the Press Release

March 2016
Dear Editor/Producer:
Author, professor, humor/comedy expert, and syndicated columnist Gina Barreca knows how to make
you laugh – at yourself, at others, and especially at her sharp, provocative and memorable declarations
concerning contemporary life. From Brooklyn, New York to Cambridge, England, Gina’s dazzling career
has chronicled the rich history of women and humor. Her pioneering feminist interpretations of humor
taught us how for women funny isn’t short and sweet but instead layered and complex. Women use
humor differently from men and this says everything we need to know about that extra chromosome.
And yet IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE? proves that Gina can make
men, as well as women, laugh out loud. Her latest book draws on the kind of humor that’s made Gina a
repeat headliner at THE WOMEN’S CAMPAIGN SCHOOL AT YALE, at THE ERMA BOMBECK WRITER’S
WORKSHOP, and at CHAUTAUQUA. It includes the trademark wit that has Gina celebrating her
membership at the FRIAR’s CLUB, charming audiences with her TEDx Talk, and inspiring alumni and
students at her alma mater Dartmouth College. It is filled with the unfettered, erudite opinions which
allow Gina to discuss educational policy on NPR, trade taunts about sex with Gene Weingarten in The
Washington Post, and write about women in politics in her syndicated Tribune Media column. Gina
appeals to audiences otherwise divided by politics, age, income or culture because of her emotional
generosity, her quick wit, her smart style, and her spot-on observations.
On March 29, St. Martin's Press publishes Gina Barreca's IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN
YOUR BLOUSE? A quick peek at her cv and her website’s media library confirms Gina can address
diverse issues and topics ranging from the boardroom to the bedroom. In IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN
JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE? Gina takes on, among other topics, the following:

WHY “LEAN IN” DOESN’T WORK IF YOU’RE WAITING TABLES: For many of us, reading
books about legitimately high-profile women is a form of masochism. It's like tearing off your
cuticles. We wonder, "Why can't I be like her?" Sandberg sounds as if she doesn't understand
how many nickeled-and-dimed women really live and work. She sounds like an ace pilot giving
advice to baggage handlers. When I asked a pal who is a taxi-dispatcher whether her EQ came
into play at work –Sandberg says it should—my friend’s reply was as follows: "If I even said
the phrase 'EQ' to one of these guys, their immediate response would be, 'Yeah? Well, EQ too.'"
What did she think about "Lean In"? "At my job, if I lean in, guys just look down my blouse."
That’s when I decided to write this book.

TO JUDGE OR NOT TO JUDGE: What are you most judge-y about? Does being judge-y show
you have discernment, taste, standards and ideals, or does it illustrate elitism, insecurity,
smugness and a narrowness of mind? From presidential politics to pantsuits—Gina can speak
or write about judging as colorfully as her childhood friend Judge Judy.

WHY IS HAPPINESS A PROJECT?: We’ve come to believe we need a great deal to make us
happy—serenity, security, rest and success, for starters—when all we really need is wheel of


Brie and a refillable glass. That’s our current problem as a culture: we think our very pleasures
must be coaxed out, like shy, tiny, blinking woodland creatures emerging into the open when,
in fact, our pleasures are more like raccoons who will eagerly rip off the tops to things,
grinning like tiny maniacs with masks, and having as much fun as possible before getting
chased away. Why ignore our inner-raccoons?
THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS: After a certain age, after a certain stage of life and after a
certain level of hard-won personal experience, it is almost impossible to keep one’s mouth shut
when one sees a friend becoming involved with a hideous potential-partner. There are things
one can say but there are many more things one must bury or hide. How can the sage yet
supportive friend react to a friend’s keeping relationship with A Miserable Choice?
FAMILY, ANXIETY, AND FORGIVENESS – OH MY! My mother's ideas of becoming an
American included fantasies of a place to call their own, not just a room down the hall where
she shared a bathroom with her husband's mother and grandmother. It took her years to get
away from them; her sense of exile and tense longing for a space of her own has stayed with
me my entire life. Years after her death, I've discovered myself rehearing and rehearsing my
mother’s anxieties and desires. For the first time ever, I’m writing about them in IF YOU LEAN
IN…The question is this: Would my mother have approved?
And if those reasons aren’t enough to schedule an interview with Dr. Gina Barreca consider this:
1. Men appreciate her humor as much as women do—and they fall in love with her because she
reminds them of their mother AND their first girlfriend;
2. She combines a Brooklyn sense of straight-from-the hip humor with a professor’s sense of erudite,
articulate sophistication;
3. With previous books translated into eight languages, multiple appearances on Oprah, The Today
Show, and 20/20, as well as speeches delivered around the world, Barreca knows how to delight a
wide range of readers, listeners, and viewers;
4. Gina is a widely-respected commentator because she’s ironic yet upbeat, fast-talking yet
thoughtful, and inevitably provocative even when she is most charming;
5. She says out loud what everybody else is thinking—watch her greatest hits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_rIqIJCpb4 or her TEDxUCONN talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=-iM53Wb-uiI
6. She’s actually NOT bitter and she DOESN’T LEAN IN either -- Gina is one of America’s most
celebratory, witty, engaging writers. Her audiences love her and so will you.
7. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST…she makes a mean lasagna and will bring one to your interview!
Please contact us to arrange an interview or receive a copy of the book. Otherwise, one of us will be in
touch soon.
Cheers,
Laura Rossi
Director of Publicity, Laura Rossi Public Relations
e: laura@laurarossipublicrelations.com | p: 401-487-2453
Staci Burt
Associate Publicist, St. Martin’s Press
e: staci.burt@stmartins.com | p: 646-307-5570
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
On-Sale: March 29, 2016
Media Contacts: Staci Burt, St. Martin’s Press
staci.burt@stmartins.com I 646-307-5570
Laura Rossi Totten, Laura Rossi Public Relations
laura@laurarossipublicrelations.com | 401-487-2453
"Gina Barreca's essays are like dispatches from a dear friend: Wonderful, witty, heartfelt and wise - with many memorable
zingers and tear inducing stingers. Her gift is one of connection and her work is relatable and true. Share this book with your
sisters and your BFF (Brainy Friends and Feminists) book group." —Amy Dickinson, author of the nationally syndicated
column "Ask Amy"
"If you ever find that your best gal pal isn't available, you need look no further than Barreca's book. It contains everything a
good friend would provide: honesty, insight, female camaraderie, and a lot of laughs." —Rachel Dratch
“IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE?”
Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times
By Gina Barreca
Have you heard the one about how women can be witty, intelligent and generous towards both
women—and men? Then you need to hear more about Gina Barreca, who you might know from
appearances on CNN, NPR, Today, Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Phil and Oprah. She’s a professor
of English at the University of Connecticut, the author of many books, a widely sought-after
public speaker and now the author of IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR
BLOUSE?: Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times (St. Martin’s
Press; On-Sale March 29, 2016).
Dr. Gina Barreca is back and this time she’s telling women to make trouble, be loud, be funny
and step-up. Here are tips, lessons and bold confessions about bad boyfriends at any age, about
friends we love and ones we can't stand anymore, about waist size and wasted time, about
panic, placebos, placentas and certain kinds of not-so adorable paternalism attached to certain
kinds of politicians. Barreca brings her trademark wry humor and insight to her newest collection
of essays and turns her attention to issues great and small, including:
--why, as women age, we trade being visible for being audible (and why that’s a good thing)
--why having slurpy noises made towards us on the street by strangers is not a genuinely fulfilling feminine experience
--why packing a shoe-horn can save your marriage
--why we don’t talk about the crushes we have when we’re over 40 (even though we still have them)
--why you should thank your ex-boyfriend
--why you should forgive your mother
--why you should stop talking about the benefits of blueberries already
--why, if you run with a bad crowd, you can call it exercise
The world is kept lively by loud women talking and IF YOU LEAN IN cheers and challenges women to come together and speak
up. You think she's kidding? Oh, boy, do you have another thing coming.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
GINA BARRECA is nationally syndicated columnist with Tribune News Service. She's the author of It's Not
That I'm Bitter, Babes in Boyland, They Used to Call Me Snow White but I Drifted and co-author of I'm With
Stupid: One Man, One Woman, and 10,000 Years of Misunderstandings Between The Sexes Cleared Right
Up with Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten. She's a professor of English at UConn, and a member of
the Friars' Club. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY but now lives in Storrs, CT. Go figure. To learn more about
Gina Barreca, please visit http://ginabarreca.com/.
Additional Praise for Gina Barreca
“Gina Barreca is very, very funny. For a woman.”
—Dave Barry on It's Not That I'm Bitter
“From spotting chin hairs in a rear-view mirror to finding a bra that never fits, the book is 120-mph humor!”
—Cindy Adams, The New York Post on It's Not That I'm Bitter
“Barreca is probably the funniest woman writing in America. She does what all great comedians do, latches onto the
absurd, looks at it from a number of equally absurd angles and is pretty fearless at making fun of anything, including
herself.”
—Rita Ciresi, award-winning author of Mother Rocket and Pink Slip on It's Not That I'm Bitter
“This thought-provoking book entertains while it educates and enlightens. Wise women will get what she writes about;
wise men would do well to read it, too.”
—Hartford Courant on It's Not That I'm Bitter
“Barreca... is a brilliant and witty writer.”
—Psychology Today on It's Not That I'm Bitter
“Many readers, especially women, will enjoy, discuss, and reread this quick, breezy work of commentary, a book that
stirs up dust long after its covers are closed.”
—Booklist on It's Not That I'm Bitter
MEET GINA BARRECA!
March 24 – RJ Julia, Madison CT – 7:00pm
March 31-April 2 – Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, Dayton OH
June 2 – 92nd Street Y, New York NY – 7:00pm
IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE?
Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times
By Gina Barreca
St. Martin’s Press I On-Sale March 29, 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 9781250060747 I $25.99
Ebook ISBN: 9781466866386 I $12.99
A Conversation with Gina Barreca, author of
“If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”
What was the best part about writing the newest book?
I had a blast writing IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE? The book takes on a
number of social and cultural issues—everything from the Twilight and 50 Shades phenomena to Spanx
and people’s obsessions about the healing powers of particular food groups. In that way, it’s different
from most of my earlier work because it’s more personal and unguarded. I’m getting braver as I get older
but I don’t think that’ll come as a big surprise to anybody. Women get gain courage as we age; we become
audible as we become less worried about being visible.
This book is one of your most honest and personal collections. You write about the death of your
mother for example – why now?
Although I can hardly be accused of keeping my personal life out of my earlier books (after all, wrote a
memoir about being one of the first women at Dartmouth titled BABES IN BOYLAND), but this latest
collection deals with intimate matters in a more honest and revealing way.
There’s a chapter, for example, about the questions I wished I’d asked my mother before she died; early
readers of the book have commented on that one in ways I never imagined. My mother died when she
was 47 and I was in my junior year of high school; it was a tough loss, but all losses are tough. I write
about my own anxieties and worries with less glib humor than I’ve relied on in the past because I’ve
learned that fears aren’t necessarily funny. There’s an essay about dealing with panic attacks that
includes an actual incident with a butterfly net—and remember, I do not make these things up. I try to
write about both my professional life and my own relationships with honesty as well as humor. When I
write about my friends and family, I ask their permission to tell their stories as well as my own. Most of
the time they’re generous enough to grant it. This time, I gave myself permission to tell my own stories.
You say that women are braver and more honest when they are older; are they funnier, too?
We hear that women become invisible as we age but it only seems that way; actually, we become more
audible, more honest, and more of everything else, too. We become more politicized, less willing to
simply nod and smile if we disagree, and more willing to stand up for ourselves and others (instead of
leaning in—I’m not a Sheryl Sandberg fan, and that’s where the title comes from; there’s a chapter about
my issues with her work in the book). Sometime between 40 and 50, women begin to distinguish what
actually makes them happy from what they've always done to please others. (It’s happening earlier with
each generation and for that I’m enormously grateful.) Being able to define that difference is an
accomplishment. It's one of those areas of expertise that takes at least 10,000 hours to learn. At a certain
age, you finally become the indisputable authority on the subject of yourself.
You’re a feminist and a humorist. What will men think of IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK
DOWN YOUR BLOUSE?
They’ll laugh themselves silly; they’ll love the chapter on “Sixteen Things Men Hate to Hear (Even When
They Like or Love Us),” appreciate the ones on fathers and daughters, enjoy the ones about marriage
(“Love is not blind, but after a certain point it is hard of hearing”) and I believe they’ll agree with Dave
Barry that “Gina Barreca is very, very funny. For a woman.”
IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE?
Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times
By Gina Barreca
St. Martin’s Press I On-Sale March 29, 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 9781250060747 I $25.99
Ebook ISBN: 9781466866386 I $12.99
Read these Gina-isms and more in
“If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”
"Not only do women hold up half the sky; we do it while carrying a 500-pound purse.”
"We all enter this world crying. Laughter is something we have to learn."
"After a certain age, you finally become the indisputable authority on the subject of yourself."
"Power is the ability to persuade stupid people to do intelligent things and intelligent people to
do stupid things. This is why power is dangerous."
"I'd say it's time for women to make a stand. And it's far, far easier to make a stand when you're
wearing comfortable shoes."
"Men fake sleep the way women fake orgasms: to be left alone already."
"Having an unresolved Bad Boyfriend issue is like carrying around credit card debt . . . which can
still show up and wreck your rating."
"Since little-girlhood, we're trained to find the Big Bad Wolf seductive.”
"When you enter your next relationship, you become the person you split up with."
"But if you believe that your best years are behind you, you've guaranteed they are; I'm going to
dance into that good night, with the oldies turned up loud."
"Fate gives us relatives for one reason: so that we have to learn how to deal with people we'd
otherwise never know."
"My therapist has helped me learn to understand that if you don't unpack your own emotional
baggage it's no longer baggage--it's deadweight."
"Just because you've become tired of emotion, or outgrown it, doesn't mean it'll be simple to free
yourself from it. It must be dismantled, not ignored."
"Ever notice there are no clocks in stores? It's like casinos; they don't want you to know how
much time you've spent dropping your quarters."
IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE?
Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times
By Gina Barreca
St. Martin’s Press I On-Sale March 29, 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 9781250060747 I $25.99
Ebook ISBN: 9781466866386 I $12.99