About Lisa Selin Davis
I write articles, essays, and books.
I teach personal essay writing, in classes and individually.
I give talks on gender, marketing, stereotypes, and identity for parents, educators, and industry.
I do manuscript consultations and book proposal and writing coaching.
Shoot me an email if you want to talk work, or you’d like me to visit college class, bookstore, conference or other event.
Bookclubs, I welcome you! Click here.
After growing up in various northeastern and southwestern college towns, I moved to New York City when I was 21 and had no idea what to do with my degree in experimental feminist video (good thing I went to college for free).
My brother offered me a room in his East Village hovel, and my first career was in film/TV (here are some props I made when I worked at Blue’s Clues), but I was always obsessed with the relationship between the built environment and emotional experience: I wanted to know how architecture could help form community. So I enrolled first in a Ph.D. program in environmental psychology. Then, fearing that I’d get another degree like the one in experimental feminist video, I transferred to a masters in urban planning program.
Then one night my brother sat me down on his roof and said, “If you want to be a writer, why are you going to urban planning school?” So I became a writer, now of two novels and about 600 essays and articles about film and travel and the environment and real estate and parenting, for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Yahoo, and many other publications. My first non-fiction book, TOMBOY: The Surprising History and Future of Girls* Who Dare to Be Different, is out now.
Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different
We are in the middle of a cultural revolution, where the spectrum of gender and sexual identities is seemingly unlimited. So when author and journalist Lisa Selin Davis’s six-year-old daughter first called herself a “tomboy,” Davis was hesitant. Her child favored sweatpants and T-shirts over anything pink or princess-themed, just like the sporty, skinned-kneed girls Davis had played with as a kid. But “tomboy” seemed like an outdated word-why use a word with “boy” in it for such girls at all?
So was it outdated? In an era where some are throwing elaborate gender reveal parties and others are embracing they/them pronouns, Davis set out to answer that question, and to find out where tomboys fit into our changing understandings of gender.
In Tomboy, Davis explores the evolution of tomboyism from a Victorian ideal to a twentyfirst century fashion statement, honoring the girls and women-and those who identify otherwise- who stomp all over archaic gender norms. She highlights the forces that have shifted what we think of as masculine and feminine, delving into everything from clothing to psychology, history to neuroscience, and the connection between tomboyism, gender identity, and sexuality. Above all else, Davis’s comprehensive deep-dive inspires us to better appreciate those who defy traditional gender boundaries, and the incredible people they become.
Whether you’re a grown-up tomboy or raising a gender-rebel of your own, Tomboy is the perfect companion for navigating our cultural shift. It is a celebration of both diversity and those who dare to be different, ultimately revealing how gender nonconformity is a gift.
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