and boobs.

Anyone out there ever make pledges strip and line up by boob size? Think she made this up to hype sales to horny guys? How else is she going to sell this?

The main thing the Air America folks were complaining about was how appallingly apolitical the girls in the book were. Well hello - that's college kids. I was always stunned when I met another person (greek or not) who enjoyed talking politics. Hell, I was stunned when I found another person who liked talking about books!

And should sororities be involved with politics? I don't think that's appropriate, but they do get involved with women's issues that we can all agree on regardless of our politics - breast cancer, heart disease, domestic violence, child abuse, etc. - absolutely no mention of that.

Sorry for the rant, but I was expecting a little more balance and a little less out-and-out titallation.

[IvySpice]

I think the Today show should have a balanced approach, or they would if they too were real journalists.

The story wasn't about sororities and whether they are good or bad for college women. If it had been, they should certainly have attempted to show various sides of the story.

The story was about the release of a book -- in other words, a feature piece about a new development in popular culture, no different from a story about Cruise & Cruz breaking up. This kind of story doesn't really have two sides. The standard thing to do in that situation is to interview the author, and that's about it.

Now, it would be great if news outlets more frequently used pop culture developments like this as a jumping-off point for real analysis of real questions (like whether sororities are good or bad for college women), rather than just showcasing personalities. But this is definitely par for the course on a morning show. If you want real news with smart reporters who report all perspectives fairly, read the Wall Street Journal or listen to NPR.