Pledged

by Alexandra Robbins

  “Uh-huh,” Vicki said dryly. “Can you give me five minutes and I’ll come talk about it with you?”

  “Okay.” Laura-Ann didn’t move. She stared at Vicki, who was attempting to resume her conversation. Vicki was incredulous.

  “Can you move?” Vicki yelled.

  “Fine,” Laura-Ann snapped, and left.

  Vicki exploded. She sprinted down the stairs into the backyard, screaming and cursing into her cell. “I fucking hate her!” she vented to her friend. “She’s a freak!” Vicki hated the way her roommates were changing her personality. Formerly mellow, Vicki now felt constantly wound up. If Laura-Ann was in the room—or even in the house—Vicki’s mood soured. To try to console her, Olivia suggested they rearrange the room. When Laura-Ann and Morgan left for class the next day, Vicki and Olivia moved the furniture to separate themselves as far from Laura-Ann and Morgan as possible.

  The Values of Nationals

  AT FIRST I FOUND IT CURIOUS THAT WHITNEY WOULD CARE if her sisters brought girls as dates to sorority functions, that Sabrina would worry about her sisters’ perception of her relationship with the professor, and that Laura-Ann would try to hold Vicki accountable to sorority standards. But gradually I learned that when a sister belongs to sorority letters, everything she says and does is perceived as reflecting back onto those letters. There is an image to maintain, and certain values and standards are expected to accompany it. As much as sisters may try to argue that their membership is diverse, their mentality laid back, and their members just “normal” students, they cannot circumvent the fact that belonging to a chapter of a national sorority inherently signifies fitting into a certain mold. They often assess themselves regarding how they measure up, and when the mold doesn’t quite fit, sorority sisters can feel contrite or secretive as they tiptoe around its edges. At State U, Amy fit the Alpha Rho mold so confidently that she felt secure enough to snub it slightly by taking a girl as a date. Vicki was gradually learning to fit into the mold and was adjusting her lifestyle and demeanor accordingly. Sabrina so resented the mold that she began to defy it—and, unbeknownst to Amy and Caitlin, was considering dropping out of the sorority entirely.

  To get a better sense of the source of the values and standards that compose such a mold, I attended the Northeast Greek Leadership Association Conference, an annual three-day program of workshops and lectures for hundreds of sorority and fraternity officers in the Northeast region. For the 2003 Conference, held at the Pittsburgh Hilton, the NGLA was trying something new: a “Values Institute” designed to honor, uphold, and impart the “four pillars” of Greek life: Leadership, Scholarship, Service, and Friendship for Life.

  The keynote speaker, discussing Greek values and standards, began by telling his ballroom audience that “being Greek is a privilege.” Then he asked the fraternity members to volunteer stereotypes of sorority sisters.

  After several beats of silence, one brother offered, “Dumb.”

  “Yes!” the speaker shouted, trying to rile the crowd. “They’re ditzy! Sluts! Sorostitutes and fraterniture!”

  The brothers laughed loudly.

  “Stuck up!”

  “Yes!” the speaker pumped a fist. “Snotty bitches!”

  Hands shot up around the room.

  “Dramatic!”

  “High maintenance!”

  “On drugs!”

  “Lushes!”

  The speaker had worked himself into a frenzy egging the brothers on. “And whose alcohol do they drink?”

  Practically in unison, hundreds of fraternity brothers yelled, “Ours!”

  The room buzzed with laughter and chatter. Even the sorority girls—most in slim, tailored button-down shirts and skinny cigarette pants, or white pants and white sweaters, or winter shirts lined with collars of fake fur, flipping their freshly blown-out and flatironed hair—placed their designer purses on their laps and clapped.

  The speaker waited until the ruckus died down before asking, “Why do we laugh?” When one brother responded, the speaker, his voice now close to a whisper, somberly repeated his answer as he scanned the sisters in the audience, who nodded as if they recognized themselves or their sisters in the descriptions. “Because some of them are true,” the speaker said. “Because some of them are true.”

  Certainly, some of the stereotypes are true. Snobbery: Alpha Rho and Beta Pi, neither of which was considered a particularly snobby or dramatic house on campus, nonetheless had both snobs and dramatic moments. Promiscuity: Sabrina, Amy, Caitlin, and Vicki had few qualms about practicing casual sex as a means of getting to know someone. Flakiness: Laura-Ann and Bitsy, for example, didn’t come across as the brightest pearls on the necklace. Wealth: Sabrina, who inadvertently revealed her frustration with her sorority sisters’ wealth when she harped on Amy for considering Gucci sunglasses, regarded many of her sisters as ridiculously high maintenance; and they were far more affluent than the average college student. Drugs: When I chose the four girls to follow, I didn’t know at the time that three of them smoked marijuana regularly. I could have guessed, however, that all of them would drink alcohol before and during nearly every social event they attended, but I would have guessed so not because they were sorority girls, but because they were college students. Looks: Morgan, thin and pretty, prioritized her beauty above all else and rebuffed the girls who, in her opinion, weren’t on par aesthetically. And sorority-centered: Amy and Caitlin were miffed that Sabrina’s relationship severely curtailed her devotion to Alpha Rho, which sisters expected her to prioritize.

  All four girls believed their sororities were more moderate and more “normal” than other sororities and therefore defied the stereotypes. After a year of visiting sororities, I would agree that they had a less rigid image than many other groups across the country. But that didn’t mean the stereotypes were irrelevant. As she distanced herself from Alpha Rho in the middle of the year, Sabrina pointed this out to me. “I’m not one to believe in stereotypes,” she said, “but the stereotype of a sorority girl has to come from somewhere, and in Alpha Rho I’m starting to see where.”

  These were also some of the stereotypes portrayed on the MTV show Sorority Life, which had so incensed Greek communities across the country and caused Nationals to bar all sisters from talking to the media. I could understand that sororities were upset that MTV didn’t paint a thorough picture of sorority life, choosing instead to focus on the stereotypes rather than on the “four pillars” (which undeniably would have made for less interesting television). But as far as I could tell, the “worst” things MTV’s original Sorority Life girls did that could possibly raise Nationals’ ire were to drink, catfight, and dance sexily with each other. Not only did these actions hardly seem scandalous, particularly because some of the girls were at least twenty-one, but also they are commonplace among sisters. (I have now seen that all-girl “booty train,” of various lengths, at many a sorority function.)

  It is perplexing, then, whether the Nationals’ sorority media blackout is because Greek officials believe that the media depicts sororities untruthfully or because they believe that it exposes too much of the truth. One sorority official, decrying the media’s coverage of sororities as “biased,” even went so far as to warn an entire campus Panhellenic Council about me merely for writing on the topic. A professor at this school had kindly gone out of her way to tell some of her students about this book so that sorority sisters interested in contributing to my research could contact me. At least one girl tried to help me before her efforts were clamped down by the officers of her sorority. Subsequently, the campus Panhellenic adviser sent a note to the professor that included:

  We have serious concerns about our women giving interviews for [Ms. Robbins’] book and I would appreciate if you would contact me before contacting any more sorority women. The entire issue was brought up to our Panhellenic Council last evening and the women know to be aware of being contacted. We would like to do what we can to protect our women and our Greek community.
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br />   Angrily, the professor wrote back to the adviser that because the students involved “are free, rational adults, capable of deciding for themselves whether or not to speak to the press, there seems to me no reason to go through any intermediaries . . . While I understand and appreciate your concern for the Greek women of [this university], I believe my students to be intelligent, mature, and capable of self-determination, and therefore will continue to deal directly with them on all matters that concern them.”

  I was curious about sorority officials’ vehement reaction to the media and their adamant insistence that the media is something against which the officials have to “protect our women” (our being an interesting choice of proprietary pronoun that perhaps would lead to too academic a discussion here). Thus I thought it might be amusing, as a member of the media myself, to sit in on a lecture at the NGLA Conference entitled “The Greek PR War Room.” Confidently blending in (I thought) among several dozen sorority and fraternity members, I listened warily as the presenter began with, “Pay close attention and you may be able to wag the dog in your Greek community.

  “There is bias in the media,” he continued. “It’s our general perception that journalists don’t like Greeks. They don’t give us enough credit.”

  Between the presenter’s slides and his surly side comments, it occurred to me that his statement could be flipped: the alleged bias goes both ways. “Journalists are held to a professional code of ethics that requires them to be compassionate [and] respectful . . . (This is not always the case.)” read one of his slides. Another stated, “Journalists view themselves as public advocates (even when this may not be the case). This explains their desire to ‘expose’ organizations and individuals to the general public.” While the students gazed at the projector screen, the presenter admonished, “They especially like secret organizations . . . Keep that in mind. They could be trying to expose you.”

  He went on to suggest ways that Greeks could improve their public image: pinpoint unfriendly journalists to “figure out how their mind works and read their past articles”; install a chapter public relations officer with the power to change chapter behavior; contribute to college newspapers by writing a Panhellenic column or letters to the editor; plant allies in the press by “bringing journalists into your organization”; create a Greek community newsletter; frequently circulate news releases to campus media relations officers; co-sponsor events; poll public opinion on Greek life; and, the suggestion that particularly raised my eyebrow, “Watch Wag the Dog.”

  “One death,” the presenter explained, “takes ten thousand hours of community service to make up for the public relations aspect.”

  This slightly quieted the crowd, who had chosen this session not for suggestions on how to contribute to college publications but, rather, for lessons on damage control. A girl with delicate features from a Boston school raised her hand. “Two undercover reporters came into our formal recruitment. How do I handle that?”

  The presenter’s face contorted with anger. “If they’re going undercover, that’s unethical, that’s attacking. Send a note to the society of professional journalists and expose their unethical behavior,” the presenter fumed, his hand gestures bordering on wild. “That’s ugly! That’s not PR. That’s ugly journalism! They shouldn’t be doing that. It’s like not having a search warrant. You don’t fool people like that. Don’t let a journalist fool you. If they do fool you, they are wrong.”

  Feeling slightly guilty as something of an undercover reporter in the middle of the room listening intently to a harangue against undercover reporters, I wondered what choice writers like me had, when faced with the national organizations’ media blackout. I didn’t have sinister intentions, didn’t plan to write a book sensationalizing negative aspects of sororities; as I explicitly told national officials, my goal was to provide a truthful, balanced look at real sorority life. But as official after official countered, my intentions didn’t matter. Reporters—all reporters—are threats. To sororities, the media is the enemy because there’s a chance it might present the wrong “image.” As the “Greek PR War Room” presenter said with disgust, “We do community service and they don’t cover it. One person falls out of a window and every paper in town is there.”

  Well, sure. When in October 1998 Courtney Cantor, a Chi Omega pledge at the University of Michigan, plummeted through a window to her death following a Greek activity involving alcohol, that was news. When the Tri-Delts flipped pancakes for charity, that was not news. Frankly, with all of the focus on community service at the NGLA Conference, I was surprised to discover that in white sororities, service is much less a part of the organizations than Greeks would have outsiders believe. Moreover, the PR presenter implied that the point of community service was not to benefit the community but to balance public relations for the Greeks.

  “The Values Institute,” held on the second day of the conference, was comprised of a series of plenary and breakout sessions on the four pillars. I was assigned to a group of about twenty-five mostly white Greeks attending sessions run by two adult moderators: one a national officer of a sorority and the other the incoming president of an organization governing national fraternities. Throughout the day, the moderators led discussions and activities designed to inspire the student leaders to return to their chapters ready to instill and improve the proper Greek values.

  During the session on service, the group discussed the differences between philanthropy (donating money) and service (spending time and energy). “White groups do more philanthropy, cultural groups do more service,” one of the moderators explained. This statement was borne out by the responses when the moderators asked how often the participants’ chapters did some form of community service. “Once a semester,” mumbled a few people. “When we have a Panhellenic event,” others agreed. One of two Latinos—the only nonwhites in the group—looked around the room in surprise. “We do it every single week. It’s so important to us. It’s a big part of our brotherhood,” he said, as the Latina sorority sister nodded emphatically in agreement. The other participants seemed sheepish, though they offered some creative ideas. One white sorority sister later mentioned that her group had started a Girl Scout troop—an idea that was voted the top idea of the session.

  The white Greeks were much more vocal during the conversations about the other three pillars. They had plenty of recommendations for how to improve the average GPA of their chapters, one of the official measuring sticks of a sorority’s success in the eyes of its Nationals. Another session began, “What values are important in the Greek community?” The group came up with this list, which one moderator scrawled on a large sheet of paper with a Magic Marker: safety, trust, support, loyalty, personal and professional growth, unity, pride, ritual (the moderator refused to write down “ritual,” explaining, “That’s how we practice the integrity of our organization,” and added “justice” instead), commitment, respect, service, responsibility, learning, excellence, and honesty.

  The session on “Friends for Life” began innocuously enough, until the moderators wanted to discuss the differences between friendships inside and outside the Greek world. A brother who desperately wanted to discuss hazing—who had, in fact, asked at an earlier session, “Why isn’t there a discussion about parties?”—answered, with support from other brothers, “Pledging—the fact that we’ve been through that together.” Some of the other students tried to shift the topic. “With Greek life there are opportunities to expand on those friendships outside of and beyond school, through the sisterhood,” one girl said. “People don’t pledge organizations. People pledge people,” said another. But the rest of the session turned into a heated debate over whether Greeks should be allowed to haze.

  Overall, the lectures and sessions of the NGLA Conference did come across as inspiring. Along with stoking the pride of being Greek (in some cases, a pride that involved a sense of superiority over non-Greeks), many of the conference leaders offered genuine intentions and noble p
urposes. The theme of the conference, “Values-Driven Leadership: Back to Basics,” encouraged participants to strive to emphasize the principles on which Greek-lettered groups had been founded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But as an officer of a New England sorority pointed out to me during a break, “For every one of us here, there are at least fifteen girls back at the chapter who just don’t get it. Those are people in my chapter I’d call my friends but not my sisters. This is preaching to the choir,” which could explain why, by the last breakout session, more than a quarter of the participants in my group had disappeared.

  During the breakout sessions, I wondered whether the stereotypes and the values of sororities were mutually exclusive. Here were the college chapter officers of sororities across the region from Maryland to Maine—student leaders chosen to attend this conference because of their commitment to developing within their chapters the proper values, as dictated by their national organizations, or perhaps because these individuals already adhered to the correct standards. And yet, these girls clearly exhibited many of the sorority stereotypes, such as conformism: girls from the same chapters often looked alike, with nearly identical clothes and similar hair colors and cuts (usually long and straightened); and being overly image-conscious: when I asked one sorority sister about the prevalence of eating disorders, she responded, “They’re even here, this weekend. Everyone is watching what everyone else is eating and is trying to eat the same amount or less because none of the girls want to be the heaviest eater at the table.”

  But perhaps the most telling moment occurred in the first few minutes of the first breakout session, during an icebreaker activity. The moderators asked increasingly inclusive questions: “If you have a biological sister, stand up.” “If you have brown eyes, stand up.” And at the end, as they smilingly tried to rouse enthusiasm, “If you’re proud to be Greek, stand up!” (Yes, self-consciously, I stood up with the rest of the room.) And finally, a joke intended to get the audience back into their seats and ready to begin discussions, “If you think MTV’s Sorority Life is an accurate portrayal, stand up.” To the moderators’ surprise, two sisters stood.