Zoe Strimpel[The_London_Paper|] is a British academic historian, columnist, author and broadcaster focussing on feminism, dating, singleness and relationships in modern Britain. She comments on a wide variety of subjects as a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. She is a frequent guest on BBC Radio and television and has debated at the Oxford and Cambridge debating unions. As a critic of the Me too movement, she appeared alongside Germaine Greer on Al Jazeera'sHead to Head, in support of Greer. Strimpel has been a prominent critic of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party. She appeared in the HBO documentary to discuss online dating apps. In December 2019 Strimpel represented the University of Sussex on University Challenge's alumni Christmas edition on BBC2. Strimpel held a post-doctoral research post at the University of Sussex, based at the British Library, where she investigated the evolution of Spare Rib, the British women's liberation magazine. In 2019 she was a judge for the David Cohen Prize for Literature, an award for lifetime achievement in writing.
Strimpel studied English literature at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 2013 she completed an Mphil in Gender Studies at Cambridge University and was awarded a Distinction for a thesis entitled Meat Market or Brave New World: How Women Go Shopping For Dates Online. In 2017, Strimpel was awarded a PhD from the University of Sussex. Funded by an Asa Briggs scholarship, her doctoral thesis was entitled The Matchmaking Industry and Singles Culture in Britain, 1970-2000, and examined the pre-history of internet dating and the emergence of 'the single'.
Author and academic work
Strimpel is the author of What the Hell is He Thinking?: All the Questions You've Ever Asked About Men Answered, which was published in July 2010. It aims to provide insight into men's thinking, researched by Strimpel interviewing men. Her second book, The Man Diet: One Woman's Quest to End Bad Romance was published on 22 December 2011. Both books received positive reviews from critics and press coverage. Strimpel is the author of an academic book, Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of 'the Single', which charts the emergence of the dating industry in Britain in the final decades of the 20th century against the backdrop of rapidly changing gender politics, class, and sexuality. James Bloodworth from UnHerd calls Strimpel's latest work a "fascinating new book". Strimpel's discussion about her book with Mark Lawson at Jewish Book Week 2020 was named by the festival as 'a highlight'. Strimpel's academic article, Computer dating in the 1970s: Dateline and the making of the modern British single, was included in the 2019 Top Ten Reading Suggestions from the Bibliography of British and Irish History.
Journalist
Zoe Strimpel is an opinion columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph. Between 2006-2008, Strimpel wrote the Girl About Town column in The London Paper. From 2008, Strimpel was a features and lifestyle writer for City AM, a business-orientated London daily newspaper. Between 2010 and 2012 she was City AM's Lifestyle Editor. She has also written for The Spectator, Elle, the Sunday Times Style magazine, HuffPost, and The Jewish Chronicle. She is a regular contributor to UnHerd. Strimpel believes that the Black Lives Matter movement is "a catalyst for anti-Semitism".
