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E.J. Graff

Speaking of Cultures Unfriendly to Homos ...

E.J. GraffNov 01, 2011

.... Uganda is reintroducing the bill that would impose the death penalty for being gay. The Open Society Institute (OSI) hosted a photography exhibit last spring called "Being Gay in Uganda" that showed Tadej Žnidarčič's powerful portraits, in which each individual is shown from the back. I had walked into OSI in New York for another purpose entirely when I saw what looked like the backs of some very cute women. (There were men too, but, well, I didn't notice them at first.) When I walked over to look more closely, my heart dropped through the floor. The short interviews—in which these people told of essentially being hunted and hated in their daily lives—nearly made me cry.

No Homos Need Apply

E.J. GraffNov 01, 2011

Am I hopelessly cynical, or what?

According to the online outlet Newser, a Georgia Baptist college, Shorter University (Motto: "Transforming Lives Through CHRIST"), has some specific expectations for its employees:

Can We Talk About Sexual Harassment?

E.J. GraffNov 01, 2011

Girls, girls, girls!

E.J. GraffOct 31, 2011
  • Over at New York magazine, Emily Nussbaum has written the perfect introduction to the new, fiery, sardonic, savvy generation of feminists who are making change online and in the streets. Nussbaum checks in with both the feminist blogosphere and the controversial “SlutWalks,” a series of anti-rape marches that have caught imaginative fire. The title has been hotly debated—but as young feminist leader Jessica Valenti has noted, it sure has gotten the attention that organizers wanted. Nussbaum writes:
     

Left Hand, Meet Right Hand

E.J. GraffOct 28, 2011

Earlier this week, I mentioned the movie The Whistleblower, an action film that explores the real-life issue of UN peacekeepers who have coerced locals into trading sex for food, or have assaulted or purchased them outright. After that appeared, a colleague emailed me to note that while some member nations' militaries or ambassadors may traffic in people, other UN branches are working to expose and end human trafficking. Here, Matt Friedman of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking reports on what his organization has been doing:

Women and Wal-Mart

E.J. GraffOct 28, 2011

Do you remember the big Wal-Mart class-action case alleging that the behemoth retailer systematically discriminated against women, which the Supreme Court tossed out? (Technically, the SC said the case was too big and the plaintiffs too disparate to be bundled together and tried in a single lawsuit because they all had different situations and complaints).

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.

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