They Used to Call Me Snow White...But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor By Regina Barreca Penguin Books April 1992 Paperback ISBN#: 0140168354 Purchase this text online at Amazon.com My boyfriend and I broke up. He wanted to get married...and I didn't want him to. Why is this joke, (told by stand-up comic Rita Rudner) funny? And why would it fall flat if its genders were reversed? Why, for that matter, do men and women laugh at such different things? This erudite, witty, and at times deliciously ribald book examines women's humor, the jokes and stories that have only recently come out of the kitchen and onto the nightclub stage. But They Used to Call Me Snow White is also a guide for any woman who wants to respond forcefully yet appropriately to a boor's come-on or a boss's put-down. Drawing on a lineage of female humorists that extends from Jane Austen and Dorothy Parker to Lily Tomlin and Nicole Hollander, Regina Barreca shows how the proper punchline can work wonders on the street, in the bedroom, and even in the corporate boardroom. ~An impassioned, wily, and often hilarious argument for women to unleash their sense of humor on the world. --The Chicago Tribune ~Funny, painful, electric...a book not just about gender, but about life, fit to invigorate the learned and reeducate the blasé. --Fay Weldon, author of Life and Loves of a She-Devil ~Shuttles fluidly between Ivory Tower scholarship and real world experience...her text mixes personal reminiscence with good counsel... --The Christian Science Moniter ~Barreca is a sharp analyst of women's humor...observant, witty, acerbic, and knowledgeable. --Los Angeles Times ~A book women will relish, one that promises it's all OK: I'm funny, you're funny; a book that gives the brain surgeon permission to hoot with her mouth open. --The Hartford Courant ~Wise, liberating, and merry! --Booklist Purchase this text online at Amazon.com