Heather Finley

          Is there anything they do but party? Are they just looking for husbands? Is there really a room with copies of old test and papers to cheat off of? Are they forced to drink and have sex? All questions you might have wondered about sororities girls and all the answers were found in Alexandra Robbins’s Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities.

          This book caught my attention when it first came out and one of my best friends, who had just joined a sorority bought it. She said I could read it after her but I completely forgot to ever ask her about it. Years later I found it at Powell’s while looking for something else and of course got it. Over the course of three days I could barely tear myself away from the story of four sorority girls interlaced with facts on the history of the greek societies.

          The way Robbin’s composed this book was completely brillant. The facts are very interesting but a book with only facts would not have been all that interesting. To bring everything to life, she followed the lives of four girls on a particular campus. The chapters trade off between the girls, each with interesting lives and views on the sorority that keep the reading turning the page to see what happens next. The girls reveal so much of themselves. As Robbin’s clearly stated in the novel, she choose four girls that would fall under the category of completely normal. These are girls that are extremely easy to relate to and you end up caring about each one.

          Robbin’s also delieves the facts in a way that does not really show an opinion. Robbin’s journalism roots definately show. Not only are there facts, but there are also examples from more real people so we get a better looks at things from those closest to the issues. Some of these girls reappear in many chapters, making them interesting to the reader as well.

          Towards the very end, Robbin’s does make her own opinion on sororities by offering ways that she thinks they can be improved. Even though I didn’t agree with everything she said, it was clever to end that way because it forced me to think about my own opinion. It made me want to have other people read it and see what they took from the novel.

          Since I don’t have anyone to discuss it with in real life, here it is internet. I do not think sororities are in the wrong for being exclusive. It isn’t intended to be a club that anyone can join. Is it fair that some people are excluded based on superficial things. Yes. Is everything else in life perfect fair? It’s cliche but no. More than that, what right to outsiders have to say how they select their people, or when, or anything to do with it.

          I do agree with Robbin’s that hazing practices need to be definated better and rules changed and enforced. Forcing girls to do horrible and sometimes illigal or dangerous is not right. The book did a really great job at showing exactly how the current rules are effecting the schools. Currently hazing is defined as any action that is different for the pledges verses the sorority members. If you don’t know anything about sororities you might think that makes sense but it really doesn’t. One of the sororities that three of the girls in the book were in followed this perfectly which meant not doing there traditions of bringing the pledges out for meals or giving them gifts like they did in the past. This just made the pledges feel disconnected from the group itself. Would doing those things have hurt the girls at all? Is buying a girl say a necklace with the sorority letters on it so wrong? Obviously these do need to change.

          Personally, being in a sorority was never something that crossed my mind. I had to work basically full time to cover the cost of school. My parents were completely awesome and let me stay at home, paid for my insurance and all those kind of bills, plus eventually gave me the car I had been using in exchange for me paying my way through school. It worked out perfectly and I ended school with no debt. Being in a sorority would have ruined all that. I most likely would have been forced to live in a house which would have meant paying much more than I had to living at home. In general, I went to a school that was not big into the greek system. I graduated at Portland State University for those of you wondering. I vaguely remember a frat once having signs up for pledges but that was it.

          However, I think my photography job later on did teach me a lot about being part of the cool club. To fit in, you have to have the look and that means spending a lot of money. Did I have to do that? No. Do most of these girls have to join sororites? No. Yet I did and so did they. Being part of something means a lot to the vast majority of people. That was an important point that came across in this book. Sororities are meant to bring together a group of people irregardless of if that ends up being a positive thing on the individual.

          Overall, I completely loved this book. The way it was written was spot on and it really did teach me about an interesting world that I would not have known that much about otherwise. Currently I am reading Secrets of the Tomb by Robbin’s as well. This one isn’t starting out quite as interesting as Pledged but I’m still looking forward to find out secrets about the Skulls and Bones.