Ellen Feldman is the author of the widely acclaimed novels Scottsboro, ("a gem of a character...belongs with the best of William Faulkner's and Alice Walker's women," San Francisco Chronicle) The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank(a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice), and Lucy("A wonderful creation," New York Times Book Review). She was a regular contributor to American Heritage and its web site, and has lectured extensively in the U.S., England, and Germany. She lives in New York and at www.ellenfeldman.com.

Blog Entries by Ellen Feldman

Bush Marches Ahead into the Past

Posted August 14, 2008 | 04:07 PM (EST)


The recent regulations proposed by the Bush administration's Health and Human Services officials, if put into play, would not only send the administration out in a blaze of shame and vindictiveness toward women throughout the country, but also turn the clock back a full century.

A hundred years ago, when...

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McCain's Race Ad

Posted August 4, 2008 | 10:48 AM (EST)


The McCain ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton was mind-boggling in its crass stupidity, reminiscent of the class oaf's boorish attempts to mock the cool high school hero. But I had not connected it with the hoary practice of inciting racism by sexual innuendo until I read...

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Sexism in Hostile Acts and Careless Speech

Posted June 28, 2008 | 03:51 PM (EST)


Sexism is no joke, though a few weeks ago I wrote here about the sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton that masqueraded as humor. Now an incident at a golf club in Phoenix, to which Senator John McCain of Arizona does not belong, but his son Andrew does, goes directly...

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The Last Bastion of Acceptable Prejudice or Hey, Can't You Take a Joke?

Posted June 13, 2008 | 11:25 AM (EST)


The media is once again beating its breast and howling its mea culpas after the fact. Only when we were mired in an unprovoked and unwinnable war did the press begin to question its starry-eyed acceptance of the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq. Now that Hillary has finally conceded,...

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What Hillary Should Have Learned from the Suffragists

Posted May 27, 2008 | 08:53 PM (EST)


Hillary Clinton's lengthening list of inadvisable comments -- I won't list them here, because if you haven't seen them again and again and again, you don't have on-line access and can't be reading this -- makes me wonder what happened to the accomplished woman and smart politician I once had...

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The Newly Discovered FDR-Lucy Mercer Correspondence

Posted May 9, 2008 | 10:07 AM (EST)


Much has been written in the past few weeks about the newly discovered correspondence between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the woman for whom he almost left his wife Eleanor and therefore came close to derailing twentieth century history.

Current speculation posits that these formerly unknown letters, mostly...

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Standing Sexual Politics on Its Head

Posted April 7, 2008 | 01:14 PM (EST)


Nicholas Kristof's article on sexists vs. racists in Sunday's New York Times illuminates the guilt many women feel for not supporting Hillary Clinton. One friend recently stated that she did not see how any woman could not be for Clinton. Does that mean if I were a British subject, I...

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75 Years After Scottsboro Racial Profiling In Jury Selection Is Alive and Well

11 Comments | Posted March 30, 2008 | 06:19 PM (EST)


On March 19, the United States Supreme Court handed down a pivotal decision on racial bias in jury selection. While the ruling in favor of an African-American ex-marine found guilty by an all-white jury is gratifying, and ironic in view of its timing, it does not go to the heart...

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