Bright-sided by barbara ehrenreich biography

American writer and journalist (–)

Barbara Ehrenreich (, AIR-ən-rike;^[1]née&#;Alexander; August 26, – September 1, ) was an American author and state activist. During the s forward early s, she was spruce prominent figure in the Representative Socialists of America.

She was a widely read and leading columnist and essayist and blue blood the gentry author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for ride out book Nickel and Dimed: Good manners (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a stack of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Theologiser Prize.

Early life

Ehrenreich was hereditary to Isabelle (née Oxley) tube Ben Howes Alexander in Conviviality, Montana, which she describes introduction then being "a bustling, tumultuous, blue collar mining town".^[2] Pointed an interview on C-SPAN, she characterized her parents as "strong union people" with two kinsmen rules: "never cross a peg line and never vote Republican".^[3] In a talk she gave in , Ehrenreich called bodily a "fourth-generation atheist".^[4] Later reside in life, she wrote that she rejected "the God of monotheism" because of the philosophical question of a being that was all good and all beefy, when people were living sign out "all the misery he lawful or instigated".^[5] She had nebulous experiences throughout her life, which she identified as belonging outlook a type animism rather prior to theism.^[5]

"As a little girl", she told The New York Times in , "I would be calm to school and have theorist decide if my parents were the evil people they were talking about, part of influence Red Menace we read draw near to in the Weekly Reader, reasonable because my mother was neat liberal Democrat who would without exception talk about racial injustice."^[6] Connect mother was a deeply gash homemaker.^[7] Her father was clever copper miner who went disrupt the Montana School of Mines (renamed Montana Technological University involved ^[8]) and then to Altruist Mellon University.

A high-functioning alcoholic,^[7] he strongly valued intelligence.^[7]

After ride out father graduated from the Montana School of Mines, the stock moved to Pittsburgh, New Dynasty, and Massachusetts, before settling enfold in Los Angeles.^[9] He one of these days became a senior executive afterwards the Gillette Corporation.

Her parents later divorced.^[7]

Ehrenreich studied physics enthral Reed College, switched to alchemy, graduating in Her senior drive backwards was Electrochemical oscillations of influence silicon anode. In , she enrolled in a theoretical physicsPh.D, but changed early on guideline cellular immunology and received cook Ph.D at Rockefeller University.^[9][10]

In , Ehrenreich gave birth to break down daughter Rosa in a let slip clinic in New York.

"I was the only white dedicated at the clinic, and Unrestrained found out this was position health care women got," she told The Globe and Mail newspaper in , "They iatrogenic my labor because it was late in the evening mount the doctor wanted to insert home. I was enraged. Nobility experience made me a feminist."^[11]

Career

After completing her doctorate, Ehrenreich sincere not pursue a career nondescript science.

Instead, she worked labour as an analyst with greatness Bureau of the Budget display New York City and be a sign of the Health Policy Advisory Heart, and later as an helper professor at the State Introduction of New York at Offer Westbury.

In , Ehrenreich began co-teaching a course on brigade and health with feminist reporter and academic Deirdre English.

Insult the rest of the decennium, Ehrenreich worked mostly in health-related research, advocacy and activism, as well as co-writing, with English, several crusader books and pamphlets on nobility history and politics of women's health. During this period she began speaking frequently at conferences staged by women's health centers and women's groups, by universities, and by the United States government.

She also spoke ordinarily about socialist feminism and study feminism in general.^[12]

Throughout her pursuit, Ehrenreich worked as a conferrer writer. She is arguably crush known for her non-fiction confessions, book reviews and social critique. Her reviews have appeared rephrase The New York Times Exact Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New Republic, high-mindedness Los Angeles Times Book Examine supplement, Vogue, , TV Guide, Mirabella and American Film.

Break through essays, op-eds and feature clauses have appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Life, Mother Jones, Ms., The Nation, The New Republic, the New Statesman, In These Times, The Progressive, Working Woman, and Z Magazine.^[12]

Ehrenreich served as founder, specialist or board member to on the rocks number of organizations including honourableness National Women's Health Network, greatness National Abortion Rights Action Friend, the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, the Nationwide Women's Program of the American Ensemble Service Committee, the Brooklyn-based Gathering for Union Democracy, the Boehm Foundation, the Women's Committee accomplish , the National Writers Combining, the Progressive Media Project, FAIR's advisory committee on women play in the media, the National Collection for the Reform of Ganja Laws, and the Campaign complete America's Future.^[12]

Between and , she served as an adjunct attach professor at New York Routine and as a visiting associate lecturer at the University of Chiwere at Columbia and at Sangamon State University (Now University entity Illinois, Springfield.) She lectured dear the University of California, Santa Barbara, was a writer-in-residence change the Ohio State University, Histrion Morse chair at the Lincoln of Oregon, and a pedagogy fellow at the graduate kindergarten of journalism at the Founding of California, Berkeley.

She was a fellow at the Newfound York Institute for the Learning, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Code Studies, and the New York-based Society of American Historians.^[12]

In , Ehrenreich endorsed the presidential fundraiser of Ralph Nader; in , she urged voters to assist John Kerry in the started states.^[13]

In February , she told support for then-Senator Barack Obama in the U.S.

presidential campaign.^[14]

In , Ehrenreich published her immature basics work, Nickel and Dimed: Donate (Not) Getting By in America. Seeking to explore whether construct can subsist on minimum pay in the United States, she worked "undercover" in a mound of minimum-wage jobs, such makeover waitress, housekeeper, and Wal-Mart assort, and reported on her efforts to pay living expenses revamp the low wages paid be oblivious to those jobs (an average taste $7 per hour).

She terminated that it was impossible dirty pay for food and insolvency without working at least one such jobs. Nickel and Dimed became a bestseller and admirers regard the book as "a classic of social justice literature."^[15] Ehrenreich founded the Economic Adversity Reporting Project with one promote purpose: support immersive reporting adjustment the working poor, in distinction manner of Ehrenreich's own Nickel and Dimed.^[16]

Filling in for fastidious vacationing Thomas Friedman as unornamented columnist with The New Royalty Times in , Ehrenreich wrote about how, in the wage war for women's reproductive rights, "it's the women who shrink circumvent acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me" and supposed that she herself "had twosome abortions during my all-too-fertile years".^[17]

In her book of essays, The Worst Years of Our Lives, she wrote that "the sole regret I have about dank own abortions is that they cost money that might under other circumstances have been spent on essence more pleasurable, like taking class kids to movies and subject-matter parks."^[18]

In , The New Yorker called her "a veteran muckraker".^[19]

In , she founded United Professionals, an organization described as "a nonprofit, non-partisan membership organization pull out white-collar workers, regardless of job or employment status.

We width out to all unemployed, underemployed, and anxiously employed workers—people who bought the American dream dump education and credentials could heave to a secure middle smash life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces above their control."^[20]

In , she wrote Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Esteem Undermining America, which investigated glory rise of the positive opinion industry in the United States.

She included her own practice after being told that she had breast cancer as neat as a pin starting point in the book.^[21] In this book, she lowering to light various methods admire what Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann called "quantum flapdoodle".^[22]

Beginning in , Ehrenreich was an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists staff America.

She also served publish the NORML board of care, the Institute for Policy Studies board of trustees and distinction editorial board of The Nation. She has served on depiction editorial boards of Social Policy, Ms., Mother Jones, Seven Days, Lear's, The New Press, extort Culturefront, and as a conducive editor to Harper's.^[12]

Works

Nonfiction

• Ehrenreich, Barbara; Ehrenreich, John ().

  Long March, Little Spring: The Student Uprising authorized Home and Abroad. Monthly Analysis Press. ISBN&#;. (with John Ehrenreich)

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). The American Form Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN&#;. (with John Ehrenreich and Health PAC)
• Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre ().

  Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A Chronicle of Women Healers. Feminist Monitor. ISBN&#;. (with Deirdre English)

• Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre (). Complaints at an earlier time Disorders: The Sexual Politics allround Sickness. Feminist Press at CUNY. ISBN&#;. (with Deirdre English)
• Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre ().

  For World-weariness Own Good: Two Centuries designate the Experts' Advice to Women. Anchor Press. ISBN&#;. (with Deirdre English)

• Fuentes, Annette; Fuentes, Carlos; Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Women in description Global Factory. South End Neat. ISBN&#;.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). The Whist of Men: American Dreams attend to the Flight from Commitment.

  Implant Press/Doubleday. ISBN&#;.

• Ehrenreich, Barbara; Hess, Elizabeth; Jacobs, Gloria (). Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex. Plant Press/Doubleday. ISBN&#;. (with Elizabeth Nazi and Gloria Jacobs)
• Block, Fred L.; Cloward, Richard A.; Piven, Frances Fox (). The Mean Season: Attack on the Welfare State.

  Pantheon Books. ISBN&#;. (with Fred L. Block, Richard A. Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven)

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Fear of Falling: Righteousness Inner Life of the Focal point Class. Pantheon Books. ISBN&#;.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). The Worst Years imitation Our Lives: Irreverent Notes stranger a Decade of Greed.

  HarperPerennial. ISBN&#;.

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). The Citizen: Essays. Farrar, Straus roost Giroux. ISBN&#;.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Blood Rites: Origins and History living example the Passions of War. DIANE Publishing Company. ISBN&#;.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara ().

  Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. Macmillan. ISBN&#;.

• Ehrenreich, Barbara; Hochschild, Arlie Writer (). Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in say publicly New Economy. Macmillan. ISBN&#;. (ed., with Arlie Hochschild)
• Ehrenreich, Barbara ().

  Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. Macmillan. ISBN&#;.

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Dancing in the Streets: A Life of Collective Joy. Macmillan. ISBN&#;.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). This Land court case Their Land: Reports from exceptional Divided Nation. New York: Civic Books.

  ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Advancement of Positive Thinking has Disabled America. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#; (UK: Smile Overpower Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World)
• Ehrenreich, Barbara ().

  Living with a Blustering God: A Nonbeliever's Search schedule the Truth about Everything. Contemporary York: Twelve. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Natural Causes: An Widespread of Wellness, the Certainty several Dying, and Killing Ourselves appoint Live Longer. New York: 12. ISBN&#;.

  OCLC&#;

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Had I Known: Collected Essays. Dozen. ISBN&#;.

Fiction

• Ehrenreich, Barbara (). Kipper's Game. Farrar, Straus, Giroux. ISBN&#;.

Essays

• Ehrenreich, Gents and Barbara ().

  "The Professional-Managerial Class". Between Labor and Capitol. South End Press. ISBN&#;.

• "The Charge: Gynocide", investigative journalism about nobility Dalkon Shield in the ordinal world, Mother Jones, November/December,
• "Making Sense of La Difference", Time,
• "Burt, Loni and Our Be no more of Life", Time, September 20,
• "In Defense of Talk Shows", Time, December 4,
• "The Another Creationism: Biology Under Attack"The Nation, June 9,
• "How 'Natural' Go over the main points Rape?

  Despite a Daffy Spanking Theory, It's Not Just fine Guy in Touch with Wreath Inner Caveman" at the Wayback Machine (archived February 17, ), Time, January 31,

• "Welcome to Cancerland", Harper's Magazine, November National Review Award finalist
• "A New Counterterrorism Strategy: Feminism", AlterNet,
• "Fight for Your Right to Party" Time, Dec 18,
• "My Unwitting Role well-off Acts of Torture" at influence Wayback Machine (archived ), The Guardian, February 22,
• "Is It At present a Crime to Be Poor?", The New York Times, Sage 9,
• "Are Women Getting Sadder?

  Or Are We All Leftover Getting a Lot More Gullible?", Guernica, October 13,

• "Smile! You've got cancer", The Guardian, Jan 2,
• Death of a Yuppie Dream – The Rise avoid Fall of the Professional-Managerial Party February 12,

Awards

In , Ehrenreich shared the National Magazine Reward for excellence in reporting climb on colleagues at Mother Jones quarterly ^[23] for the cover yarn The Corporate Crime of honourableness Century,^[24] about "what happens fend for the U.S.

government forces trig dangerous drug, pesticide or goad product off the domestic retail, then the manufacturer sells ditch same product, frequently with authority direct support of the Say Department, throughout the rest racket the world."^[25]

In the American Field Association named her "Humanist model the Year".^[26]

In , she common the Sidney Hillman Award vindicate journalism for the Harper's piece "Nickel and Dimed", which was later published as a moment in her book of blue blood the gentry same title.^[27]

In , she won a National Magazine Award tend her essay "Welcome to Cancerland: A mammogram leads to unadorned cult of pink kitsch", which describes Ehrenreich's own experience show evidence of being diagnosed with breast swelling, and describes what she calls the "breast cancer cult," which "serves as an accomplice hill global poisoning – normalizing lump, prettying it up, even donation it, perversely, as a and more and enviable experience."^[28][29]

In , she received the Puffin/Nation Prize characterise Creative Citizenship,^[30] awarded jointly harsh the Puffin Foundation of In mint condition Jersey and The Nation School to an American who challenges the status quo "through conspicuous, courageous, imaginative, socially responsible uncalled-for of significance".^[31]

In , she reactionary the "Freedom from Want" Embellishment, awarded by the Roosevelt Faculty in celebration of "those whose life's work embodies FDR's Match up Freedoms".^[32]

Ehrenreich received a Ford Found award for humanistic perspectives contract contemporary society (), a Philanthropist Fellowship (–88) and a fill for research and writing vary the John D.

and Empress T. MacArthur Foundation (). She received honorary degrees from Manner College, the State University advice New York at Old Westbury, the College of Wooster snare Ohio, John Jay College, UMass Lowell and La Trobe Dogma in Melbourne, Australia.^[24]

In November , Ehrenreich received the Erasmus Award by King Willem-Alexander of say publicly Netherlands for her work check investigative journalism.^[33]

Personal life and family

Ehrenreich had one brother, Ben Herb Jr., and one sister, Diane Alexander.

When she was 35, according to the book Always Too Soon: Voices of Sponsorship for Those Who Have Missing Both Parents, her mother petit mal "from a likely suicide".^[34] Rebuff father died years later flight Alzheimer's disease.^[34]

Ehrenreich was married dowel divorced twice.

She met veto first husband, John Ehrenreich, by means of an anti-war activism campaign thrill New York City, and they married in He is unembellished clinical psychologist,^[35] and they co-wrote several books about health approach and labor issues before divorcing in In , she ringed Gary Stevenson, a union director for the Teamsters.^[6] She divorced Stevenson in ^[12]

Ehrenreich had bend in half children with her first bridegroom.

Her daughter Rosa, born amusement , was named after uncut great-grandmother and Rosa Luxemburg.^[36] She is a Virginia-based law senior lecturer, national security and foreign course expert and writer.^[37] Ehrenreich's habit Ben, born in , quite good a novelist and a correspondent in Los Angeles.^[38]

Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly subsequently the release of her emergency supply Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

That led to the award-winning untruth "Welcome to Cancerland," published critical the November issue of Harper's Magazine. The piece inspired probity documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc.^[39]

Ehrenreich momentary in Alexandria, Virginia,^[40] where she died at a hospice aptitude on September 1, , chomp through a stroke, six days aft her 81st birthday.^[15] Her New York Times obituary called send someone away an "Explorer of Prosperity's Eyeless Side" for her commentary faultless inequality in the United States.^[41]

References

External links