E.J. Graff
- : E.J. Graff, a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center, is an author and journalist who has written primarily about social justice, particularly women's rights, same-sex marriage, feminism, family, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. She is the Senior Researcher at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, founded and directed by longtime investigative reporter Florence George Graves. There, Graff runs the Institute's Gender and Justice Project, writing in-depth investigative pieces about sex discrimination and media coverage of women's lives. Recently, E.J. Graff collaborated on former Massachusetts lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy's book Getting Even: Why Women Still Don't Make As Much As Men--And What To Do So We Will,the publication of which launched Dr. Murphy's national campaign (under the auspices of the WAGE Project to close the wage gap. E.J. Graff's first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, examines 2,500 years of a central pillar of social life, and asks whether same-sex couples belong today. Graff is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and has written for such publications as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Women's Review of Books.
Torture, national culpability, and literary criticism
... In Which E.J. Acknowledges Her Sense of Inadequacy in Responding to Gourevitch & Morris's Standard Operating Procedure, And Yet Does So Anyway Given the enormity of what we're discussing, and given the fact that unlike others here I...more »
Posted on June 27, 2008 3:31 PM
Heartbroken by Standard Operating Procedure
Thank you, Philip, for another heartbreakingly brilliant book. I have already told several people that they MUST read it, and am planning to give it to a number of others. I'll get to some of your questions here and...more »
Posted on June 24, 2008 2:00 PM
Habeas corpus returns!
Apparently the Supreme Court has declared that even Gitmo inhabitants have human rights. Thank God. I've been ashamed for years to be living in a country that would imprison people without even a hearing on whether there was a reasonable...more »
Posted on June 12, 2008 5:25 PM
California voters favor same-sex marriage!
Wow. I was startled, this morning, to see the new Field Poll* numbers on California's response to its Supreme Court's marriage decision: The poll found 51 percent of registered voters favor the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to...more »
Posted on May 28, 2008 9:57 AM
California dreaming
Last week I wrote a post celebrating the California supreme court's marriage decision, and asking that we defer comment, for just a few minutes, on whether that decision will be Good Or Bad For The Democrats. Some TPMCafe regulars commented...more »
Posted on May 20, 2008 10:39 AM
Marriage in California
Breaking news: the California Supreme Court has declared that, under that state's constitution, it's illegal to give different names to the legal recognition of same-sex and different-sex couples. (Don't get me started on the term "opposite sex."). California's version of...more »
Posted on May 15, 2008 2:40 PM
Happy Mother's Day (belatedly)
Mother's Day has come and gone, but not the needs of working mothers--or, we should say, working families. Questions of sick leave, flexibility, fair pay, and mandatory overtime, and all the rest affect not just mothers but children, fathers, mothers,...more »
Posted on May 12, 2008 12:45 PM
Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
My office is at Brandeis University. Today as, I walked down the curving path that carries everyone through campus, I noticed that, lining the path, at very short intervals, were small American flags. A sign explained that there was one...more »
Posted on March 19, 2008 4:40 PM
Spitzer ... and the housing crisis?
So I might be changing my mind about one thing: whether or not Spitzer was targeted by the Republicans. I just read Greg Palast's blast about the reasons, in his view, that Eliot Spitzer has been taken down. The subtitle...more »
Posted on March 17, 2008 2:18 PM
What about the women?
I'm tired of hearing about Eliot Spitzer's "classical tragedy." I'm not interested in whether he was targeted by Republicans, especially since the TPMmuckrakers seem to have shown fairly clearly that his shady-looking wire transfers drew ordinary oversight attention. I'm a...more »
Posted on March 13, 2008 5:15 PM
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Very interesting. Thank you for the answers.
And you've answered the one of your questions that I was going to comment on later: "Even in the absence of justice, it's worth recording injustice." Essential, I think. Doing so testifies that one's eyes were open to evil, even if the evil couldn't be stopped. And it makes it possible for people later to learn some lessons from the evil time.
Thank you enormously for doing it.
Posted at June 24, 2008 3:55 PM in response to Heartbroken by Standard Operating Procedure
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Thanks, y'all, for the corrections and the comments. (Hey there Kozmik, keep enjoying yourself!) I didn't have anything intelligent to say but I was just bursting with happiness. Glad you all took it somewhere overnight.
Posted at June 13, 2008 1:22 PM in response to Habeas corpus returns!
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Thank you for this, Ruth. It was such a heartbreaking time. I remember feeling despair that I could not persuade some of my liberal editors at magazines in DC that the entire thing was a crock. You were more informed, and more centrally located, in an editorial room(!), and couldn't do it either. What are we to do next time?
EJ
Posted at June 6, 2008 2:21 PM in response to Tales From Inside the Editorial Board Room
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Hey Stephen,
Sounds like you read more widely than I did. I was thinking of Jeffrey Rosen, E.J. Dionne, and expecting to hear more. I hope you're right!
EJ
Posted at May 21, 2008 11:47 AM in response to California dreaming
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Oh, my old friend kozmik! Glad to see you again!
Actually, the history is that many California LGBT activists were furious at Newsom for kicking off something they didn't want to have to organize for yet. (No one would tell me that for quotation, but trust me, there was some real fury.) But given that he did, and that the timing wasn't up to them, they've been preparing for the fight. And you're right, it will be very close.As far as nationally: I will think about that another day...
Posted at May 15, 2008 9:25 PM in response to Marriage in California
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Destor, scofflaw, thank you for the kind words. Hope it makes clear why I was occasionally so cranky last year!
Posted at May 12, 2008 6:08 PM in response to Happy Mother's Day (belatedly)
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Thanks for the grammar check! Fixed it.
Posted at May 12, 2008 2:57 PM in response to Happy Mother's Day (belatedly)
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Hey Candace, nice to see you here. And very moved by your comments.
Especially good to hear from you as I'm planning to be in touch about Jane Doe--!
Posted at March 20, 2008 2:43 PM in response to Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
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Did I mention that this particular memorial was at Brandeis? The context is exceedingly liberal. The students could count on this context in their viewers' minds.
And we had to walk through it simply to cross the campus. There is no way to avoid that path: you were surrounded by a numbing repetition of death, death, death. I found that turning the American flag into that meaning was simultaneously affecting and respectful.
Posted at March 19, 2008 11:08 PM in response to Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
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I see your point, Todd. And the point of someone here (sorry, it's late, lost track of who said what) that because of the draft, Vietnam war deaths affected everyone, in every class--extremely important point (and I do agree that a draft, alas, would be the fastest way to end the war). And I am moved by those who think the pictures should be posted on blogs like this.
So let me be clearer: I do think that seeing the photos of coffins, body bags, and American war wounded *on television* might have a much more profound effect than seeing the memorials or formal pictures. On television, which feels as if it is in our living rooms. And on the front pages of major newspapers, which land on so many people's breakfast tables--still.
Posted at March 19, 2008 11:05 PM in response to Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
