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Melissa Gira Grant

Melissa Gira Grant is a staff writer at The New Republic, the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (published by Verso), and the co-director of They Won’t Call It Murder (executive produced by Field of Vision). She was a senior reporter at The Appeal, and a contributing writer at The Village Voice and Pacific Standard.


All Articles
April 30, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Joe Biden’s Tired Feminist Shield
How Tara Reade’s allegations bring us back to a familiar cycle of denial and complicity
April 28, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Woman’s Worth in a Pandemic
One in three jobs held by women in the U.S. is deemed “essential” right now. Will we value that labor after the crisis has passed?
April 21, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
A Brief Criminal History of the Mask
How a New York law on “masquerading” passed in the early nineteenth century has been used—and abused—in the decades since
April 15, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Pleading for Clemency in a Pandemic
Petitions for early release reveal the contours of people’s lives before incarceration, conditions on the inside, and what might come after.
April 10, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The New American Death Sentence
Police are making low-level arrests even as public health experts have called for immediate decarceration to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
April 7, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Shock Doctrine Came for Bail Reform
Conservative opponents of cash bail reform in New York saw an opportunity in the pandemic—and took it.
March 24, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Scenes From an American Pandemic
Hospital workers, street medics, and people in prison describe navigating the coronavirus and life as they know it right now.
March 10, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
No Justice for Harvey Weinstein’s Victims
A long prison sentence can’t repair the harm he caused for dozens of women over many decades. What would it look like to demand more?
February 27, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Welcome to the Mean Tweets Primary
How a political culture obsessed with decorum is distorting our understanding of power and its consequences
February 25, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Still Incomplete Case Against Harvey Weinstein
A verdict has been rendered, but no criminal case will tell the full story about Weinstein or the women he’s harmed.
February 18, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The Trump Administration Finally Broke the Anti-Trafficking Movement
The bipartisan movement to “combat trafficking” was built on many of the same superficialities as the First Family, but everyone has their limit.
February 3, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The False Hope of “Bipartisan” Criminal Justice Reform
Trump's Super Bowl ad was rightly criticized for its political opportunism. It also exposed the limits of current efforts to reshape the justice system.
January 30, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
The New Majority Behind Sex Work Decriminalization
An exclusive look at a groundbreaking policy transformation. There are lessons for the left to learn here.
January 22, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
“Female Monthly Pills” and the Coded Language of Abortion Before Roe
Our future might look much like our past, with pills as a major part of abortion access—and an obsessive target for abortion opponents.
January 15, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Human Trafficking Prevention Month Is a Dangerous Joke
For more than a decade, the designation has meant very little beyond self-serving press releases and bad reporting.
January 13, 2020
MagazineMelissa Gira Grant
Culture War in the Workplace
Inside the court battle over trans employment discrimination
January 10, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Cash Bail Was Never About Safety
The reaction against bail reform exposes the lie of the old system: It was always about money.
January 7, 2020
Melissa Gira Grant
Human Trafficking Courts Are Not a Criminal Justice “Innovation”
Anti-prostitution policing and these intervention courts believe they can racially profile and arrest their way to women's liberation.
December 25, 2019
Melissa Gira Grant
How the Democratic Party Learned to Wage Class Warfare
Occupy Wall Street was widely ridiculed by liberals. Now, rage against the one percent is a major theme of the 2020 primary.
December 5, 2019
Melissa Gira Grant
The Cops Are Culture Warriors
In the struggle for criminal justice reform, police are playing the victim.

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