Author Description

"Babes in Boyland brings to life a pivotal moment in the history of co-education, offering a frank and observant look at gender and identity at a critical juncture in the author's - and America's - development. It was a time in which hostility to women was still rife (fraternity house banners at Dartmouth read "Better Dead than Co-Ed"), but one that promised equal education to bright young women." "Gina Barreca entered Dartmouth College as a freshman in 1975, a few years after the college became co-educational. As a working-class girl of Italian and French-Canadian descent, and raised in Brooklyn and Long Island, Barreca's looks and style set her apart from Dartmouth's blonder, better-heeled undergraduate majority." "Barecca takes the reader to fraternity parties, dorm gossip sessions, working class dives, classrooms, and dorm rooms. She chronicles the delight of her first romance, the humiliation of her first C-plus, and the first stirrings of feminist consciousness. She details the mixed feelings about her experiences at Dartmouth College, experiences that continue to inspire, haunt, and shape her writing, her teaching, and her life."--Jacket.