Babes In Boyland: A Personal History Of Co-education In The Ivy League 
By Gina Barreca
University Press of New England, 2005
$19.95, 154 pages, hard cover
Review by Elisabeth Provinse
Independent Admission Counselor (MD)
Many find transition to college difficult enough without assuming the mantle of trailblazer, but Gina Barreca took on this additional challenge when she matriculated to Dartmouth College (NH) in 1975, only three years after it turned coed. The author is a terrific writer, so it's easy to appreciate her keen insights delivered in well-turned phrases. Her vivid writing brings her story to life and makes her insight about a famous institution, during a fascinating transitional period, enjoyable. In one sense, this is a story of someone who attended college in an unfamiliar, even inhospitable environment. Her experience speaks to the qualities needed to survive and succeed in uncomfortable circumstances.
The author's emphasis is principally on her family and social life. She mentions little about academics and even less about admission, of which she merely explains that she applied to three colleges: Queens College (NY) (near home), McGill University (QC) (in deference to her French-Canadian mother) and Dartmouth (at the recommendation of a guy she was dating at the time). As the first one in her family to go to college, she had no one to guide her or prepare her for what she would encounter.
Although greeted by "Better Dead than Coed" banners, she faced other equally daunting issues. Gina writes that she felt like the only student at Dartmouth whose last name ended in a vowel and the only person with lousy skin in a world composed of flawless porcelain. Even more telling was the issue of family economics. The others, as they said in her old neighborhood, came from homes where "the drapes and the carpet matched." While Gina's relatives decorated their homes in "Sicilian Gothic," her college classmates looked like people who had buildings named after them. In 1975, Dartmouth was divided by social class, as well as gender. Where you grew up mattered. She wrote that being poor at an unabashedly moneyed institution almost trumped being a girl at a boy's school.
Her viewpoint changed dramatically when she realized, and accepted, that fitting into the existing Dartmouth culture wasn't going to work for her. After that, she used her humor to gauge her ability to connect with someone. She'd tell a joke and then would laugh with people when they "got it" and privately chortle when they didn't. She gravitated toward friends who in some way were also among the Dartmouth dispossessed—those "too urban, too shy, too ethnic, too working-class, too intellectual, or too subversive" to be accommodated by the mainstream. Within this group, she belonged; and having created her own social contract, she was able to enjoy her Dartmouth experience.
Gina found strength in the tough going and forged an identity that eventually carried her forward into a career. She told of a professor who consistently asked her opinion "as a woman" as if only the female portion of her perspective was worthy of comment. At first she took offense, but then decided to run with it. From then on she had an opinion "as a woman" on everything. What began as a joke, however, at some point evoked reflection. Did she, as a woman, have a different perspective than her male counterparts? Maybe it wasn't such a joke after all. This stirred within her the beginnings of her interest in the study of feminism, and out of that came a career.
We can thank Gina for recording her personal saga and giving us this glimpse of Dartmouth in 1975. It's not, however, a serious study of the co-ed transition. The cutesy title conveys the fun-and-froth direction it takes. The author is insightful but primarily interested in commenting on the social side of her college experience, which left this reader wanting to know more. It would be interesting to know the stories and viewpoints of other participants, male and female, but that was not the purpose of this primarily personal story.
Our author was somewhat iconoclastic. She rejected being a good girl, writing that she arrived in Hanover fearing trouble but left "looking for it." Although others may have been overwhelmed by their challenges, Gina proved equal to hers. She was strong enough to survive and eventually thrive by creating bonds within her own group and building on her internal strengths. She took the best of what Dartmouth offered and, despite adverse circumstances, succeeded on her own terms. It was tough but she did it. For that we must say, "Bravo!"
Back to NACAC's Current Book Reviews.