The XX Factor: What women really think.

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  Mouthiness and Marriage

  Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 2:13 PM | By E.J. Graff
  Jess, I was honestly shocked yesterday morning when I opened my paper copy of the New York Times and saw Bea Arthur referred to—in print!!—as a "Battle-Ax." Who the heck was on the copy desk, and how is it possible he hasn't yet retired? I hadn't even heard that term for decades; didn't it go out with "spinster?" Here's a better view of Bea to cheer us all up. 
  
  Dayo, Emily, how do you think Regnerus would feel about young women marrying other young women? As I think I've mentioned here before, I've long thought there should be a two-year waiting period when two women apply for a marriage license; if they can make it past the U-Haul months, let 'em get hitched. (Note: this is a joke. This is only a joke.) I want my girls to Slow. It. Down. But for those who aren't gonna wait—or who've already been together a lifetime, or a decade, and can at long last make it legal in the cornbelt, here's a map (updated hourly) showing which Iowa counties have been issued licenses to same-sex pairs. Mazel tov to this week's Iowa newlyweds!
  
  Filed under: same-sex marriage, Bea Arthur

About E.J. Graff

• E.J. Graff is associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, where she directs the Gender & Justice Project. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. As a journalist and author, her work has appeared in such venues as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Good Housekeeping, The Nation, The New Republic, and in more than a dozen anthologies. She collaborated on former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy's book Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men--and What To Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Her first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, has been widely cited in legal journals, reprinted for academic use, entered as courtroom exhibits, and quoted by government policymaking bodies.

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