Don't Play Like a Girl

Meet Zelda Gamson: 87 years old, widow to a famous sociologist, still cutting her own bangs, and looking back on a life whose shape is only beginning to emerge. She, too, was a tenured professor; she's been a mother, a dancer, an activist, a householder, and an early expert in "gig work" and "code-switching" before either term was coined. In "Don't Play Like a Girl: A Midcentury Woman Leaps Into Life," Gamson tells the story of how she forged her own path even when her choices were limited and her way unclear. From getting pepper-sprayed at a Vietnam War protest to being drugged without her consent during the birth of her first child to finding her bliss alone on an island, Gamson shares a funny, harrowing, lively tale with an intimate perspective on universal questions. How can we give to others while still holding onto our essential selves? What should young women now understand about how quickly their right to self-determination can vanish? How do we live with joy amidst turmoil? Wise and warm, "Don't Play Like a Girl" offers a relevant, instructive vision for a contemporary world that demands unprecedented improvisation. People of her generation and her fellow academics, activists, and fun-lovers will return to their youth with Zelda Gamson. Young women and young men will love and learn with an elder who still feels like they do.

Dettagli