Coming June 4th

BOYMOM

Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity

Blending cultural criticism, memoir, and reporting from the frontlines of contemporary American boyhood, this is a humorous and heartbreaking deep dive into the complexities of raising boys in our fraught political moment.

A captivating work of cultural criticism...fascinating.

-Publishers Weekly, Starred Review of the Day

Available for pre-order:
Boymom - coming June 4th, 2024
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Meet the Author

Ruth Whippman

Ruth Whippman is an author, essayist and cultural critic from London living in the United States.

Her writing appears in the New York Times, Time magazine and The Guardian, amongst other places. Her viral essays, including Enough Leaning In, Now it’s Time for Men to Lean Out, Can we Really Love our Children Unconditionally, Everything is for Sale Now, Even Us, and What We are Not Teaching Boys about Being Human, have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media. She also writes the Substack, I Blame Society.

She is the author of the forthcoming Boymom, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity (June 4th 2024, Harmony, Penguin) and America the Anxious, How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks (St Martin’s/ Macmillan, 2016) UK title: The Pursuit of Happiness (Hutchinson, Penguin.) America the Anxious was a New York Post Best Book of 2016, A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Paperback Row pick, one of Newsweek’s Nine Books to Change the Way You Think in 2016, a Sunday Times top summer read and a Daily Mail Must Read.

Fortune Magazine described Ruth as one of the “sharpest minds” of the decade and selected her work as one of “25 ideas to shape the 2020s.”The Sunday Times described Ruth as a “whip-sharp British Bill Bryson.”

Ruth is a regular contributor to radio and podcasts. She is also a regular speaker and has given talks at Google (part of the Authors at Google series) TEDx, Somerset House in London and UC Berkeley as well as several other venues.

Before becoming a full time writer, Ruth was a producer and director at the BBC in London making documentaries and current affairs shows for BBC television. She lives in California with her husband and three young sons.If you would like to request Ruth to speak at your event, to your book group or anywhere else, or for interview requests, please fill out the contact form on the website.

Ruth Whippman is my new favorite cultural critic

Ruth Whippman is my new favorite cultural critic, and her book was such a joy to read that I temporarily forgot about all my neuroses. It’s a shrewd, hilarious analysis of why a country so obsessed with happiness is so darn unhappy

Adam Grant, #1 NYT bestselling author of Originals, Give and Take and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg.

No one is more eloquent or wickedly funny

Modern anxiety cuts across national borders and social classes, but in America right now…is a blend of soaring media driven dreams and dwindling possibilities of making a living while pursuing them.  And nobody is more eloquent or wickedly funny about this reality than Ruth Whippman, author of America the Anxious.

Jason Gots, Big Think’s Think Again podcast

Ruth Whippman makes every page a pure joy to read

Reading this book is like touring America with a scary-smart friend who can’t stop elbowing you in the ribs and saying, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?!” If you want to understand why our culture incites pure dread and alienation in so many of us (often without always recognizing it), read this book.

Heather Havrilesky, New York magazine’s “Ask Polly” columnist and author of “How to be a Person in the World.”

Ruth Whippman is a rare talent with an even rarer set of skills

Ruth Whippman is a rare talent with an even rarer set of skills, deftly combining forensic academic research, dazzling wit and disarmingly punchy prose that leaps from the page and leaves you wondering how something so clever and so urgent can also be so much fun to read.

Charlotte Philby - author of Part of the Family, A Double Life and Edith and Kim

A captivating work of cultural criticism

A captivating work of cultural criticism… Whippman’s trenchant analysis explains without excusing some of the worst excesses of patriarchy… an urgent call to reassess how boys are raised and socialized.

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review of the Day.

Boymom is a revelation- the book I’ve been waiting for.

Boymom is a revelation- the book I’ve been waiting for. The writing is amazing- so relatable funny and engaging. It’s smart, science-based and full of eye-opening insights that will transform my parenting. This opened my eyes to who boys really are, how they thrive and what we can all do to build a future that is better for everyone.

Melinda Wenner Moyer, author of How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes