The sharpness of the division that Ehrenreich perceives might be at least partially a symptom of her ultimate lack of subjectivity. In her introduction, Ehrenreich admits that she has many advantages over actual minimum-wage workers, not the least Continue Reading...
Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich is a writer and journalist who decided to conduct an experiment and find out for herself what it is like to live on the minimum wage. For one month at a time she entered various communities, Continue Reading...
Rent, gas, utilities, food, and clothing become a burden because the market is not set up for those who make the least but those who make more than that and it really does not matter how much more because at a certain level, it is all too much and t Continue Reading...
Ehrenreich Nickeled and Dimed In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, the workers trapped in dead-end service sector jobs have virtually no chance at all of escaping poverty or obtaining any meaningful quality of life. That is one of the main them Continue Reading...
However, I did not feel in any way degraded by the position in the way that Ehrenreich did, and I believe that to be the case because many of Ehrenreich's positions were by their very nature problematic. For example, she worked as a waitress and a h Continue Reading...
Nickeled and Dimed In an attempt to prevent families from living below the poverty line in the United States, the government ensures that people are paid a minimum-wage. Through this minimum-wage, the government believes that people can afford to pa Continue Reading...
" (Ehrenreich, 2001, p.44) At least as a waitress, Ehrenreich is visible. Maids, which are usually, except in all-white areas like Maine, utterly invisible and socially isolated in the socially stratified community. Worse yet, while Ehrenreich might Continue Reading...
Ehrenreich notes how girls who must work for hours cleaning houses often select a bag of Doritos over a sandwich for lunch, presumably because the Doritos are cheaper and taste good. Of course, for the workers at the lowest end of the pay scale, Do Continue Reading...
If the author had been a woman of color, she might have faced additional discrimination in hiring, and found she was kept away from certain jobs, even though such hiring practices are illegal. She does note often throughout the book that many (in f Continue Reading...
Nickel and Dream People who are born or raised in the United States share unique character traits because of the American culture. Because this is considered a land of freedom and opportunity there are rights and gifts that are promised to each citi Continue Reading...
Global Woman The book Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hothschild is a series of essays that explore the subject of female migration at the beginning of the 21st century. The work contai Continue Reading...
Bronfenbrenner's four systems consist of microsystems (i.e. nuclear family, neighborhood, schools, etc.); mesosystems (i.e. The specific connections between the individual and microsystems); exosystems (i.e. external environment and circumstances s Continue Reading...
..a commercial for Wal-Mart. When a Wal-Mart shows up within a television within a Wal-Mart, you have to question the existence of an outer world"(Ehrenreich, 179). The author is highly critical of places like Wal-Mart for she knows that these are th Continue Reading...
Cure" for Poverty? With most unskilled labor jobs in America paying no more that six or seven dollars an hour, there will never be an end to poverty. In all actuality, it doesn't matter is someone researches the subject for ten years, goes to colle Continue Reading...
"17 Keeping all these facts and figures in mind, it would not be wrong to conclude that low wage is one of the more serious problems of the country and needs urgent remedy. The government needs to address the issue properly and effectively keeping i Continue Reading...
Building a Middle Class Life on the Backs of the Poor When she wrote Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America., Barbara Ehrenreich did not set out with the intention of making her readers feel sorry for the subjects of the book, who are work Continue Reading...
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. 221 pp. $23. ISBN-10: 0312626681 Barbara Ehrenreich w Continue Reading...
Ehrenreich Meets Mills The sociologist of the 1950's C. Wright Mills' paraphrases a common American belief that one's work or livelihood is an exuberant expression of the soul, rather than a way to pay for life's necessities and to provide for one's Continue Reading...
Women's Work Inside And Outside The Home Women are expected to carry out household duties such as cooking, doing laundry, cleaning taking care of the children and so on. I can say that no other work compares to the stress that women have to go throu Continue Reading...
However, the social perceptions that could have gained her an easier entry into low-class work also could have kept her there, and prevented her from entering a management position. Gender in the absence of race seems to be the cutting divide at the Continue Reading...
Globalization has stripped the U.S. Of its stranglehold over manufacturing and forced it to readjust itself into a service oriented industry. As a result, education, training and specialization are more crucial than ever for the attainment of high p Continue Reading...
Mass Culture and Popular Culture and Studying Bestsellers Books This paper takes into account the differences in the best sellers written in the 1980's and in the 1990's. It also focuses on the themes of the best sellers from the two decades and wha Continue Reading...
Malnutrition / Obesity Due to Low Wages This paper delves into the direct affects of minimum wages on eating habits of people. People die of starvation and malnutrition but with the advent of genetically modified food and other such technologies the Continue Reading...
Sociology Take Home Final Unequal Power Relationships and Laborers The unequal power relationship that characterizes many employment relationships is characteristic of industrialized capitalism. Capitalism itself is defined by the manufacturing div Continue Reading...
According to both testimonials and statistics, educated people report higher levels of personal happiness and job satisfaction. In her book, Nickel and Dimed, comfortably wealthy author Barbara Ehrenreich reports being taken out for a "$30 lunch an Continue Reading...
Racism and Society -- Literary Analysis Zora Neal Hurston's heartfelt essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928) presents the experiences of a young girl as remembered by an adult black woman in the early 20th century. Her narrative is simultaneousl Continue Reading...
Racism and Society -- Literature Response Race and Identity as Functions of Societal Labeling and Expectations Two pieces of 20th century literature exemplify the alienation felt by African-Americans in the United States. One of those works, author Continue Reading...
If it has, how has it? If it hasn't, how much is it left? Fordism thus remains. It remains in worker surveillance, to guard against morality and time theft. It remains in the increased bureaucratization of the global economy, as multi-million doll Continue Reading...
Muckrakers As a profession, muckraking has gained a bad reputation ever since President Teddy Roosevelt compared certain journalists to the obsessive lad in the Pilgrim's Progress. In this 1906 speech, Roosevelt likened many journalists of his day t Continue Reading...
working poor are poor because they work too few hours and are lazy. While working additional hours reduces the chance of poverty, many full-time and year-round workers are still poor, due to the low wages they receive (Quammen, 1996). In addition, o Continue Reading...
SOCIOLOGY - HOW WORKING-CLASS PEOPLE EXPERIENCE BOTH STRUCTURAL AND CULTURAL BARRIERS TO UPWARD MOBILITY. The American Dream is a popular cultural fiction that drives many Americans to work hard and persistently for upward mobility. Unfortunately, s Continue Reading...
Economic Inequalities: Deep-ceded Problems in America New York is a city that is synonymous with America to many people and societies around the world. New York city is a land of freedom and opportunity, symbolized by Lady Liberty in New York harbor Continue Reading...
The Sociology of Fast Food Discussion 1: The sociological imagination allows a thorough investigation of the ways values, norms, and beliefs are transmitted. With an imaginative eye, the sociologist can critique social institutions and structures Continue Reading...
This should not have been the view that the nation held especially in light of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Towers, the attacks on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. Each of the attacks h Continue Reading...
