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Roe v. Wade and Beyond: Linda Gordon Responds  

As Carole Joffe writes in “Roe v. Wade and Beyond,” legal abortion was a great victory for health, for women’s citizenship, for families and children. But the continued attacks on abortion have been destructive on many grounds. One is universal: …



When Universities Go Abroad: NYU in Abu Dhabi  

Scores of American universities have opened campuses abroad, New York University, where I teach, among them. (Others include Georgetown in Qatar, Yale in Singapore, Columbia in Jordan, and Duke in China.) Criticism and debate surround these developments, but have been …



Citizenship and the Right to Birth Control  

Calling this year’s political fight about funding for contraception a “war on women” may be a catchy slogan and a strong mobilizing call. But as an analysis, it is misleading. True, birth control does affect women disproportionately, because women still …







The Trouble with Difference  

Since the late 1970s, feminist theorists and scholars have been attacking, subverting, and attempting to dethrone the universalist liberalism of earlier women’s-rights advocates who spoke in the name of a unified, homogeneous womankind. From that point on, the dominant motif …



Welfare Reform: A History Lesson  

When people say “welfare” today, they mostly refer to AFDC, the program for single parents and their children. These single parents are mostly mothers, of course, and the current vilification of welfare recipients and their “dependency” is directed primarily at …