Barbara Ehrenreich - Had I Known

Barbara Ehrenreich is basically George Orwell, just in a different time and place. She is part of that bygone era of seeing society through the lens of class, wealth, privilege. I guess these frameworks have fallen out of fashion and have been replaced by identity politics? 

This essay collection contains Nickel and Dimed, the titled she's best known for. It was first published as an essay in Harper's Magazine (1999) before she expanded it into a full-length book. It basically chronicles Ehrenreich's experiment in living and working as an "unskilled" labourer - first as a waitress then as a hotel chambermaid - at some points holding 2 jobs in order to cover her living expenses.

Going by Ehrenreich's portrayal of blue-collar work in America, the country must be a frightful place. On top of their back-breaking work (popping Advil is part of the waitressing life) the workers undergo both humiliation (routine drug tests and getting screamed by unhinged managers) and exploitation (ridiculously low pay and hustling for tips).

And she didn't just work in those jobs and go back to her cushy home to sleep. Ehrenreich also rented a little place, basically someone's outhouse in the back of his mobile home, to stay in. She would go "home" late at night after her 2 jobs, hand-launder her clothes in the dark, only to find in the morning that the ketchup and grease stains from yesterday were still showing. 

In summary it was super disturbing and heartbreaking - even as it was a pleasure to read. As much as in-work poverty is a problem in Singapore, at least it's not as fucked up as it is in the US. (I don't imagine much has changed in the intervening two decades since this essay was published)

The other powerful essay was Welcome to Cancerland, published in Harper's in 2001, about her anger at getting diagnosed with breast cancer, and her antipathy towards the breast cancer industrial complex. 

The rest of the essays are generally lighter reading. I liked 2 essays published in the 1980s: At Last, A New Man (NYT, 1984) and Strategies of Corporate Women (New Republic, 1986). Wow, I'm old. Doubtless these gendered observations do not matter to the Yoofs of today - humanity has sort of merged into one colourful never-stop-hustling doom-scrolling mass.

I love Ehrenreich's vitriol. But - and I'm reading this as someone who used to work in media/journalism - it must have been nearly impossible to find a title willing to publish this sort of content for fear of putting off advertisers. I get the sense that Ehrenreich really had to hold her political feelings in when writing for publications. It must have been tremendously freeing to write her own books, even write on her blog.