Pamela Haag

Pamela Haag

Essayist

Pamela Haag’s work spans a wide, and unusual, spectrum, all the way from academic scholarship to memoir. Thematically, it has consistently focused on women's issues, feminism, and American culture, but she’s also written on topics as eclectic as the effort to rebuild the lower Manhattan subway lines after 9/11, 24-hour sports radio talk shows, and the experience of class mobility.

Haag earned a Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1995, after graduating with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College. She’s held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and post-doctoral fellowships at both Brown and Rutgers University. As an academic she published scholarly articles and a first book, based on dissertation work, with Cornell University Press in 1999.

She became the Director of Research for the AAUW Educational Foundation, a nationalnonprofit based in Washington, DC, that advocates for girls and women. In that capacity she wrote and edited several pieces of research and was the media spokesperson for the research.
In 2002, Haag became a speechwriter on issues of public transit and transit-oriented development for the secretary of the Federal Transit Administration and, occasionally, the Secretary of Transportation.

Since 2004, she has been publishing personal and opinion essays in a variety of venues, including National Public Radio, the American Scholar, the Christian Science Monitor, Ms. magazine, the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Michigan Quarterly Review, New Haven Review, the Antioch Review and carte blanche. Haag earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College in 2008, where she won the Chris White award for best essay, and was also a prizewinner in the Atlantic’s 2008 national nonfiction contest.

Haag's latest book, Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses, and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting the Rules, released by HarperCollins in May of 2011, draws on all of these strands of Haag’s unique professional biography to create almost a new genre, a weave of academic expertise, cultural history, creativenonfiction, memoir, storytelling, interviews, and commentary.

The “slippery slope” is a popular argument in the same-sex marriage debate. Where do you draw the line, opponents argue? If you start allowing marriage between people of the same […]
Now this is what I call post-romantic. It begins with a fascinating vanguard of “neuromarketing” researchers. These scientist-marketers hook up subjects (consumers) to new biometric technologies such as EEG headsets […]
There’s a booming genre in wee books of things to see or do “before you die.” I don’t read these books, but Australian hospice nurse Bronnie Ware’s recently-published book, The […]
[Readers: here’s a largely non-relationship column, for a change of pace…] My cell phone is an idiot. It’s a straight-up, dingbat dumb-ass. It can’t do anything, except make phone calls, […]
You’ve forgiven an affair. You’ve put up with violations of the marriage’s budget. You’ve been bored, irked, and ignored. But if he mentions picking up a goddamned wet towel off […]
Charles Murray wrote a piece on economic inequality and cultural factors that contribute to it in the Wall Street Journal. He vividly describes inequalities between two groups of white Americans, […]
Charles Murray wrote a piece on economic inequality and cultural factors that contribute to it in the Wall Street Journal. He vividly describes inequalities between two groups of white Americans, […]
The last thing I ever wanted to do was to write a word about Newt Gingrich’s sex life. But, alas, ABC’s “blockbuster” interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne, airing tonight on […]
In Marriage Confidential I talk about “workhorse wives” with Tom Sawyer husbands. In these marriages, the husband is the dream-chaser and the wife is the exhausted breadwinner who underwrites his […]
I recently participated in a “relationship summit” on break ups. I don’t know how wise or helpful I was. When it comes to break-up and heartache recovery, I’m not sure […]
Mistresses and Lovers for Dummies, Rule #3:   If you want an open marriage, then make sure to upload the most updated, de-bugged version of the software, and not the 1970s […]
A man and woman have been married for over a decade. The wife seems happy, and she feels happy, or happy enough, in her marriage. The husband seems happy. He […]
In my experience it’s easier to change a home design than to change your heart, or your feelings. Take the case of “staying together for the children,” a familiar marital […]
When did the world turn so “inappropriate?” It seems to be getting more so by the year.  Inappropriate’s already appeared 26,200,000 times in 2011 on Google-indexed material. In 2010, it […]
The United States is following its peer nations in Western Europe and is projected to become a majority unmarried and “post-marriage” nation within the decade, according to research released this […]
The Tahirih Justice Center is one of the U.S.’s foremost legal defense organizations for immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses such as domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, […]
I was reading a trade publication about industry forecasts for bathroom fixture trends some time ago (don’t ask). “Large bathrooms are in,” the experts said. It’s true. American bathrooms have […]
“Why do men marry mean girls?” Rebecca asks me. She’s almost in tears, and my heart aches for her. Rebecca’s a beautiful, talented single New Yorker in her mid-30s who, […]
The most sterling truth standard in marriage is that you’re both monogamous for life, if you vowed that you would be. You don’t flirt with intent; you don’t have boozy […]
I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I admire how the genre has just enough of a toehold in reality that it feels plausibly weird. It stakes out the […]