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Ruth Whippman on Muck Rack

Ruth Whippman

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San Francisco
As seen in: I Blame Society, The New York Times, The New York Times en Español, Daily Mail, HuffPost, The Guardian, The Independent (UK), TIME, Jill Filipovic Newsletter, Momspreading, New York Magazine and
Writer @nytimes etc, author of BOYMOM/ BOYMUM @penguinrandom (US) @quercusbooks (UK )SUBSTACK: I BLAME SOCIETY
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Opinion | Enough Leaning In. Let's Tell Men to Lean Out. (Published 2019)

Opinion | Enough Leaning In. Let's Tell Men to Lean Out. (Published 2019)

The New York Times — The assertiveness movement has taken a male-defined value system and sold it back to us as feminism. By Ms. Whippman is an author and is working on a book about raising boys. If parents were giving their children virtue names today, as the Puritans used to do, nobody would choose Charity or Grace or Patience.
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Opinion | Everything Is for Sale Now. Even Us. (Published 2018)

Opinion | Everything Is for Sale Now. Even Us. (Published 2018)

The New York Times — Opinion The constant pressure to sell ourselves on every possible platform has produced its own brand of modern anxiety. By There is something about the consumer madness of the holiday season that makes me think of my friend Rebecca's mother. When I was in middle school, she had a side hustle selling acrylic-rhinestone bug brooches.
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Opinion | Happiness Is Other People (Published 2017)

Opinion | Happiness Is Other People (Published 2017)

The New York Times — Opinion In a particularly low moment a few years back, after arriving friendless and lonely from Britain to live in the United States, I downloaded a "happiness app" onto my phone. It was surprisingly hard to choose one.
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Opinion | Actually, Let's Not Be in the Moment (Published 2016)

Opinion | Actually, Let's Not Be in the Moment (Published 2016)

The New York Times — Opinion I'm at the kitchen sink, after a long day of work and kids and chores and the emotional exhaustion of a toxic election season, attempting to mindfully focus on congealed SpaghettiOs. My brain flits to the Netflix queue. I manhandle my thoughts back to the leaky orange glob in front of me.
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Guilt Trip

Guilt Trip

New York Times — Guilt will never make the grade as an A-list emotion. No one has ever written a sonnet or a power ballad about how they haven’t called their mother in over a week and their expensive-bought-off-QVC exercise bike is being used to dry their underwear. Yet somehow, this peevish little C-lister of the emotional spectrum manages to punch way above its weight.
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Even the slaughter of six year olds won't alter the twisted logic of the US gun lobby

Even the slaughter of six year olds won't alter the twisted logic of the US gun lobby

Independent — The chilling twist in Newtown, Connecticut was the tiny size of those playing the key roles. Instead of gangly 15-year-olds, the children covering their eyes and scurrying out of their classrooms were six- and seven-year-olds, with backpacks and brightly coloured leggings. Too young to die, commentators lamented, as if somehow after puberty, mass murder isn't quite as tragic. Around once a year, sometimes more often, but rarely less, somewhere in America a shooter opens fire on a room full of high school or college kids. With a routineness that has itself become the principal tragedy, many of these incidents barely even register in the public's imagination.
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How we all started working for free | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

How we all started working for free | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Independent — When I was a student, back in the early nineties, I had a holiday job at the frozen-food supermarket chain, Iceland. One morning, presumably fresh from a leadership course at Frosty HQ, our manager called all the staff together to admonish us for our apparent lack of enthusiasm for the sale of turkey nuggets. "Sometimes I feel that some of you are only in this for the money" she hissed. She was cut off by incredulous laughter. After all, what other motivation could there be for spending one's weekend restocking a giant fridge freezer?
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How the Mail Online turned us into misogyny addicts | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

How the Mail Online turned us into misogyny addicts | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Independent — Mail Online, the more insistent, bitchier spawn of the Daily Mail, is now the most visited newspaper site in the world. Its 45 million or so monthly visitors tune in for its unique mixture of human tragedy: "Pensioner watched in horror as husband choked to death on sample of free ham at Sainsbury's deli counter," and hope: "mollusc mucustouted to beat wrinkles." But neither of these are the real draw. The reason why Mail Online has been so spectacularly successful is because it has perfected a genius formula for peddling misogyny, a formula as addictive as crack.
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'Having it all' is not a women's issue

'Having it all' is not a women's issue

Independent — "Will you keep on working after the baby is born?" "Will you be going part time?" "Do your earnings cover the childcare?" and "you must feel guilty being away from your son so much?" (this last in the shady coercion zone between question and instruction.) The concurrently magical and mind-numbing task of shepherding a child from infancy to adulthood without significant emotional harm, and with a clean PE kit, usually involves, at least to some extent, two parents. Yet the public mud-slinging and private soul-searching that surround the act of balancing of work and family is almost exclusively seen as a 'women's issue.'
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Ann Romney is the real Republican threat to women

Ann Romney is the real Republican threat to women

Independent — The idea was clearly that the warm and likeable mother of five would rescue her spouse from a level of unpopularity with women rivalled only by a teenage boy who has yet to form a meaningful relationship with deodorant. Somehow, in her six months of turbo-charged cheerleading on her husband's behalf, she has pulled it off, with the latest polls showing that the two candidates are now neck and neck with female voters. President Obama's staggering 18 point lead amongst women of a month ago has now vanished into thin air. Obviously Ann can't take all the credit for this.
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Moral judgements have no place in the benefits system | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Moral judgements have no place in the benefits system | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Independent — If there's one thing that David Cameron is clear about, it's that he wants us all to do the 'Right Thing,' a phrase that popped up no less than seven times in his deeply moralising speech about the benefits system earlier this week. In order to help us identify the exact nature of this elusive moral mcguffin, he issued us with a detailed inventory of Wrong Things, a lengthy laundry list of the feckless. Straying from the state-approved path of righteousness now includes: moving out of one's parents' house before one's thirties; having more than two children, becoming a single parent; experiencing back pain whilst failing to procure physiotherapy, and worst of all, enjoying a general feeling of 'entitlement.'
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As long as the Catholic Church pushes homophobia, it shouldn't be allowed to run state schools | ...

As long as the Catholic Church pushes homophobia, it shouldn't be allowed to run state schools | ...

Independent — You have to hand it to the Catholic Church. It takes a certain level of chutzpah to come through arguably the most widespread global paedophile scandal in human history and its subsequent alleged cover-up, and still be dishing out moral guidance on 'disordered sexual practices.' A few days ago, it was revealed that the Catholic Education Service, the body responsible for all state-funded Catholic schools in England and Wales, had sent a letter to all of the schools in their network urging them to encourage their pupils to sign a petition against gay marriage.
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Want Your Kids to Grow Up Thinking Men Are More Important Than Women? Read Them Children's Books

Want Your Kids to Grow Up Thinking Men Are More Important Than Women? Read Them Children's Books

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk — It's amazing how much routine sexism we regularly feed our kids via their reading material. Strange as it may seem, research suggests that a female has a greater chance of securing a seat on the board of a Fortune 500 company, in congress or in the senate than she does of appearing as a main character in a children's book. When they do appear, if they're not carrying wands or broomsticks, or attempting to marry unelected future heads of state, female characters are usually sidekicks or help-mates. Take Roger Hargreaves' Mr Men books, childhood favourites of mine.
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America the Anxious

America the Anxious

New York Times — As soon as an American baby is born, its parents enter into an implicit contractual obligation to answer any question about their hopes for their tiny offspring’s future with the words: “I don’t care, as long as he’s happy” (the mental suffix “at Harvard” must remain unspoken).
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How Corporate America Is Turning Into a Cult and Why It's Harming the American Employee

How Corporate America Is Turning Into a Cult and Why It's Harming the American Employee

Huffington Post — I used to work for a large organization. One afternoon, all the staff in my department were herded into a giant conference room, and informed that due to budget cuts within the year over half of us present would lose our jobs. Fresh from a leadership course at the University of Corporate Doublethink, our bushy-tailed manager "reframed" the concept for us. "Don't see this as a negative" he advised. "We like to see this as us empowering you to take on new opportunities."
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