STORRS, CT — In an age when girls are marrying younger for the first time in 20 years and a nation obsesses over Sarah Palin’s high heels, Regina Barreca, a professor of English literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut, wants to know what happened to feminism.
Barreca - a best-selling author, humorist and nationally-acclaimed speaker- explores the perceived decline of feminism in the 21st Century and shares a few laughs along the way in her latest book - “It’s Not That I’m Bitter … or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered The World.”($23.95, 240 pages, St. Martin’s Press)
“Who hijacked feminism?,” says Barreca, whose unique and humorous take on the female experience has led to appearances on “Oprah”, NBC’s “Today,” “20/20” and “48 Hours.
“I used to assume my students were feminists,” says Barreca, a professor in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “It seemed like everyone got my jokes and laughed. Now I have to explain myself.”
Barreca says she’s surprised by the perceived changes in attitude.
“Why are my students so reluctant to use the ‘F-word’? And by the ‘F-word’, I mean Feminism,” Barreca says. “It seems like 21st Century feminism has moved from a backlash to a whiplash. Talk about feeling bad about your neck!”
Besides writing popular books, Barreca is a regular contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education. She writes a weekly blog for Psychology Today and a monthly column for Education World. Sheis also a columnist for Connecticut’s largest metropolitan newspaper, the Hartford Courant. Some of her previously published books have been translated in eight different languages.
In “It’s Not That I’m Bitter…” Barreca tackles a wide variety of subjects such as beauty, aging, the “glass ceiling,” and relationships with her trademark wry humor and wit. She offers insight into such issues as:
- Did you ever wonder why there is no King Charming?
- Why intelligent women will apply placenta to their eyes and bring bricks into the bathtub?
- Or why women spend money on guided spirituality, sage candles and psychics, only to discover that if you don’t pay your psychic, you get “repossessed?”
“It’s Not That I’m Bitter…” has been well received by critics.
“University of Connecticut English Professor Barreca offers feminism for the everywoman in these humorous essays. Expect poignant insights tucked between the laugh lines,” says Ms. Magazine in its Spring 2009 issue.
And this from Publishers Weekly in May, 2009: “Fans of Nora Ephron's “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman” will find humor along with serious insights about women and aging in Barreca's latest challenge to women to “stop obsessing over hymens, husbands, and hangnails and once again direct our attention outward to the larger issues of... the creation of genuinely significant opportunities for women in all workplaces.” But Barreca (Perfect Husbands & Other Fairy Tales) is more about laughs than lecturing, as she addresses the mysteries of finding the perfect bra, the indignities of bathing suit shopping at TJ Maxx, her relationship with her hair and the “Fifty-two Things I Learned by Fifty-one.” Along the way, she points out what she considers to be the insipid concerns of holiday preparations or what exactly women may consider to be a waste of time (“Why, oh why, didn't I organize my closet according to color and texture of garment?”).”
Barreca grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island. She received a B.A. from Dartmouth College, an M.A. from Cambridge University (where she was a Reynolds’ Fellow) and a Ph.D. from City University of New York. She is the founding editor and co-editor of the scholarly journal LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, now in its twentieth year
Barreca's other works include the best-selling They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted , Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales), Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even, Untamed and Unabashed: Essays on Women and Humor in British Literature, Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful and (as editor) The Penguin Book of Women's Humor, The Signet Book of American Humor, The Erotics of Instruction, and A Sit-Down With the Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on T.V.'s Most Talked-About Series (2002). With cartoonist Nicole Hollander, she wrote An ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Woman's Guide, published in 2003. Her most recent book is Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in The Ivy League, published by the University Press of New England.
More information about Barreca’s latest book, including highlights of recent radio and television appearances, can be found at: http://www.ginabarreca.com
Regina Barreca
Department of English
University of Connecticut
215 Glenbrook Road, U-4025
Storrs, CT 06269-4025
Ph: (860) 486-2988 (Cell): 860-617-2439
Regina.barreca@uconn.edu
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