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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.

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Zelda Gamson was born in Philadelphia in 1936 to Ukrainian immigrants. When she was little, she said she wanted to go to college to make mud pies. She did just that, going to three colleges (University of Pennsylvania, Antioch College and University of Michigan) for her BA and then Harvard for her Ph.D. She fell in love with universities and thought she really could make mud pies all her life. Little did she know, her way would be blocked because she was a woman, a wife, and a mother. She became an activist and used the skills of an activist to challenge the system of higher education, eventually reaching students and faculty in many colleges and universities in America and other countries. She served as a member of a national commission on undergraduate education and the boards of higher education organizations. After more than 20 years at the University of Michigan, she settled into the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. Her writings include ""Liberating Education,"" ""Black Students on White Campuses,"" ""Academic Values and Mass Education,"" and ""Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education."" Gamson and her husband commuted every week for almost 30 years to their jobs in Boston from Martha's Vineyard. After her retirement, she published popular pieces in the venerable magazine, ""Jewish Currents,"" and led efforts to increase affordable housing. She now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

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