They Used to Call Me Snow White . . . But I Drifted: Women’s Strategic Use of Humor

by Gina Barreca

Published by Viking in 1991 and issued as a paperback through Penguin Books in 1992, Snow White became an instant classic for both academic and general audiences interested in how women use humor and what others (men) think about funny women. Barreca, who draws on the work of scholars, writers, and comedians to illuminate a sharp critique of the gender-specific aspects of humor, provides laughs and provokes arguments as she shows how humor helps women break rules and occupy center stage. Barreca’s new introduction provides a funny and fierce, up-to-the-minute account of the fate of women’s humor over the past twenty years, mapping what has changed in our culture―and questioning what hasn’t.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Dr. Gina Barreca, author of the new book If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse? Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times is also the author of It's Not That I'm Bitter: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World. Gina has appeared on 20/20, The Today Show, CNN, the BBC, Dr. Phil, NPR and Oprah to discuss gender, power, politics, and humor. Her earlier books include the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor and Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League in addition to the six other books she's written and the sixteen she's edited. Gina has been called “smart and funny” by People magazine and “Very, very funny. For a woman,” by Dave Barry. She was deemed a “feminist humor maven” by Ms. Magazine and Wally Lamb said “Barreca’s prose, in equal measures, is hilarious and humane.” Gina, whose weekly columns from The Hartford Courant are now distributed internationally by The Tribune Media Company, is a Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where she’s won the university’s highest award for teaching.

Her B.A. is from Dartmouth College, where she was the first woman to be named Alumni Scholar, her M.A. is from Cambridge University, where she was a Reynold’s Fellow, and her Ph.D. is from the City University of New York, where she lived close to a good delicatessen. A member of the Friars’ Club and the first female graduate of Dartmouth College invited to have her personal papers requested by the Rauner Special Collections Library, Gina can be found in the Library of Congress or in the make-up aisle of Walgreens. She grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island but now lives with her husband in Storrs, CT. Go figure.

Reviews

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is actually an excellent book. The information it provides is amazing and fun. I borrowed this book from a friend. Unfortunately, I was hoping for more laughs and less info. The author is a VERY, funny lady. Sadly, she doesn't infuse this book with enough of her humor. The historical info is great, though.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this in 2018, it felt a bit dated, which is a good sign I imagine. The new introduction helps to address the advancements of the past 20-odd years, and the body holds an excellent summary of how humor and gender interact, and why women's humor had largely been disregarded in the public sphere until now.

[Cindy Eastman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book with a pencil in my hand because there were so many passages that I wanted to mark for reading again. http://www.amazon.com/review/RQQY9LLV...

[Thomas Lafontaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbe tour d'horizon des différentes utilisations de l'humour par les femmes. Écriture vive, scintillante. Version originale de 1991 rééditée en 2013!

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://www.redletterreads.com/2013/08...

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book began with an interesting premise — but it lost my interest around the halfway point. I finished it, but only because I had a misguided hope it would redeem itself. (It didn’t.) This book could have been at least half as short, if not shorter, because the overall content was entirely too repetitive. While the writer’s claims are interesting and require a defense and evidence to flesh them out, things begin to fall apart after that. The evidence is scant and often surface-level, or even hypothetical, and then the commentary begins to sound repetitive. Barreca even goes on to restate prior claims in later chapters, as if they have now become support for a new claim. (That is not how effective or even decent writing works. If the reader is getting a sense of deja vu and thinking they have already read that argument, that is a bad sign. To then leave the idea inadequately supported — again — is just frustrating.)

I wanted to be able to add this to my classroom library shelf, as I am working to diversify the independent reading selections I offer, and nonfiction books that are not biographies or memoirs, or written by men, are in short supply in our department. But since I teach AP Language and Composition as well as English lit, I would never suggest any of my students read this, much less attempt to analyze the rhetorical situation of the writer or use this as a mentor text. Sadly, I could pull a few sections and have my students analyze them as examples of what NOT to do in effective writing.

[Beth Lind · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book on women and humor was thought provoking and funny. Thankfully, things have improved for women but it reminds me that we still have a ways to go. I can remember my mother shushing my sister and I when we were boisterously laughing. We learned to be more reserved and to ignore off-color remarks that were “just a joke.” Now I know how to put someone in their place — with a smile and a little “bless his heart.”

Thanks for the recommendation, Pam!

[Karen Beutler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have. Christmas gift 12/24