RSS

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

Sim City 2000, Subsidized by Your Tax Dollars

E.J. GraffSep 13, 2011

If you were either consumed by the 9/11 retrospectives or avoiding them with your own personal news blackout, you might have missed The New York Times' exposé on how thoroughly the video-game industry is subsidized by your tax dollars -- courtesy, at least in part, of the government/industry revolving door. You know something is wrong when even the oil companies think your business gets too many tax breaks. Here's the money quote:

Michael D. Rashkin, author of "Practical Guide to Research and Development Tax Incentives," said that the video game industry had failed to name a technological breakthrough that had helped anyone beyond its shareholders, employees or customers. 

Maybe, Just Maybe, America's Best Days Aren't Over

E.J. GraffSep 12, 2011

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I've been feeling pretty lousy about it. Like Rick Perlstein, I have felt pretty Eeyore-ish about the United States for about a decade. Osama won, I wrote last spring, with a jujitsu move that had the U.S. overreacting and morally bankrupting ourselves.

To Anti-Choice Zealots, Abortion and Contraception Are the Same Thing

E.J. GraffSep 12, 2011

You may not have noticed, but if you ever use birth control you are a "battering ram" for a dangerously pagan society. The reproductive rights folks have long warned that the most profoundly committed "pro-life" advocates actually want to end legal contraception, rolling us back to the pre-Margaret Sanger days when selling condoms through the mail could land you in federal prison. That's true of the Catholic Church, of course, whose philosophy of sex grows from Augustine's belief that its only justification is making babies; sexual pleasure is a distraction from God. But Jeffrey T.

The "Mancession" Will End. Will the "Woman-cession"?

E.J. GraffSep 09, 2011

Before I get cranky, let me be sentimental: I loved Obama's speech last night. It was big. It was bold. It was inspiring. Here's the part I loved most:

Where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways and our bridges; our dams and our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the GI Bill. Where would we be if they hadn't had that chance?

Where Are All the Techie Ladies?

E.J. GraffSep 09, 2011

As you probably know by now, there was a high-profile female firing this week. Nicholas Thompson at The New Yorker says Carol Bartz lost her Yahoo leadership fair and square, but adds a a wickedly smart sentence about how women are faring in high tech:

Pages