I wrote about BOYMOM earlier this week in the 'What Are You Reading' thread, and to reiterate/expand: I'm so glad it exists. I'm a feminist who works at an independent progressive bookstore, if that helps paint you a picture, and I'm a soon-to-be first-time mom.
When I found out I was having a boy, I felt devastated. While the whole idea of parenthood was daunting, I felt reasonably equipped to raise a girl to be strong and confident, to advocate for and believe in herself, to hopefully leave the world a better place than she found it, but I felt like raising a boy to, well, not cause harm was a) the best I could hope for and b) a far more daunting task. Among my close girlfriends, I'm one of the first to have a boy - before this year, my friend group included a whopping 13 little girls and no boys - so I didn't know where to go to start processing these feelings, the extent to which stereotypes and (well-earned) fear of men had clearly wormed their way into my head and heart. Many of the resources I found struck me as artificially, almost freakishly positive towards boys (icky "boy mom" culture, horrifying mens' rights activists) - or, on the other hand, basically validated my sadness and fear. (This recent article on the rise in sex-based IVF blew my mind: https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/ivf-daughters-toxic-masculinity-sex-selection.html)
BOYMOM is the book that, out of deep frustration, I'd started to consider writing myself - and I'm grateful Ruth Whippman got there first (not only does she have far more lived experience and a journalism background, she's a delightfully vivid writer!). It's slow going for me because there's so much processing to be done, and frankly it hasn't always been enjoyable - and it's sometimes even struck me as traitorous or threatening.
As one example, as a woman who was SA'd by a man I believed to be a close friend in college (this is officially the most personal comment I've ever put on the Internet; please be kind!), I believe in my bones that the Obama-era protections for accusers and preponderance standards are a necessary, good change - AND, at the same time, after reading some of the stories in Chapter 7, couldn't argue with this perspective: "How did we get to the point where [due passage] was a right-wing cause? However tempting it is to correct the narrative en masse for the horrifying history of violence and gaslighting women have endured, since when did it become a progressive position to argue that anyone - no matter how white or male or privileged - should not receive due process, a fair hearing?" It's also horrifying to consider the extent to which, when the decision about whose version of the story is more valid is based on credibility, racism enters the chat.
I could go on and on, but for anyone who's made it through this ramble of a comment, I'll close by saying thank you to Ruth for bringing this book into the world - I don't know that I'll agree with all her conclusions, but I'm grateful for the chance to expand my brain. BOYMOM is bursting with powerful perspectives and facts I wouldn't have considered unless forced to (I doubt I would have picked up this book if I was having a girl, and that would be my loss), and I'm not not kidding when I say it will be required reading for the people in my baby's life.
Thank you so much Christina for this truly generous comment and read on Boymom. Your conflicted feelings are so familiar to me and to so many moms I’ve talked to. It was a constant back and forth while writing the book to work out how to talk about boys and men without detracting from or disrupting the work we are doing to advocate for girls and women or to undermine that narrative . Ultimately I believe that we are all on the same side - this system harms all of us and that fighting the patriarchy will make a better safer world for people of all genders.
Part of what I'm struggling with is that I'd like to see this book written by a man-- by a dad deeply investigating his own gendered socialization and what that means and what he wants for his sons. It's exhausting that women are responsible for our own liberation AND men's, and allllll of the parenting. Even if men are taking on more of the actual care tasks, women still tend to be the ones responsible for figuring out the parenting philosophies, the ones agonizing about raising boys differently. Where are the men agonizing about this? Doing their own deep self-interrogative and relational work to shepherd gender development for their kids and changing patriarchy as we know it? I absolutely agree that patriarchy damages men and boys, but I want to see more men leading the charge to actually change the structures of power and oppression.
Yes, I had the same thought. Especially while I read this: "...but if we want to get boys and men onside to the feminist cause, we need to acknowledge their pain too."
I'm sorry, but why is that the job of women/feminists? Men should get on board because it's the right thing to do. Yes, the patriarchy hurts [cis]* men, too - but even if they only benefitted from it, shouldn't they care about other people's liberation? I don't not care about biphobia just because it doesn't harm me, specifically.
*This whole interview was very cis-centered, with no consideration of, for example, trans kids of any gender.
I think what so often gets lost in these conversations is men's fear of losing their dominance. That is a huge part of the "crisis."
I'm a feminist, gender-studies-scholar mother of two young-adult, temperamentally sensitive (or maybe it's that my husband and I allowed them to be), outwardly fairly conventionally gendered, sons. My sons grew up in one of the most progressive communities in the country, with an emotionally attuned dad, and both of us worked to honor their emotional lives and recognize the challenges of growing up male and happy in this patriarchal world. I realized early on that, in certain ways, their female peers had more freedom--to be clear, I mean in our progressive culture--to express gender in diverse ways. The boys' gender expression and emotional range at school and elsewhere felt MORE disciplined--but it had to do with the ways patriarchy, not feminism, constrained them.
Patriarchy is still hard for them to negotiate now, at college and in the work world. Yes, in middle school and high school they encountered some feminist teachers who communicated that they and their male peers should automatically feel shame and shut up in class discussion. They also encountered one "progressive" male teacher who espoused ridiculous Robert-Bly type (still patriarchal) masculinity. I would say the most harmful stuff has been the toxic, vacuous male-dominant social media stuff, and media in general, and the struggles of living in the mainstream world while maintaining their spiritual and emotional integrity.
I use the word "spiritual" intentionally, even though we're not religious, as I think so much of this is a spiritual question--in the sense of human wholeness, integrity, our feeling attuned to a sense of purpose, community, something larger. We all need that and--at the risk of the "what about men?" trap--I think men ARE in crisis spiritually and are lacking genuine, supportive ideology and community. But it's because of gender norms and patriarchy, again, their fear of losing their dominance. They still have far more political, social, physical, economic power. Maintaining their dominant social power is not the answer, obviously, nor is the gender essentializing of boymom and girlmom tropes. (Not saying that this is the point of the book! I have yet to read it.)
thanks so much for this thoughtful comment- So much of this chimes with my experience writing and researching the book (the limiting nature of gender expression for boys and the harms of patriarchy and masculniity norms in terms of their emotional lives and freedom to express themselves. And yes absolutely it is not feminism which is the problem but the system that feminism is fighting against - patriarchy- this is why I argue that the cause of boys is absolutely part of the feminist project and not antithetical to it. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
I won’t be reading this book because of the persistent both-sidesing exemplified by her response to the question about bad faith reads. I realize the question potentially invited the response but the message was fully on display in her recent NYT op ed. My charitable read of this is that she’s extending her definition of boyhood beyond where I, especially as the parent of a second-grader, intuitively understand boyhood to end and young adulthood to begin, and maybe I’m missing something happening in the discourse about that transitional moment in life.
But I have to say, I’m a pretty damn online feminist as well as a member of a progressive parenting Facebook group and I just don’t see what she’s claiming — without offering evidence — is widespread. Everyone I know or read is clear that patriarchy harms boys and we need to protect them from that.
Maybe the evidence of this widespread feminist condemnation of trying to raise boys to be emotionally engaged and non-toxic is in the book but if so I wish a hint of it would have turned up in the publicity tour.
Hi Laura, thanks for commenting and this perspective. This is Ruth - the author of Boymom. I understand your concern about both sides ism and share it- as I say in the NYT piece and explore further in the book the ways that boys are shut down from the left and the right are not morally equivalent of course. To your last point- I think this is an (understandable) misread- feminists are of course supportive of raising boys to be emotionally engaged and non toxic and there are so many feminists doing great work in this field. I think the problems coming from the left are of a slightly different nature. And yes, I think you are right that this is a phenomenon that mostly shows up with teens/ college aged kids. I do explore it in more detail in the book (both the actual 'evidence' of this happening as well as boys' own perspectives and experiences.) I hope you will consider reading - I"m also going to be hosting some discussions on my Substack soon about how these issues which are truly nuanced and complex (as you know) - about how we can advocate for boys without minimizing the very real harms that girls and women still face, and without engaging in 'both sides-ism" and would love for you to join and share your perspective if you were willing. Also happy to engage more direcly if you want to get in touch. This stuff is hugely important and we need to get it right.
I think your charitable read is correct here- the book certainly puts adolescent boys and young men under the big umbrella of "boyhood." But I think your take about the apparent "widespread feminist condemnation of trying to raise boys to be emotionally engaged and non-toxic" is perhaps a bit of a misread- I think what Whippman is saying is not that progressive feminists reject that idea at all, but that a lot of the cis straight boys she spoke with had some real anxiety about taking up space or time from women or queer folk- and that there is a very real streak of feeling that men have talked too much/ been centered for too long on the left (which, yes, they have!). But for a young man of 19 that can feel like a pretty confusing experience, maybe.
Laura, I'm totally with you! The both sidesing of these deeply important and personal issues without evidence makes me question how helpful this book will be to me as the mom of a son and someone invested in surfacing how the patriarchy harms men and boys. In this interview, I was also struck by how the author notes that people often co-opt sex research for their own agendas, and then she did the exact same thing.
Hmm, this is a tough comment to respond to. Not because its argument is powerful, but because it's so clearly intended to be as nasty and condescending as you think you can get away with in this venue, which poses a challenge. As it happens I'm very good at being mean in writing myself, but that's not anything I ever want to do here, out of respect for AHP and the community she's worked so hard to build. So I'll just say I note the effort to get me to respond in kind and that the fact that I don't do so is not about you or anything you wrote.
It's also not a terribly creative effort. There are a lot of things I don't agree with and I don't have time to read them all. None of us do. Deciding not to read any given thing we disagree with is not some statement that we're scared of what we might learn.
As it happens I've also been trying to be reasonably kind about the problems I see with the promotion of this book, so I'll just say that the ways I disagree with the argument as advanced here and in other places like the New York Times opinion page aren't very interesting. It doesn't feel like a difficult and thorny problem that I have to grapple with. It feels like a claim is being advanced that is not accurate based on what I know (actually a decent amount on this subject) and for which no real evidence is being offered. I'm open to seeing such evidence, but why would I buy and read an entire book on the basis of "maybe she'll offer evidence for what otherwise appears to be the kind of political claim you make to get onto the Times opinion page because it so exactly mirrors the entire editorial stance of the Times"?
I think we might be more aligned on this than you suspect- I draw on the Equimundo research in Boymom and it very much echoes my own conclusions from my research/ interviews with boys and experts etc about the roots of male loneliness/ our failure to provide boys with an adequate relational education etc. (this is in no way a plea for you to read/ buy the book if it doesn't appeal of course- just for clarification.
As the mom of a son, I've read a lot of the buzz about this book, and what really turns me off is the way the author seems to engage in empathy toward boys *at the expense of girls* in the way she's claiming feminists do toward men and boys. One example is calling the way sexual assault is adjudicated on college campuses a miscarriage of justice in the direction of young men being accused. The National Sexual Assault Resource Center suggests over 60% of rapes (the vast majority of which are of women by men) go unreported. So, the Title IX process clearly isn't working nor is the larger criminal justice system for women even more so than some men are being falsely accused (and statistics from NSARC suggest that happens in 10 percent or fewer cases). I'm unsure whether or not I will read this book because in the media so far, I haven't seen the author acknowledge the vast privileges men still enjoy (being paid more is another example) nor how race intersects with these issues of gender. Perhaps the book does, and I would like that a great deal because I do agree that the patriarchy fails men, too, and I think a lot about how to parent to counteract that.
This has long been part of my struggle with the cluster of books/writing that has emerged over the last few years re: 'how do we deal with boys.' Like, they still have it so good! White cis-gender boys in particular have all the privileges and power! Last year I wrote about one of these books and the way it conceived of boy's/men's lack of "ambition" (https://annehelen.substack.com/p/why-are-white-men-so-unambitious) and I found myself returning to a lot of that thinking while reading this book — what it means to be harmed by a structure and still benefit wildly from it. I'm still trying to figure out how to think about this, tbh, and I think a lot of us are too.
This is mostly where I am. I appreciated that piece because I thought (and still think!) Reeves was getting a pass with some pretty weird data interpretation without doing much to acknowledge the privilege many men, especially white, straight, cis-gendered men, still enjoy. I think a lot of this discourse gets pretty mixed up because it often ends up on moms to figure out how to undo the damage of patriarchy when that seems like it should also be a pretty big lift for dads and other men in boys' lives!
Thanks so much for these perspectives. Obviously I've had to really wrestle with these questions while writing and researching the book. Male privilege is very real, but I believe that privilege and harm for boys intertwine in quite complex ways in male socialization- under patriarchy men and boys gain in terms of power/ economic status etc and lose in terms of connection, emotionality and intimacy. Both are very real, and I believe there is room to recognize both of these.
Hi Maggie- this is Ruth, the author. Thanks so much for this perspective. I'm really glad you raised it because it's absolutely the last thing I want to do- ie to center boys' experiences at the expense of girls' and women's. It's something that I really wrestle with in the book- because clearly sexual violence against women has been underreported/ underrecognized for so long and women have been gaslighted/ ignored on this point. I think something very specific has happened in the Title IX process which is a combination of culture shift and bureaucratic inadequacy and it's complicated. I hope you will read that chapter it as it's incredibly thorny and in the weeds- and hard to do justice to in one answer to an interview question- . It's also something that intersects heavily with race, and the people most affected are boys of color and especially Black boys. I believe that tackling this issue is important to gaining justice for everyone. I'm going to be hosting some discussions about this over at my Substack soon and I'd love you to join if you were willing- I think it's so important to share all perspectives and talk about all sides of this openly.
Thanks for the response! I recently published a controversial book and got lots of pushback here about it, so I recognize the courage it takes to bring your ideas to a larger stage. I hope you do grapple with these issues publicly soon as I haven't seen that yet at all in any of the media around this book. Does your book also discuss the large body of research suggesting that there is not strong evidence of cognitive differences between boys and girls? (ex: https://www.harvardlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/spelke2005-1.pdf) I did check out your Substack, but I was really surprised at the shark experience post. Why not just ask that your son be included in the mermaid experience? I think we might just be coming at parenting boys differently. My experience and the experience of many of my parent friends thus far has been that the culture really rewards boys for being sensitive and vulnerable in a way that it does not reward girls.
Yes absolutely agree on the cognitive differences- I discuss this in the book- the main so called "hardwired" differences showing up in the literature (although that phrase is also misleading) are more to do with right brain development (emotional self regulation) rather than cogntiive skills. You're right- I should have asked for him to be included in the mermaid experience but at that point I had lost patience with the whole thing and didn't want to give them the money! Interesting about the reward thing- the boys that I interviewed (teenagers and up) absolutely felt it was impossible for them to be emotionally open and vulnerable- and were really struggling wtih it, whereas girls generally found this easy. (obviously not all girls/ boys etc but culturally the difference was pretty significant.)
AHP, please delete if not allowed: if anyone wants to join me in a virtual Culture Study book club (with a hopeful Zoom chat with Ruth!), fill out this Google form: https://forms.gle/qYTRRcWYJ7F69sKW9
I’d love to join this and truly welcome all perspectives/ debate / discussion on these issues- the conversations are so important and nuanced and we need to hear all sides to get this right
Ruth when I saw this book I snapped it up right awayyyy - I can’t wait to read. As a mom of two boys, 8 and 4 (and a precocious girl between them), I’m starting to bump up against these fallacies and find myself at a loss sometimes. How do I raise non-assholes in a world where women are shown time and time again to be second class citizens?!
It’s so tough! I can’t wait to read the book. But we talk explicitly about a lot of these issues. One of my kids rolls his eyes, but I think just by being along on this journey together and talking about assumptions and our different experiences of them, maybe it gives them a vocabulary? Housework being a prime example of a rich topic with lots of assumptions….
Can't wait to read this book (mother of two almost-man children, 20 & 23). When they were little, and I was full of my Judith-Butler-gender-is-a-construct, I was regularly distraught by clear indications that their toddler physicality was NOT a construct. And then, also regularly, when I'm teaching college students & we start talking about gender, when I say "men also have gender roles & expectations," their collective jaws drop. Because if the default is masculine then that's not a "role" that...normal?? Or so their thinking goes (I think).
I have teen daughters and a son. The girls thrived during Covid. They created their own pods, supported one another and found a way to adapt. They each went to therapy and participated in different flavors of “girl power” type groups.
Our son had the opposite experience. He was isolated with little support and regressed. He’s 17 now but with the maturity of a 14 year old. It’s like time stopped for him.
After decades of being hyper-focused on how women are underserved & unsupported, it was the first time I’ve seen the opposite up close. And the fall out for boys in particular during the pandemic is something I think we’ll see for decades to come,
Can’t wait to read this complex take on boys. Also highly recommend the documentary, “The Mask We Live In,” a wonderfully nuanced view of the way society shapes expectations for boys. We watched with three generations of males and there was not a dry eye in the house.
This was a fascinating discussion. My two kids are both grown so we are a little beyond some of the nitty-gritty issues raised in this discussion, but I suppose we have grandchildren on the horizon somewhere and we certainly have kids in our neighborhood.
What I find of greatest interest is the way that people nowadays seem so incredibly into the business of branding and essentiallizing. I always thought of myself simply as a parent. Is this a largely online phenomenon or do people really believe this stuff?
It seems like a generational thing. My daughter (GenX) doesn't do the branding, but the step-daughters (Millennials) use all the hashtags. The grown grandchild (Gen Z) denies branding of any type and rejects all labels.
What a great interview!! Thanks for introducing me to Ruth’s work.
I’m also a feminist mom of three sons, and both hate and relate to the #boymom trope. Two are now adults, the youngest turns 18 next year. I have been the breadwinner for our family, and my husband the at-home parent with flexible work and the ability to volunteer; we’re both cis hetero folks, but we don’t follow conventional gender norms, so our kids have had a kind of “non-standard” and also very standard family life. I can’t wait to read the book, for so many reasons.
I didn’t expect parenting to be as revealing about gendered assumptions and the nature of human nature as it has been, but it turns out to be an interesting throughline (for me, anyhow). All three of our kids are in so many ways consistent with the selves they first revealed as little kids, and they are three very different people. How do gender norms factor in? Differently for each of them, as it turns out. But the story is still developing! Anyhow, happy to see discussion about this topic and appreciate it happening here.
Not really the point, but the section about Ruth's sons' autism diagnoses and un-diagnoses stood out to me; there's a sense of relief in having found out, "Oops, they're not really autistic after all!" - I mean, I sense that Ruth was relieved that they're "only" ADHD and I just want to interrogate that a little.
If the initial online assessments had come back without a diagnosis, would you have still pursued a follow-up/second opinion in person?
Why is it important to you to hold that diagnosis "lightly"? Would you hold any other diagnosis, such as a connective tissue disorder (also a clinical diagnosis with no genetic test; ask me how I know), so "lightly"? Why or why not?
What would it mean to help your sons find identity and community in other autistic people and autistic self-advocacy groups?
I actually really related to the bit on neurodiversity. We were grateful for our kid’s autism diagnosis - it freed them and our family to have some very empowering and enlightening conversations. It lifted a burden.
On the other hand, as a teacher and someone with ADHD, I feel like the reason that my own diagnosis was necessary was largely because schools aren’t designed for kids’ brains and bodies, full stop. If school didn’t kind of suck, my brain would still have very limited short term memory but my body could compensate the way it wants to.
So I do understand the sense of “take what helps you, but maybe don’t make this your whole personality.” My understanding of my disabilities and gifts has shifted over time, and I want that freedom for my kids.
@Meep Happy to follow on all this with you privately if it would be helpful- a little concerned about having the whole discussion on a public forum- it’s pretty nuanced and the way it’s presented comes after discussions with the boys about how they wanted this framed - feel free to get in touch if this conversation would be helpful to you in any way.
I’m suffering from an acute case of WHY ARE ALL THE SUMMER DRESSES SO EXPENSIVE and was bummed to see the article jumped from $48 to $255. Where’s the analysis of Gap and JCrew and Anthro and Boden (who carries so many summer dresses it’s almost impossible to decide)?!
I am downloading this book immediately because these thoughts and questions have been hugely impacting my life as a single now 74 year old. I am sure every woman on the planet feels similarly or has been lying to herself.
It is a very engaging, well written and intellectually stimulating book.
Not being a mother myself - or even married for that matter, gives me a unique perspective.
Given that I am also not a "man-hater" nor a man avoiding Lesbian, but more asexual, I have worked alongside men in Healthcare Information Technology and also as a Performing Classical Violinist. I have taught hundreds of children and adults to play the violin.
I know all about the male rapist/incel/toxic problems.
I think the main cause of the toxic problems in boys to men is the current rise of Fascism and
Trump. I wonder if Nazi Germany saw the same things.
Thank you for this. As a woman who spent her childhood in a matriarchy and is now the mother of a boy, I'm regularly confronted by a lot of what she describes. Look forward to digging in to her book later this summer.
I wrote about BOYMOM earlier this week in the 'What Are You Reading' thread, and to reiterate/expand: I'm so glad it exists. I'm a feminist who works at an independent progressive bookstore, if that helps paint you a picture, and I'm a soon-to-be first-time mom.
When I found out I was having a boy, I felt devastated. While the whole idea of parenthood was daunting, I felt reasonably equipped to raise a girl to be strong and confident, to advocate for and believe in herself, to hopefully leave the world a better place than she found it, but I felt like raising a boy to, well, not cause harm was a) the best I could hope for and b) a far more daunting task. Among my close girlfriends, I'm one of the first to have a boy - before this year, my friend group included a whopping 13 little girls and no boys - so I didn't know where to go to start processing these feelings, the extent to which stereotypes and (well-earned) fear of men had clearly wormed their way into my head and heart. Many of the resources I found struck me as artificially, almost freakishly positive towards boys (icky "boy mom" culture, horrifying mens' rights activists) - or, on the other hand, basically validated my sadness and fear. (This recent article on the rise in sex-based IVF blew my mind: https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/ivf-daughters-toxic-masculinity-sex-selection.html)
BOYMOM is the book that, out of deep frustration, I'd started to consider writing myself - and I'm grateful Ruth Whippman got there first (not only does she have far more lived experience and a journalism background, she's a delightfully vivid writer!). It's slow going for me because there's so much processing to be done, and frankly it hasn't always been enjoyable - and it's sometimes even struck me as traitorous or threatening.
As one example, as a woman who was SA'd by a man I believed to be a close friend in college (this is officially the most personal comment I've ever put on the Internet; please be kind!), I believe in my bones that the Obama-era protections for accusers and preponderance standards are a necessary, good change - AND, at the same time, after reading some of the stories in Chapter 7, couldn't argue with this perspective: "How did we get to the point where [due passage] was a right-wing cause? However tempting it is to correct the narrative en masse for the horrifying history of violence and gaslighting women have endured, since when did it become a progressive position to argue that anyone - no matter how white or male or privileged - should not receive due process, a fair hearing?" It's also horrifying to consider the extent to which, when the decision about whose version of the story is more valid is based on credibility, racism enters the chat.
I could go on and on, but for anyone who's made it through this ramble of a comment, I'll close by saying thank you to Ruth for bringing this book into the world - I don't know that I'll agree with all her conclusions, but I'm grateful for the chance to expand my brain. BOYMOM is bursting with powerful perspectives and facts I wouldn't have considered unless forced to (I doubt I would have picked up this book if I was having a girl, and that would be my loss), and I'm not not kidding when I say it will be required reading for the people in my baby's life.
Thank you so much Christina for this truly generous comment and read on Boymom. Your conflicted feelings are so familiar to me and to so many moms I’ve talked to. It was a constant back and forth while writing the book to work out how to talk about boys and men without detracting from or disrupting the work we are doing to advocate for girls and women or to undermine that narrative . Ultimately I believe that we are all on the same side - this system harms all of us and that fighting the patriarchy will make a better safer world for people of all genders.
Part of what I'm struggling with is that I'd like to see this book written by a man-- by a dad deeply investigating his own gendered socialization and what that means and what he wants for his sons. It's exhausting that women are responsible for our own liberation AND men's, and allllll of the parenting. Even if men are taking on more of the actual care tasks, women still tend to be the ones responsible for figuring out the parenting philosophies, the ones agonizing about raising boys differently. Where are the men agonizing about this? Doing their own deep self-interrogative and relational work to shepherd gender development for their kids and changing patriarchy as we know it? I absolutely agree that patriarchy damages men and boys, but I want to see more men leading the charge to actually change the structures of power and oppression.
Yes, I had the same thought. Especially while I read this: "...but if we want to get boys and men onside to the feminist cause, we need to acknowledge their pain too."
I'm sorry, but why is that the job of women/feminists? Men should get on board because it's the right thing to do. Yes, the patriarchy hurts [cis]* men, too - but even if they only benefitted from it, shouldn't they care about other people's liberation? I don't not care about biphobia just because it doesn't harm me, specifically.
*This whole interview was very cis-centered, with no consideration of, for example, trans kids of any gender.
I would love to see that too!
I think what so often gets lost in these conversations is men's fear of losing their dominance. That is a huge part of the "crisis."
I'm a feminist, gender-studies-scholar mother of two young-adult, temperamentally sensitive (or maybe it's that my husband and I allowed them to be), outwardly fairly conventionally gendered, sons. My sons grew up in one of the most progressive communities in the country, with an emotionally attuned dad, and both of us worked to honor their emotional lives and recognize the challenges of growing up male and happy in this patriarchal world. I realized early on that, in certain ways, their female peers had more freedom--to be clear, I mean in our progressive culture--to express gender in diverse ways. The boys' gender expression and emotional range at school and elsewhere felt MORE disciplined--but it had to do with the ways patriarchy, not feminism, constrained them.
Patriarchy is still hard for them to negotiate now, at college and in the work world. Yes, in middle school and high school they encountered some feminist teachers who communicated that they and their male peers should automatically feel shame and shut up in class discussion. They also encountered one "progressive" male teacher who espoused ridiculous Robert-Bly type (still patriarchal) masculinity. I would say the most harmful stuff has been the toxic, vacuous male-dominant social media stuff, and media in general, and the struggles of living in the mainstream world while maintaining their spiritual and emotional integrity.
I use the word "spiritual" intentionally, even though we're not religious, as I think so much of this is a spiritual question--in the sense of human wholeness, integrity, our feeling attuned to a sense of purpose, community, something larger. We all need that and--at the risk of the "what about men?" trap--I think men ARE in crisis spiritually and are lacking genuine, supportive ideology and community. But it's because of gender norms and patriarchy, again, their fear of losing their dominance. They still have far more political, social, physical, economic power. Maintaining their dominant social power is not the answer, obviously, nor is the gender essentializing of boymom and girlmom tropes. (Not saying that this is the point of the book! I have yet to read it.)
thanks so much for this thoughtful comment- So much of this chimes with my experience writing and researching the book (the limiting nature of gender expression for boys and the harms of patriarchy and masculniity norms in terms of their emotional lives and freedom to express themselves. And yes absolutely it is not feminism which is the problem but the system that feminism is fighting against - patriarchy- this is why I argue that the cause of boys is absolutely part of the feminist project and not antithetical to it. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
Thanks for your response, Ruth! Very much looking forward to reading the book.
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it!
I won’t be reading this book because of the persistent both-sidesing exemplified by her response to the question about bad faith reads. I realize the question potentially invited the response but the message was fully on display in her recent NYT op ed. My charitable read of this is that she’s extending her definition of boyhood beyond where I, especially as the parent of a second-grader, intuitively understand boyhood to end and young adulthood to begin, and maybe I’m missing something happening in the discourse about that transitional moment in life.
But I have to say, I’m a pretty damn online feminist as well as a member of a progressive parenting Facebook group and I just don’t see what she’s claiming — without offering evidence — is widespread. Everyone I know or read is clear that patriarchy harms boys and we need to protect them from that.
Maybe the evidence of this widespread feminist condemnation of trying to raise boys to be emotionally engaged and non-toxic is in the book but if so I wish a hint of it would have turned up in the publicity tour.
Hi Laura, thanks for commenting and this perspective. This is Ruth - the author of Boymom. I understand your concern about both sides ism and share it- as I say in the NYT piece and explore further in the book the ways that boys are shut down from the left and the right are not morally equivalent of course. To your last point- I think this is an (understandable) misread- feminists are of course supportive of raising boys to be emotionally engaged and non toxic and there are so many feminists doing great work in this field. I think the problems coming from the left are of a slightly different nature. And yes, I think you are right that this is a phenomenon that mostly shows up with teens/ college aged kids. I do explore it in more detail in the book (both the actual 'evidence' of this happening as well as boys' own perspectives and experiences.) I hope you will consider reading - I"m also going to be hosting some discussions on my Substack soon about how these issues which are truly nuanced and complex (as you know) - about how we can advocate for boys without minimizing the very real harms that girls and women still face, and without engaging in 'both sides-ism" and would love for you to join and share your perspective if you were willing. Also happy to engage more direcly if you want to get in touch. This stuff is hugely important and we need to get it right.
I think your charitable read is correct here- the book certainly puts adolescent boys and young men under the big umbrella of "boyhood." But I think your take about the apparent "widespread feminist condemnation of trying to raise boys to be emotionally engaged and non-toxic" is perhaps a bit of a misread- I think what Whippman is saying is not that progressive feminists reject that idea at all, but that a lot of the cis straight boys she spoke with had some real anxiety about taking up space or time from women or queer folk- and that there is a very real streak of feeling that men have talked too much/ been centered for too long on the left (which, yes, they have!). But for a young man of 19 that can feel like a pretty confusing experience, maybe.
That’s a reading of her “I have been seen as betraying feminism by doing this work” language a little more generous than I find I am able to be.
Laura, I'm totally with you! The both sidesing of these deeply important and personal issues without evidence makes me question how helpful this book will be to me as the mom of a son and someone invested in surfacing how the patriarchy harms men and boys. In this interview, I was also struck by how the author notes that people often co-opt sex research for their own agendas, and then she did the exact same thing.
I’m curious, are you saying that you prefer to read single sided takes? I can’t understand how ignorance would be a positive, so I had to check.
But if that’s so, it would explain why you can’t see the harm. If I was so invested in one perspective it would be difficult to notice its faults.
Hmm, this is a tough comment to respond to. Not because its argument is powerful, but because it's so clearly intended to be as nasty and condescending as you think you can get away with in this venue, which poses a challenge. As it happens I'm very good at being mean in writing myself, but that's not anything I ever want to do here, out of respect for AHP and the community she's worked so hard to build. So I'll just say I note the effort to get me to respond in kind and that the fact that I don't do so is not about you or anything you wrote.
It's also not a terribly creative effort. There are a lot of things I don't agree with and I don't have time to read them all. None of us do. Deciding not to read any given thing we disagree with is not some statement that we're scared of what we might learn.
As it happens I've also been trying to be reasonably kind about the problems I see with the promotion of this book, so I'll just say that the ways I disagree with the argument as advanced here and in other places like the New York Times opinion page aren't very interesting. It doesn't feel like a difficult and thorny problem that I have to grapple with. It feels like a claim is being advanced that is not accurate based on what I know (actually a decent amount on this subject) and for which no real evidence is being offered. I'm open to seeing such evidence, but why would I buy and read an entire book on the basis of "maybe she'll offer evidence for what otherwise appears to be the kind of political claim you make to get onto the Times opinion page because it so exactly mirrors the entire editorial stance of the Times"?
Anyway, for what it's worth, I would recommend reading this: https://www.equimundo.org/resources/the-state-of-americas-boys-an-urgent-case-for-a-more-connected-boyhood/
Hi Laura,
I think we might be more aligned on this than you suspect- I draw on the Equimundo research in Boymom and it very much echoes my own conclusions from my research/ interviews with boys and experts etc about the roots of male loneliness/ our failure to provide boys with an adequate relational education etc. (this is in no way a plea for you to read/ buy the book if it doesn't appeal of course- just for clarification.
Right!
As the mom of a son, I've read a lot of the buzz about this book, and what really turns me off is the way the author seems to engage in empathy toward boys *at the expense of girls* in the way she's claiming feminists do toward men and boys. One example is calling the way sexual assault is adjudicated on college campuses a miscarriage of justice in the direction of young men being accused. The National Sexual Assault Resource Center suggests over 60% of rapes (the vast majority of which are of women by men) go unreported. So, the Title IX process clearly isn't working nor is the larger criminal justice system for women even more so than some men are being falsely accused (and statistics from NSARC suggest that happens in 10 percent or fewer cases). I'm unsure whether or not I will read this book because in the media so far, I haven't seen the author acknowledge the vast privileges men still enjoy (being paid more is another example) nor how race intersects with these issues of gender. Perhaps the book does, and I would like that a great deal because I do agree that the patriarchy fails men, too, and I think a lot about how to parent to counteract that.
This has long been part of my struggle with the cluster of books/writing that has emerged over the last few years re: 'how do we deal with boys.' Like, they still have it so good! White cis-gender boys in particular have all the privileges and power! Last year I wrote about one of these books and the way it conceived of boy's/men's lack of "ambition" (https://annehelen.substack.com/p/why-are-white-men-so-unambitious) and I found myself returning to a lot of that thinking while reading this book — what it means to be harmed by a structure and still benefit wildly from it. I'm still trying to figure out how to think about this, tbh, and I think a lot of us are too.
This is mostly where I am. I appreciated that piece because I thought (and still think!) Reeves was getting a pass with some pretty weird data interpretation without doing much to acknowledge the privilege many men, especially white, straight, cis-gendered men, still enjoy. I think a lot of this discourse gets pretty mixed up because it often ends up on moms to figure out how to undo the damage of patriarchy when that seems like it should also be a pretty big lift for dads and other men in boys' lives!
Thanks so much for these perspectives. Obviously I've had to really wrestle with these questions while writing and researching the book. Male privilege is very real, but I believe that privilege and harm for boys intertwine in quite complex ways in male socialization- under patriarchy men and boys gain in terms of power/ economic status etc and lose in terms of connection, emotionality and intimacy. Both are very real, and I believe there is room to recognize both of these.
Hi Maggie- this is Ruth, the author. Thanks so much for this perspective. I'm really glad you raised it because it's absolutely the last thing I want to do- ie to center boys' experiences at the expense of girls' and women's. It's something that I really wrestle with in the book- because clearly sexual violence against women has been underreported/ underrecognized for so long and women have been gaslighted/ ignored on this point. I think something very specific has happened in the Title IX process which is a combination of culture shift and bureaucratic inadequacy and it's complicated. I hope you will read that chapter it as it's incredibly thorny and in the weeds- and hard to do justice to in one answer to an interview question- . It's also something that intersects heavily with race, and the people most affected are boys of color and especially Black boys. I believe that tackling this issue is important to gaining justice for everyone. I'm going to be hosting some discussions about this over at my Substack soon and I'd love you to join if you were willing- I think it's so important to share all perspectives and talk about all sides of this openly.
Thanks for the response! I recently published a controversial book and got lots of pushback here about it, so I recognize the courage it takes to bring your ideas to a larger stage. I hope you do grapple with these issues publicly soon as I haven't seen that yet at all in any of the media around this book. Does your book also discuss the large body of research suggesting that there is not strong evidence of cognitive differences between boys and girls? (ex: https://www.harvardlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/spelke2005-1.pdf) I did check out your Substack, but I was really surprised at the shark experience post. Why not just ask that your son be included in the mermaid experience? I think we might just be coming at parenting boys differently. My experience and the experience of many of my parent friends thus far has been that the culture really rewards boys for being sensitive and vulnerable in a way that it does not reward girls.
Yes absolutely agree on the cognitive differences- I discuss this in the book- the main so called "hardwired" differences showing up in the literature (although that phrase is also misleading) are more to do with right brain development (emotional self regulation) rather than cogntiive skills. You're right- I should have asked for him to be included in the mermaid experience but at that point I had lost patience with the whole thing and didn't want to give them the money! Interesting about the reward thing- the boys that I interviewed (teenagers and up) absolutely felt it was impossible for them to be emotionally open and vulnerable- and were really struggling wtih it, whereas girls generally found this easy. (obviously not all girls/ boys etc but culturally the difference was pretty significant.)
Thanks again for engaging! It sounds like we experience parenting boys, reading the research, and interacting with teenagers very differently.
Thanks for sharing your perspective- I’m so glad we are opening up this conversation and hearing a range of experiences/ thoughts
AHP, please delete if not allowed: if anyone wants to join me in a virtual Culture Study book club (with a hopeful Zoom chat with Ruth!), fill out this Google form: https://forms.gle/qYTRRcWYJ7F69sKW9
I’d love to join this and truly welcome all perspectives/ debate / discussion on these issues- the conversations are so important and nuanced and we need to hear all sides to get this right
Thank you so much for this conversation and for featuring Boymom!
Ruth when I saw this book I snapped it up right awayyyy - I can’t wait to read. As a mom of two boys, 8 and 4 (and a precocious girl between them), I’m starting to bump up against these fallacies and find myself at a loss sometimes. How do I raise non-assholes in a world where women are shown time and time again to be second class citizens?!
It’s so tough! I can’t wait to read the book. But we talk explicitly about a lot of these issues. One of my kids rolls his eyes, but I think just by being along on this journey together and talking about assumptions and our different experiences of them, maybe it gives them a vocabulary? Housework being a prime example of a rich topic with lots of assumptions….
thank you so much! I hope you enjoy the book!
Can't wait to read this book (mother of two almost-man children, 20 & 23). When they were little, and I was full of my Judith-Butler-gender-is-a-construct, I was regularly distraught by clear indications that their toddler physicality was NOT a construct. And then, also regularly, when I'm teaching college students & we start talking about gender, when I say "men also have gender roles & expectations," their collective jaws drop. Because if the default is masculine then that's not a "role" that...normal?? Or so their thinking goes (I think).
Thanks so much- I hope you enjoy the book! And yes this rings very true to me too.
I have teen daughters and a son. The girls thrived during Covid. They created their own pods, supported one another and found a way to adapt. They each went to therapy and participated in different flavors of “girl power” type groups.
Our son had the opposite experience. He was isolated with little support and regressed. He’s 17 now but with the maturity of a 14 year old. It’s like time stopped for him.
After decades of being hyper-focused on how women are underserved & unsupported, it was the first time I’ve seen the opposite up close. And the fall out for boys in particular during the pandemic is something I think we’ll see for decades to come,
Can’t wait to read this complex take on boys. Also highly recommend the documentary, “The Mask We Live In,” a wonderfully nuanced view of the way society shapes expectations for boys. We watched with three generations of males and there was not a dry eye in the house.
Thank you so much- I’ve heard similar from so many. I hope you enjoy the book
This was a fascinating discussion. My two kids are both grown so we are a little beyond some of the nitty-gritty issues raised in this discussion, but I suppose we have grandchildren on the horizon somewhere and we certainly have kids in our neighborhood.
What I find of greatest interest is the way that people nowadays seem so incredibly into the business of branding and essentiallizing. I always thought of myself simply as a parent. Is this a largely online phenomenon or do people really believe this stuff?
It seems like a generational thing. My daughter (GenX) doesn't do the branding, but the step-daughters (Millennials) use all the hashtags. The grown grandchild (Gen Z) denies branding of any type and rejects all labels.
Thank you so much for reading- and agree totally on the branding thing
What a great interview!! Thanks for introducing me to Ruth’s work.
I’m also a feminist mom of three sons, and both hate and relate to the #boymom trope. Two are now adults, the youngest turns 18 next year. I have been the breadwinner for our family, and my husband the at-home parent with flexible work and the ability to volunteer; we’re both cis hetero folks, but we don’t follow conventional gender norms, so our kids have had a kind of “non-standard” and also very standard family life. I can’t wait to read the book, for so many reasons.
I didn’t expect parenting to be as revealing about gendered assumptions and the nature of human nature as it has been, but it turns out to be an interesting throughline (for me, anyhow). All three of our kids are in so many ways consistent with the selves they first revealed as little kids, and they are three very different people. How do gender norms factor in? Differently for each of them, as it turns out. But the story is still developing! Anyhow, happy to see discussion about this topic and appreciate it happening here.
Thank you so much! I have similar feelings about the Boymom trope! I hope you enjoy the book and thanks so much for commenting
Not really the point, but the section about Ruth's sons' autism diagnoses and un-diagnoses stood out to me; there's a sense of relief in having found out, "Oops, they're not really autistic after all!" - I mean, I sense that Ruth was relieved that they're "only" ADHD and I just want to interrogate that a little.
If the initial online assessments had come back without a diagnosis, would you have still pursued a follow-up/second opinion in person?
Why is it important to you to hold that diagnosis "lightly"? Would you hold any other diagnosis, such as a connective tissue disorder (also a clinical diagnosis with no genetic test; ask me how I know), so "lightly"? Why or why not?
What would it mean to help your sons find identity and community in other autistic people and autistic self-advocacy groups?
I actually really related to the bit on neurodiversity. We were grateful for our kid’s autism diagnosis - it freed them and our family to have some very empowering and enlightening conversations. It lifted a burden.
On the other hand, as a teacher and someone with ADHD, I feel like the reason that my own diagnosis was necessary was largely because schools aren’t designed for kids’ brains and bodies, full stop. If school didn’t kind of suck, my brain would still have very limited short term memory but my body could compensate the way it wants to.
So I do understand the sense of “take what helps you, but maybe don’t make this your whole personality.” My understanding of my disabilities and gifts has shifted over time, and I want that freedom for my kids.
@Meep Happy to follow on all this with you privately if it would be helpful- a little concerned about having the whole discussion on a public forum- it’s pretty nuanced and the way it’s presented comes after discussions with the boys about how they wanted this framed - feel free to get in touch if this conversation would be helpful to you in any way.
I’m suffering from an acute case of WHY ARE ALL THE SUMMER DRESSES SO EXPENSIVE and was bummed to see the article jumped from $48 to $255. Where’s the analysis of Gap and JCrew and Anthro and Boden (who carries so many summer dresses it’s almost impossible to decide)?!
SAME XAN SAME, why are all those dresses $188???
I am downloading this book immediately because these thoughts and questions have been hugely impacting my life as a single now 74 year old. I am sure every woman on the planet feels similarly or has been lying to herself.
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it
It is a very engaging, well written and intellectually stimulating book.
Not being a mother myself - or even married for that matter, gives me a unique perspective.
Given that I am also not a "man-hater" nor a man avoiding Lesbian, but more asexual, I have worked alongside men in Healthcare Information Technology and also as a Performing Classical Violinist. I have taught hundreds of children and adults to play the violin.
I know all about the male rapist/incel/toxic problems.
I think the main cause of the toxic problems in boys to men is the current rise of Fascism and
Trump. I wonder if Nazi Germany saw the same things.
Thank you- this is lovely to hear. And yes the whole question of the intersection of fascism and masculinity is fascinating!
As a mom of 2 boys (both with ADHD) I'm looking forward to reading this.
thank you! I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you for this. As a woman who spent her childhood in a matriarchy and is now the mother of a boy, I'm regularly confronted by a lot of what she describes. Look forward to digging in to her book later this summer.