"Starting with the figure of a bold, boisterous girl in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with the 'girl power' movement of the 1990s, Tomboys is the first full-length critical study of this gender-bending code of female conduct. Michelle Abate uncovers the origins, charts the trajectory, and traces the literary and cultural transformations that the concept of 'tomboy' has undergone in the United States. Tomboys also explores the gender and sexual dynamics of tomboyism and offers intriguing discussions of race and ethnicity's role in the construction of the enduring cultural archetype"--Jacket.