Pledged

by Alexandra Robbins

  Several times over the course of the academic year, I asked Sabrina, a disciplined, highly intelligent girl, why she put up with the condescending comments and behavior. She said she didn’t want to confront any of her sisters because they would turn against her and make her life in the house uncomfortable, if not intolerable. “I know I should say something,” Sabrina said. “I just don’t have the energy to say anything and then have them attack me.” I was surprised at first that Sabrina would have the courage to flirt with her professor but not to speak her mind to girls her own age, until she clearly articulated the undercurrents running through the sisterhood. A disagreement in a sorority house rarely stays between the sisters concerned. Instead it has a ripple effect as the girls in question seek their roommates for consolation and their Big or Little Sisters for help, and those sisters consult other sisters for advice. An argument between two sisters, therefore, is likely to become a housewide debate. Sabrina stayed silent to avoid conflict and drama, the same reason that Amy and Caitlin buried their feelings, the same reason Vicki was determined to act “sweet and cute” to escape her sisters’ notice. It is this fear of confrontation that allows the mean girls’ actions to continue unabated and without consequence. Sisters are already afraid they will be ostracized if they voice dissent; the added prospect of having to stand up to a clique of particularly aggressive girls who seem to control the sorority proves to be an intimidating deterrence.

  It is important to note, however, that many sorority sisters simply choose to view this unofficial crash course in female sociology as real-world training. Some recent graduates told me that they have found the power plays and politics in a sorority house helpful in the end because they learned how to tolerate living in a woman’s world, which the girls say is a crucial tool for dealing with future female colleagues and superiors. “Being friends with a woman is not easy, so when you’re forced to be, it can be a valuable tool in learning how to deal with other women,” one sorority alumna said. “You learn you’re not the center of the universe. In the world of women, it’s interesting to see how you form bonds—or not—with them.”

  But does that justify the strategies that better resemble fifth grade slambooks than corporate backstabbing? Many common sorority sister techniques to exhibit power over other girls seem like natural extensions of what researchers have called “social manipulation on the playground” or “relational aggression.” At a Virginia school, at least one sorority’s “pledge books”—books in which pledges record interviews with sisters—often turn into something entirely different. “One book went around and we had a page for everyone on which we’d get to write whatever we wanted,” a pledge in this sorority told me. “For the girls we really didn’t like we’d write ‘Most Likely to Be a Lesbian.’” Each May, at one school’s Alpha Epsilon Phi Formal, the girls distribute to each sister a pamphlet that they have assembled over the course of the month, a rag sheet that is not uncommon in sororities across the country. Each sister writes whatever she wants to about whichever members she chooses. The comments generally consist of “mean humor,” the girls said. When they showed me the 2002 booklet, I saw what they meant. Hoping to drive a particular junior out of the sorority, they listed her as “Person We Most Want to Stay Abroad.” When I asked if the junior planned to be involved with the sorority in the fall, one girl remarked, to her sisters’ laughter, “Not after she sees this.” These kinds of incidents shed light on a sentiment I heard repeatedly from sorority sisters—and one that surprised me because so many girls join sororities in search of comfort, support, friendship, and loyalty: “It’s funny,” Jordan, the Pi Phi, said to me, “how you can feel so lonely sometimes even in the big group of girls who have ‘chosen’ you.”

  GREEK WEEK

  Don’t wear faded or shabby clothes or clothes that have been perspired in. Be prepared to change clothes in the middle of the day if it’s hot outside.

  —Rush: A Girl’s Guide to Sorority Success, 1985

  The American professor is a boy at heart, he understands young men, but the pressure of work is severe both in and out of the classroom and there is a limit to human possibilities, to human endurance.

  —The Sorority Handbook, 1907

  NOVEMBER 15: LIP SYNC REHEARSAL

  SABRINA’S IM AWAY MESSAGE (EARLY MORNING)

  I love Professor Stone in multiple states of consciousness.

  GREEK WEEK, THE LONG-AWAITED demonstration of sorority and fraternity spirit, was finally here. Every day this week, the sorority-fraternity teams would compete in events judged by Greeks who had volunteered to temporarily separate from their chapters. These supposedly impartial judges would determine the points each team would accumulate during the week’s series of competitions: Greek Olympics, various intra-Greek athletic events, Float Decorating, and “Lip Sync,” a talent show that was the week’s highlight. The judges, who could grant additional points for enthusiasm, would announce the results at halftime of Saturday’s State U Homecoming football game.

  This year’s Greek Week theme, chosen by the campus Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council because of the expected war, was World Party, with each team assigned a country. As Australia, Beta Pi and Kappa Tau Chi members would wear green bandannas and T-shirts on which they had their letters printed next to the slogan “Come Down Under.” Alpha Rho and Delta Lambda, representing Egypt, had yellow T-shirts with a graphic of a sexy genie emerging from a bottle to cozy up to King Tut, accompanied by the slogan “Rub Us the Right Way.” Although this was a week intended to display Greek spirit to the rest of the State U campus, intra-Greek rivalries tended to heat up during the events. Beta Pi and Alpha Rho, sororities with perennially strong teams, were expected to duke it out for the trophy, which carried with it prestige and respect that would elevate the winner’s status just in time for January’s rush. Winning Greek Week was considered the most important honor a sorority could achieve, even more crucial than the status of the fraternity with which it matched. For the whole week, the sisters would devote themselves almost entirely to the performances, crafts, and athletics that could accumulate team points. For the whole week, sisters hardly thought about anything else.

  On the afternoon before Greek Olympics, the first event that could garner a team points, Alpha Rho was holding a Lip Sync dance rehearsal in its basement. Most of the girls who weren’t participating in the show were at the Delta Lambda house, where they were sewing costumes and helping the boys build sets. Sabrina, Caitlin, and Amy stretched in the basement with the other dancers as they waited for the Delta Lambda boys to show up for practice. About three dozen of the girls and several Delt brothers would rehearse their complicated dance performance several times during the week to prepare for Friday night’s show. For busy sisters like Sabrina, participating was an easy way to accumulate merit points for attending Alpha Rho activities so that she would be able to go to Date Party and Formal.

  “I would like smaller boobs,” one of the dancers announced.

  Breasts were a frequent topic of conversation among the girls in the house. Many of the girls named each half of their pair and occasionally talked directly to them. In fact, one of the more philosophical discussions the sisters had in the house this year was an entire debate about what life would be like if they had three breasts.

  “Me, too, they get in the way.”

  “Then we could wear tube tops and skinny tanks,” Sabrina said. She usually wore sleeved shirts that fully covered her ample cleavage.

  “I want them to get smaller before they get saggy.”

  “I used to have big boobs,” said Grace, the Alpha Rho treasurer.

  “What happened?”

  “I lost weight.”

  “You can lose weight in your boobs?”

  Grace nodded sadly. “They were the first to go.” Then she added, “And I was big into doing those exercises, too.”

  “What exercises?”

  “You know”—Grace made the gesture somewhere between a che
st fly and a chicken flap known by Judy Blume readers everywhere. “I said the words, too: ‘I must, I must, I must increase my bust.’ That was my mantra.”

  Someone laughed.

  “Hey, it worked! Well, for a little bit, anyway.”

  The Delta Lambdas walked in and the conversation stopped. The girls appraised the boys, who slouched over to a couch and waited for further instructions. They seemed uncomfortable to be on the girls’ turf, but they were also sneaking glances at the sisters, who were flexing and doing splits in their slim sweatpants, tight tanks, and white ankle socks. Most of the girls wore their hair down; a few had tied their hair in scarves that draped down their backs.

  Now that the brothers were in the room, the girls’ voices turned shrill.

  “Let’s go, everybody!” Elaine, one of the Alpha Rho choreographers, clapped her hands. “Listen up, we’re starting now!”

  The Delts seemed overwhelmed in the beginning, trying to do the moves as coolly and casually as possible. Each sister, however, was dancing full-throttle, bending over and shimmying her backside into her partner’s pelvis. Other sisters lined the perimeter and cheered.

  “Go, Amy!”

  “Shake it, Caitlin!”

  In between sets, with the music paused, Bitsy squatted and bent over in a dance move for no reason. The brother in back of her, dumbfounded, stared at her behind. The other girls discussed Beta Pi, which had beaten them at Lip Sync several years in a row because it had a dance major in the sorority.

  “This could be the year we finally beat them,” one sister said. Alpha Rho had more cheerleaders than in the past, which was helpful for Lip Sync dance routines.

  “They beat us every year.”

  “They’ve dominated for the last three years.”

  “When does their dance major graduate?”

  “This year.”

  “Thank God. I’m tired of second place.”

  By the last run-through, the brothers were comfortable enough that when the sisters shook their rears in front of them, the brothers gripped their hips.

  Back in the Penthouse, Sabrina received an e-mail from Professor Stone, thanking her for dropping off the photos of her that he had requested. “I am pleased that you are in the class and that I have an opportunity to work with you,” he added. “I hope that we continue to talk about our class, your other classes, and your plans for the future. I will also help in any way that I can. Professor Stone.”

  Sabrina wrote him back immediately.

  He responded within minutes. “Thank you for your kind words. I will always have time for you. Professor Mike Stone.”

  Sabrina called her mother to tell her about the exchange. “We’re meeting again next week,” Sabrina said.

  “You marry this one,” her mother responded. “This one’s a keeper.” Sabrina’s mother fervently hoped that a man like Professor Stone, who was already settled with a stable, middle-class career, could help raise Sabrina to a higher social class.

  “I know, Mom.” Sabrina could envision a long-term relationship with Professor Stone for reasons other than economic advantage. Smart, attractive, ambitious, and a good conversationalist, he was everything she would look for in a husband.

  Bitsy overheard Sabrina talking. When Sabrina hung up, Bitsy came over to sit on her bed. Sabrina chided herself for talking about the professor in the sorority house. If the sisters found out, Sabrina would be the subject of Alpha Rho gossip for far longer than she could tolerate. The only sisters she trusted unconditionally were Amy and Caitlin, and even they didn’t know everything.

  “I think he’s hot for you,” Bitsy said.

  “I hope so.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He is sixteen years older than me.”

  “Wow, that’s old.”

  “When I’m seventy-one, he’ll be eighty-seven. That’s not so bad.”

  “Yeah,” Bitsy said, “but when you’re thirty, he’ll be forty-six and you’ll be like ‘I want to get married’ and he’ll be like ‘I broke my hip!’” Bitsy stood up. On her way back to her area of the Penthouse, she loudly asked the Pents who were around, “Hey, anybody have batteries?” Sabrina made gagging noises as Bitsy, catching a pack a Pent tossed at her, grabbed a vibrator from her underwear drawer and went to a sitting room for privacy.

  The Drive to Drink

  NOVEMBER 15: GREEK WEEK KICKOFF SOCIAL EVENT

  VICKI’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  olivia told me to work now, play HARD later!

  THE NIGHT BEFORE GREEK OLYMPICS, EACH TEAM HELD A kickoff event so the teammates could get to know each other. Most of these events involved alcohol. Beta Pi and Kappa Tau Chi planned a Chug-Off, during which teammates paired up and, tied at the wrists, had to drink two pitchers of beer before they were allowed to untie themselves. The first three teams to finish wouldn’t have to pay for their drinks for the rest of the week’s nightly parties. Because this was an activity specifically forbidden by the State U Greek system, the chapter officers were careful to watch for the campus “Greek Police,” students paid by the Panhellenic and Interfraternity Councils to find Greeks committing alcohol violations and report them to the councils.

  At shortly after 10 p.m., Beta Pis and Kappa Tau Chis filled the second-floor bar area of Yakamoto, a Japanese restaurant a few minutes’ drive from Sorority Row. Some of the other students in Yakamoto, clearly not sorority types, hastily paid their checks and left. Vicki sat with Olivia and Morgan at the back of the bar, where they preferred to watch the scene with interest rather than buy “warm-up drinks” like their sisters.

  The Kappa Tau Chis, almost uniformly dressed in untucked button-downs and khakis, guzzled drafts and crunched fried noodles as they watched football on the fuzzy television in the corner. The girls, all wearing low-rider jeans or tight black pants, sexy tops showing skin, and excellent makeup jobs, were seated, legs crossed, chests out, stomachs in, as they drank daiquiris and exotic-looking pastel cocktails. When a few of the sisters in revealing clothing, like a girl in a red backless top, attempted to distract the boys from the television, Morgan joined them.

  From the spot where she was folded in the corner of a booth, Vicki watched, amused, as the Beta Pi president ran around gesturing, frantically ordering restaurant staffers to move the tables, change the music, and bring out more drinks. By ten-thirty, the boys ventured outward to flirt with the girls holding the biggest drinks. The girls were getting tipsy and starting to lean on each other for support, kissing each other’s cheeks and wrapping their arms around each other’s waists, forgetting now to keep legs crossed, chests out, and stomachs in. At eleven, the last three Kappa Tau Chi stragglers entered the restaurant wearing baggy pants and T-shirts. These stoners moved slowly, lackadaisically, and with effort. One of them walked into the wall. By now the girls had switched to beer and, having had two to four drinks al-ready, most of the sisters who weren’t smoking cigarettes before were smoking now.

  The president pulled the girl in the backless top out of the bar area and whispered to her. They nodded and walked outside to the president’s car. The two grabbed fistfuls of green Beta Pi–Kappa Tau Chi Greek Week bandannas out of the backseat and hustled back into the restaurant, tripping on the top stair. As Backless stumbled around handing bandannas to the boys, Olivia led Vicki (Olivia’s perfume leading both of them) into the crowd.

  After a few minutes, the Kappa Tau Chi president stood on the bar. “Yo, everybody hush up!” The assembled, now tied in pairs, looked at him expectantly. “Yo yo, everybody, yo. We just heard the Greek police are coming down to check this place out”—there was a groan from the room—“so put your bandannas away. Please have a good time, but just put the bandannas away. We’ll do Chug-Off another week.”

  “Nope, we can’t have any fun at this school!” muttered a Kappa Tau Chi. Resigned to a normal bar night, most of the group left, slowly weaving out the door in a drunken mass. Many of the drivers hadn’t begun to sober up, but they drove off anyway. No
bondage, no bar.

  Alcohol’s Role

  I FIND MYSELF HESITANT TO RAIL AT LENGTH AGAINST alcohol use in sororities, a common non-Greek media activity. Alcohol abuse is not an activity limited solely to Greek students. Nonetheless, several studies have been done to illustrate that it is prevalent enough in the Greek community to warrant at least some discussion here.

  A 1996 Harvard University College Alcohol Studies Program report found that 76 percent of female non-binge drinkers in high school become binge drinkers in college when they live in a sorority house. (The researchers defined binge drinking for women as consuming four or more consecutive drinks during the two weeks preceding the study.) Only a quarter of girls who are not affiliated with a sorority become binge drinkers in college. “Virtually all fraternity and sorority members drink,” the report stated. “The single best predictor of binge drinking in college is fraternity [or sorority] membership . . . Fraternity and sorority house environments appear to tolerate hazardous use of alcohol and other irresponsible behaviors . . . this directly contradicts the claim that the members of fraternities and sororities that belong to a national organization exhibit more responsible behavior than groups that are not affiliated with such organizations. Such behavior is decried by national fraternity leaders though they seem powerless to do anything about it.” In 2003, Penn State University released a survey revealing that 94 percent of students in fraternities and sororities drink alcohol, as opposed to 81 percent of non-Greeks. Drug use is also prevalent: in 1992 the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education reported that 98 percent of the Greeks studied drank alcohol every week, while nearly half used marijuana or cocaine within the thirty-day period preceding the study. Six years later, the Journal of Higher Education Management stated, “All types of casual drug use, especially marijuana usage, seem to be escalating on college campuses within the Greek community.”