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E.J. Graff

More on the Abortion Debates: What if Your Mother Had Aborted You?

E.J. GraffOct 27, 2011

Yesterday I posted "So what if I hadn't been born?" In reply, noted reproductive rights thinker Frances Kissling sent along her own very moving essay along these lines, published a few years ago in RH Reality Check: "What if your mother had aborted you? A daughter's perspective." As she says,

I feel a need to turn that question around and to ask instead: What if your mother's life would have been significantly happier and healthier if she had not had you? If you as a fetus had the capacity to make decisions, would you have given your life for your mother's life, health and happiness?

Help! I Married a Jock!

E.J. GraffOct 27, 2011
(Flickr/Varsity)

Somehow I married a jock, which puts me in a mixed marriage. I was the English major who scorned the sports crowd; to our clique, jocks were way down there, below, oh, caterpillars. (We didn’t particularly care about what they thought about us.) My wife has made it clear that the jocks felt much the same way about us dorky creative types; when she hears about my college antics, she groans, I can’t believe you were one of those people! Exactly how I feel. In so many ways, we are a very unlikely pair.

Vaccinate Boys Against HPV, Too

E.J. GraffOct 26, 2011

This week a federal advisory panel recommended that boys, too, should get the HPV vaccine—the only existing vaccine that protects against cancer. Until now, the vaccine had only been recommended for girls to prevent cervical cancer, although both boys and girls are susceptible to infection by the human papilloma virus. The new recommendation for boys comes for two main reasons. First, there's been a rise in throat and anal cancers attributed to HPV, in both men and women. There are now more throat cancers because of HPV and oral sex than because of smoking. Second, if men aren't infected, unvaccinated women are safer.

Gals to the Back of the Bus

E.J. GraffOct 26, 2011

Jezebel reports that, in Brooklyn, there’s a public bus line where women have to sit in the back of the bus. Men sit in front. Really. Apparently, God made the rule.

So What if I Hadn't Been Born?

E.J. GraffOct 26, 2011

When I blogged over at Slate’s XX Factor (now Double X), I grew fond of Rachael Larimore, with whom I agreed to disagree with on almost everything. I am not being sarcastic. Recently, I heard a rabbi talk about the importance of discussing major issues not to convert others—not to win—but to “improve the quality of our disagreements.” I love this concept as a way to improve our public discourse on core political subjects, which are often religious wars in another guise.

Whistleblowers

E.J. GraffOct 25, 2011

Somehow I missed the movie The Whistleblower, an action film about a woman in the UN peacekeeping forces who tries to hold her male colleagues and superiors accountable for sexual coercion and abuse of girls, boys, and adults they are supposed to be protecting. (The movie is on my list now.) Women’s E-News reports that a UN screening of the film last week involved a testy exchange between Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the filmmakers, and others who say that the problem continues—and that the way that the UN deals with it is worse than inadequate.

FBI Updates Definition of Rape

E.J. GraffOct 24, 2011

In the wake of a fierce and sustained campaign by feminist groups, the FBI is incrementally moving toward an updated definition of rape. The old one, written in 1929, leaves out a lot of what most of us consider to be rape. Here's how Erica Goode in The New York Times wrote up the controversy: 

Pink October

E.J. GraffOct 21, 2011

In case you missed it: Last Sunday The New York Times had a thoughtful examination of the pros and cons of the pinking of America—the Susan G. Komen foundation's marketing of breast cancer awareness and its work raising funds for breast cancer research.

Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson!

E.J. GraffOct 21, 2011

In Vermont, the governor has nominated Beth Robinson to take a seat the state's Supreme Court. Robinson was the prime mover behind the state's Freedom to Marry movement, and one of three lawyers who brought the groundbreaking state case Baker v. Vermont back in the 1990s. That case led to the state's then-groundbreaking civil unions—and spurred a national uproar about the imminent descent of locusts, plague, and so forth. Robinson led the movement to hold that victory statewide, and then to upgrade it to full marriage rights a few years after Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to offer full equality.

Will Blackness Be the Thing that Gets You?

E.J. GraffOct 20, 2011

Have you ever heard the name "Danroy Henry?" I didn't think so—at least, not if you're white.

A year ago, a Pace University quarterback was shot by a white police officer—either when he started pulling his car away from a bar instead of stopping as he'd been instructed, or when, with no warning, he was shot through his car's windshield. As The New York Times reported, "Mr. Henry, known as D. J., was a football player ... with no record of trouble, whose arms, which held the car's steering wheel, were tattooed with the words "Family First."" The Pleasantville, New York police officer had never shot anyone before.

Must-See OWS Clip

E.J. GraffOct 20, 2011

This you gotta see. Really.

...in which Alec Baldwin very nicely talks with an Occupy Wall Street whacko and explains that what we really need is an active SEC, not one that's in the pocket of the banks.

Masculinity Patrol Strikes Again

E.J. GraffOct 19, 2011

Oh lordy no, not another gay teen suicide.

Have you noticed that these are almost always boys? I believe it's because of the masculinity patrol, which can be, quite literally, deadly.

Blame the Supreme Court

E.J. GraffOct 19, 2011

Dahlia Lithwick explains that "Blaming Congress for the corporate takeover of American democracy is only half the fun; blaming the Supreme Court is almost better." But Occupy Wall Street is lacking in ambition, she suggests, if it only focuses on Citizens United, she explains:

Comings & Goings

E.J. GraffOct 18, 2011

The New York Times has posted a riveting graphic representation showing where Americans are moving to and from, by race. I noodled around this spot for awhile, finding out some surprising things, but you could find more. Manhattan has become 22 percent more white--okay, housing prices have pushed out most people, and whites are richer than everyone else, while the Bronx has become eight percent less so, and has gotten much more Latin. My own county of Middlesex, Massachusetts has become -- at long last -- six percent less white, gaining both blacks and Hispanics.

DADT Repeal Not the End of Discrimination

E.J. GraffOct 17, 2011

Since "don't ask, don't tell" has been repealed, all's peachy for lesbians and gay men in the military, yes? Umm, no. Serving openly has made it much clearer all the more subtle ways that lesbians and gay men are excluded from full participation -- particularly, the fact that the military does not support its gay service members' families in the same way that heterosexual service members' families are supported.

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