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Working as a Pariah in America

Working as a Pariah in America . About the Author * B arbara E hrenreich * . Background : born in 1941, from Butte, Montana, family members are either miners or homemakers,

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Working as a Pariah in America

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  1. Working as a Pariah in America

  2. About the Author *Barbara Ehrenreich* • Background: born in 1941, from Butte, Montana, family members are either miners or homemakers, PhD in cell biology, quit teaching job and start to become a journalist and a activist for social change, a writer for Fourteen books and a columnist at the New York Times and Time magazine • Why Wrote the Book? She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. • You’re Short, Besides & Nickel and Dimed: similar writing style: both include the oral English such as “Cripple! Cripple!”, “Bullshit”. The narrative style Chan is focus on how she as a disabled student want to be successful at school , was discriminated as the handicapped Ehrenreich depicts her fake blue collar life of pursuing success, was discriminated as a working class woman

  3. Summary • Introduction: Getting Ready • Chapter 1: Serving in Florida - waitress • Chapter2: Scrubbing in Maine - dietary aide - maid • Chapter3: Selling in Minnesota - seller • Evaluation

  4. Quotes 1 & 2 • In poverty, as in certain propositions in physics, starting conditions are everything. (27) • There are only two forms of rebellion I have seen any evidence of and neither of them challenges the vaulting social hierarchy above us. (107)

  5. Quotes 3 & 4 • Low-wage workers are no more homogeneous in personality or ability than people who write for a living, and no less likely to be funny or bright (8). • The poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric and intellectual endeavors as well as from its daily entertainment (117)

  6. A paragraph • Maids, as an occupational group, are not visible, and when we are seen we are often sorry for it. On the way to the Martha Stewart-ish place, when Holly and Marge were complaining about her haughtiness in a past encounter, I had ventured to ask why so many of the owners seem hostile or contemptuous toward us. “They think we’re stupid,” was Holly’s answer. “ They think we have nothing better to do with our time.” Marge too looked suddenly sober. “ We’re nothing to these people,” she said. “We’re just maids.” Nor are we much of anything to anyone else. Even convenience store clerks, who are $6-an-hour gal’s themselves, seem to look down on us… …May be it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black

  7. Conclusion • A picture of low-wage working lives - dark and heartbreaking side of working class in America • The traditional idea “too lazy to work” & “a job will defeat poverty.” • A lot of social issues, but… • Low-wage work is mentally and physically challenging.

  8. Thank you!! Any Questions?

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