By Alexandra
Robbins
Robbins, a writer for The New
Yorker, initially
interested in female interpersonal relationships, goes undercover in
a sorority in the deep South, where the Greek system is an integral part
of society. She follows
four girls closely as they join a sorority and as they change throughout
a school year. Simultaneously, she interviews many other girls throughout
sororities at different schools, as well as reporting on sorority news
nationwide, sorority histories, and statistics.
Robbins went into the sorority with a balanced outlook,
promising to be fair and represent the entire range of sorority experiences.
But what she found shocked her, and confirmed all of the stereotypes
of sorority life and more. It was appalling. Two of the girls
she followed were date-raped in their first month. There is rampant drug
abuse, rape, and eating disorders. One girl was devirginized as a plot
by the rest of her sorority, who drugged her and brought her to a frat
brother to rape while she was passed out. Robbins was not eager
to condemn the partying and drinking issues, since she reasoned this
was common to all college students. But statistics showed much higher
rates of binge drinking, drunk driving, and alcohol-related crimes in
Greek students.
The hazing process
can also be even worse than reported in the media. Two
girls died when they were told to swim in the ocean at night, nude and
blindfolded. The infamous "circle the fat" and other rituals
are also common. The worst example was a group of pledges who were stripped
naked, blindfolded, and laid down on the floor in the house basement,
while the frat brothers circled the areas on their bodies that they "had
to work on."
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book explores
the racism in these organizations. They are,
in effect, the last completely segregated institutions in the country. It
was interesting to see that the black and white sorority systems have
different origins - white sororities were put in place in the nineteenth
century to teach girls how to be civilized, shelter them from boys on
campus, and attract a husband. But black sororities were started by
women in the 1920s to form a support structure to help black women advance
in education and their careers. Many successful black women came out
of the sorority system. The divisions persist today. Despite their claims
to the contrary, many Southern white sororities do community service
only once or twice a year, and members often have lower GPAs than the
school average. Meanwhile, in black and Latino sororities, as well as
in the newly emerging multicultural groups, community service is the
central goal and takes place weekly, and students excel.
From a feminist perspective, Robbins notices that the
white sororities are still male-centric. One sorority offered potato
chips as the prize for highest GPA (!), but held lavish ceremonies each
time a member advanced their relationship with a frat brother (steady
relationship, to engagement, to marriage, etc.) All of their events were
Date Party related, where members are required to take different men
to several events a week - and only men from the equivalently respectable
fraternity, of couse.
I was especially interested in Robbins' final conclusion:
Many of the problems stem from the emphasis on
conformity over individualism. Every girl feels extreme pressure
to conform to the sororities' standards of beauty, wealth, fashion, behavior,
and dating. (Some of the sororities even enforce a consistent hair color.)
She explains how the national sorority system is run by untrained parents
who are stuck in the past of their sorority days and have unrealistic
expectations for their daughters. The desire to belong among the teenagers
who start college is what lets them endure humiliating hazing rituals,
demeaning treatment, backbiting and vengeful cliques within each sorority,
and leads to eating disorders and alcohol abuse. She finishes the book
by outlining steps to help girls build individual confidence, and policies
to force the sorority system to reform.
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