Barbara Ehrenreich

by Barbara Ehrenreich is a story about Ehrenreich’s experience as a low-wage waitress in a restaurant. Ehrenreich discusses her experiences as a low-wage worker and the everyday difficulties she encounters in her position. Ehrenreich publicizes the plight of low-wage workers by using analogies, which highlight the challenges low-wage workers face, emotionally charged words, to allow the reader to connect with the story, and extreme language to arouse sympathy from the audience. Ehrenreich…

Better in a Dream The idea of finishing high school, going to college, getting married, and having children is along the lines of a perfect life. Many people may recognize this undertaking as the “American Dream”. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s work “The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream” she opens up with the fact that many white collar Americans seem to be afflicted by poverty and in difficulty of, finding a job just as much as blue-collar Americans (260). It does not surprise me when she goes…

Barbara Ehrenreich decided to test an experiment and enter in low- wage jobs to see if it’s possible to live on a minimum wage salary. Throughout her experiment Ehrenreich plunged herself right in and shortly discovered how difficult it was to afford the basic necessities, such as, paying rent, having money for food and clothes, and having health benefits. Through her experience, Ehrenreich finds that minimum wage jobs do not make it possible to get by in America because they do not give workers…

The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich, Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, and Nuclear Waste by Richard A. Muller are all pieces of literature in the book They Say, I say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. These pieces give readers an example of different types of college level writing samples with the purpose providing them with a source of influence to assist in further developing their own skills. Just by looking at the titles you can can tell these writings…

various occupations, whereas a majority of women must settle for nursing, cleaning, or childcare occupations due to sexist employers. Barbara Ehrenreich explains her struggle as a maid in Nickel and Dimed. They are forced to carry a vacuum on their back weighing around fourteen pounds as well as use “the hands-and-knees approach” when they are scrubbing floors (Ehrenreich 83). This keeps women from enjoying their occupations, eliminating the American…

economic and financial situations. In the book, Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara went on to experience the life as a low-wage worker and shared her journey. Switching from a writer to a low-class worker, Barbara’s first mission was to find the essentials for living, for example, a job, a house, a car, and a budget plan. After filling out multiple job application and looking around for a cheap apartment to rent, Barbara was ready to start working. Barbara’s first job was at…

In her essay, “The Naked Truth about Fitness”, Barbara Ehrenreich explains the consequences of healthism in America, and connects the idea of morality and self-image with the views behind fitness. Ehrenreich argues that although pursuing health stands as a viable activity, Americans often end up entangling health with morals, thus creating healthism. This dangerous ideal creates numerous problems for a culture involved with fitness. Healthism fosters prejudice and misconstrues morality. The…

controversial ideas and are put through tough circumstances. While both articles do have similarities, it is my belief that Symmes can be a conqueror while Ehrenreich can be considered a native. Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed is a great example of someone dealing with the hardships they are faced with. For a short time dealing with two jobs at once, Ehrenreich explains one of her problems, “working the breakfast/lunch shift at Jerry’s from 8:00 till 2:00, arriving at the Hearthside a few minutes…

The “culture of poverty” mindset creates a distances between the impoverished and the wealthy. Ehrenreich provides the term “culture of poverty” as exemplified in Michael Harrington's The Other America. This work is the foundation in which Ehrenreich reveals the reality of poverty and the misconceptions of the term. There is the idea that “The poor were different from the rest of us, it argued, radically different, and not just in the sense that they were deprived, disadvantaged, poorly housed,…

creative freedom, Ice-T’s song “Cop Killer” is a controversial topic. The song’s lyrics are strong and violent. Being in a country where freedom of speech is valued greatly, the issue clearly rises within itself. Writings by Michael Kinsley and Barbara Ehrenreich go head to head in examining both viewpoints demonstrating that both sides of the argument are valid, but the song is creative freedom. Michael Kinsley approaches the issue with a strong mindset. The viewpoint he produces uses many…