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E.J. Graff

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).

Recent Articles

Pacifiers and Pink Slips

E.J. GraffJun 14, 2013
AP Images/Joel Ryan

Would you lose your job if, for a few months, you had to run to the bathroom more often than your coworkers? Or your doctor told you to carry a water bottle and drink as often as possible? Or if you were told you couldn’t lift more than twenty pounds for a few months?

I Would Desire That You Pay the Ladies

E.J. GraffJun 10, 2013
AP Images/Susan Walsh

Fifty years ago today, in 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act. The idea was simple: Men and women doing the same work should earn the same pay. Straightforward enough, right? Change the law, change the world, be home by lunchtime.

A Brief History of Dumb Things Men Have Said

E.J. GraffJun 04, 2013

“We’re watching society dissolve around us, Juan, what do you think?”

“Something is going terribly wrong in American society and it’s hurting our children.”

“This is a catastrophic issue.”

You may have heard these outcries last week, if (heaven forfend) you were watching Fox News, or, more likely, reading any of the ladyblogs that snickered about the hysteria coming from the four-dude panel convened by Lou Dobbs. The apocalyptic finding about which they were opining? Here’s The New York Times report on it:

Four in 10 American households with children under age 18 now include a mother who is either the sole or primary earner for her family, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census and polling data released Wednesday.

Women supporting their own children?! Say it ain’t so!

The Gay Recruiting Myth Dies a Quiet Death

E.J. GraffJun 03, 2013
Flickr/CT Senate Democrats

Unless you live in Connecticut or read the right-leaning press, you probably haven’t heard this story. Two men in Glastonbury, Connecticut, a couple who adopted nine children and lived in a fabulous remote Victorian, are accused of abusing at least two (and maybe more) of their boys. Let me get this on the record: If true, this is nothing less than horrifying. I’ve written enough, here and elsewhere, against the sexual abuse of children that I hope I can leave that reaction as is, for now.

A Few Words about Angelina Jolie's Breasts

E.J. GraffMay 17, 2013
AP Photo/Alastair Grant

Angelina Jolie—a woman with some of the world’s most famous breasts—has explained in a thoughtful New York Times op-ed this week why she's had them prophylactically removed and replaced. Jolie’s mother died young, after a decade living with ovarian cancer; when Jolie herself got genetically tested, she learned that she had a BRCA1 genetic mutation that gave her an 87 percent chance of getting breast cancer. To protect her children from losing their mother too young, she opted for surgery, which she describes in some detail.

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