Nickel and Dimed analysis Essay

In my opinion, I savour that the author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich, had ethical intentions when making the decision to investigate want by emerging herself in the low-wage lifestyle. The ethical concern, however, is with her approach. I timbre that the room in which it was conducted could be viewed as degrading to those who do not conduct an alternative to this way of living.True, hopeless poverty does not have those reassuring limits that Ehrenreich had the ability to utilize when she was in a position that do her uncomfortable with the consequences of the poverty she was attempting to study. By keeping her car, she writes, Yes, I could have walked more(prenominal) or limited myself to jobs accessible by humankind transportation, and I full figured that a story about waiting for buses would not be very interesting to read. The sole allowance of this access to transportation, although she also retained other things such as her ATM card in instances that unde termined her to hunger or homelessness, was in the interest of entertainment versus science.I do know, though, that Ehrenreich was aw be that she was never going to be able to fully beam to this endeavor when she writes, With all the real-life assets Ive built up in snapper agebank account, IRA, health insurance, multiroom homewaiting indulgently in the background, she admits, there was no way I was going to experience poverty or find out how it really feels to be a semipermanent low-wage worker. I applaud her efforts to whole-heartedly work the low-wage jobs she acquired and submerge herself in a way of life that was completely foreign to her. In doing so, I feel that the research, contempt its flaws, succeeded in exploring the plight of the low-wage worker in our society at that time.Her inability to budget her expenses with the minimal income that she received, in itself, was a testament to the trials and tribulations that those women face on a cyclic basis finishedout thei r Many of the life situations that the characters in Nickle and Dimed were dealing with are not commonly discussed in todays society. Media portrays the poor with stereotypical images. According to an article by Bullock et al. (2001), women receiving public assistance are stereotyped as lazy, disinterested in education, and promiscuous. the States is depicted as either a trackless society or one in which the majority of people are middle class citizens.Despite the lack of awareness of this type of poverty, I do feel that their arrangements are, unfortunately, not uncommon at all. Ehrenreichs experience with low-wage work in Florida was significantly different than her experience in Maine. She reports that in Maine, Even toilet facility store clerks, who are $6- an-hour gals themselves, seem to look down on us. In the predominantly white Maine, the maiden profession is viewed at in an just about servant-like way, they are the ones who must do the dirty work for the wealthy and are not seen as equals. The history of maid work was usually assumption to minorities, which could explain for this treatment. As for Key West, Ehrenreich did not have the same issues with require to degradation, however, she struggling with keep an eye oning her low- wage lifestyle.The waitressing job at Hearthside paid very pocketable so she had to pick up a second job to get ahead ends accept. Because both jobs were so emotionally and physically taxing, Ehrenreich was only able to maintain this for 2 weeks versus the 4 weeks that she had been able to endure in Maine. Although her job as a maid in Maine was also strenuous, and despite the fact that she also had a second job, I believe that her experience in Florida was tougher on her because it was her first attempt at living this lifestyle. By the time she arrived in Maine, I think she had internalized that much of what she was enduring was the everyday lives of the women who she had gotten to know throughout her experience an d relented to the existence of poverty.The drastic increase in affluent households utilise maid services can be explained by a act of things. According to Ehrenreich, with the influx of women into the workforce, tensions arose over housework. Once women began working and did not just rely on their husbands wages, women began to expect more from their husbands. When the persuasion of this equal partnership was not being fulfilled, it caused many disagreements within households. The maid services even saved marriages and took advantage by obtaining contracts from these homes by capitalizing on this idea, to intervene and solve their problems by eliminating the need for an argument over housework. In her statement, For the first time in my life as a maid, I have a purpose more compelling than trying to meet the aesthetic standards of the New England bourgeoisie, I believe that Ehrenreich was tired of dowry the people she worked for keep up with the Joneses.She had come to the real ization that neither her employer, nor the families whose homes she worked in, dictum her or the women she worked with as human. When they were feeling ill they were told to work through it despite the extenuating circumstances that surrounded their health issues and the circumstance maintaining them. This iterate represents her purpose when having to work to compensate for her ailing teammate and helped explain her views on the injustices that these women were enduring. Besides worrying about the dirt under the carpet that was primed(p) as a test by a home proprietor or the dust on the hundreds of unread books on shelves, she had to take a step back from the robotic, day to day work of the maid.This helped her truly see the human suffering that she was witnessing firsthand and enraged her to want to root on for these women so that others were able to see it too.REFERENCESBullock, H.E., Wyche, K.F., & Williams, W.R. (2001). Media Images of the Poor. Journal of Social Issues, 57 (2), 229246. Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickle and Dimed. New York Picador.