Issue date: 11/7/07 Section: Campus

Media Credit: Nick Infusino Alexandra Robbins, best-selling author of 2004's "Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities," spoke Tuesday night about how sororities should avoid being trapped by Greek stereotypes. About 155 people listened to the author's speech in Ryan Family Auditorium and participated in a question-and-answer period afterward.

The world of Alexandra Robbins' "Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities" might seem foreign to NU sorority women, but Robbins revealed in a speech Tuesday night that some stories in her book were drawn from interviews done at NU.

The book follows four sorority women at an undisclosed school and tells stories of several others. Anecdotes range from recruitment chairwomen approving members' outfits to sorority house plumbing systems deteriorating due to excessive vomiting.

Robbins was brought to Ryan Family Auditorium by the College Feminists and co-sponsors emPOWER, the Society of Professional Journalists and the gender studies department. Robbins told a crowd of about 150 women and five men that although some examples seem like they "couldn't happen close to here," students from NU were among the thousands she interviewed before writing "Pledged."

The biggest difference between all sororities is whether there are requirements to live in the house, Robbins said. "It's about this: Can you have your own life and have the sorority as a subset of you and not you as a subset of the sorority?" she said.

She also discussed backlash from the book, reading e-mails she received in the months after the book was published in July 2004.

"People usually assume that I was rejected by a sorority and then did this out of spite," Robbins said. "But 'Pledged' is not an anti-sorority book, it's a fly-on-the-wall account of being in a sorority."

To minimize criticism, College Feminist members screened questions before they were asked. College Feminists President Alexandria Gutierrez, a former sorority member, said about four comments submitted anonymously by audience members were not chosen.

Some sorority members were in the audience, but Gutierrez, a Weinberg senior, said she had heard of some students boycotting the event because they did not agree with the message of Robbins' book. The Panhellenic Association, one of the governing bodies for campus sororities, declined to co-sponsor the event, but Greek feminist group emPOWER agreed to support the speech, she said.

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