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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

Friday Miscellany

E.J. GraffJan 13, 2012

Good lord, the week goes by fast, and I don't get to comment on 10 percent of what's interesting out there. So here are a few items not to be missed:

What Do We See?

E.J. GraffJan 13, 2012

 

They’re starting to run together in my mind. Jerry Sandusky. Silvio Berlusconi. Herman Cain. U.N. peacekeepers. Arnold Schwarzenegger. USA Swimming coaches. Roman Catholic priests. Here’s the shared story line: A powerful man—or a man in a powerful hierarchy—preys sexually on those in weaker positions. Folks around him have seen

Women, War, & Peace

E.J. GraffJan 12, 2012
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

I'm not a gender essentialist. I don't believe that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. I suspect strongly, in fact, that women and men are the same species and might even be able to reproduce. 

At the same time, it's true that women and men—on average, in general—tend to behave differently. You can't predict any individual woman's or man's behavior based on sex; as we've discussed here before, some boys want to be princesses, and some girls are hard-core jocks with a fabulous swagger.

Peace, Wild Wooddove

E.J. GraffJan 12, 2012

That last post reminded me of one of my favorite poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Peace":

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,   

Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? 

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite      

To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but   

That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows             

Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?        

 

Do Women Ask for More?

E.J. GraffJan 11, 2012

About a month ago, I urged women to do our part to help close the gender wage gap by learning to negotiate for more money, noting that it's a well-established fact that women don't ask for as much as men. I made the point that that's not the only, or even the primary, reason for the wage gap—but why should we help keep our income down? Commenters made some other important points, including the fact that women do get punished for being assertive, far more than men do. That's also been well established, which only means that women have to work harder to find the appropriate strategies for us. In the wages-and-salary game, you can't win if you don't play. 

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