In part two of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, she shows the audience how tough life is in Maine. She reveals these hardships by working as a dietary aide for the elderly and a maid. As a dietary aide, she finds work to be tolerable; however, working as a maid causes people with higher-ranking jobs to look down on her and shun her from society. They instantly judge her and make her feel bad about her situation, which she describes as the feeling a black person may have in white society. At this time, she is losing her composure and, as a result, she starts to act in a manner that is considered, in all aspects of the workforce, to be unprofessional. After seeing how these women are underpaid and looked at as “untouchables”, she starts to sympathize with these women and, as a result, starts to show aggression towards Ted, her male supervisor who puts the job before the welfare of his workers. Sometimes, she finds herself searching for a form of welfare in order to eat. She makes new friends and begins to get more pay for the hard work that she does but, in her opinion, it is time to move on to a new place. In order to express these emotions, Barbara uses only a few literary devices. On occasion, I notice the use of metaphors and a change in diction and tone but her use of anecdotes is the main literary device used.
Questions: I noticed that most of the workers around Barbara are other females. As a result, I assume that most underpaid workers are females. If this is correct, why are the majority of these workers female and what do you think is the cause of many females becoming low-class workers?
The way that Barbara acts at times leads me to believe that her life was so good, she now begins to act childish when situations get tough. For example, there are times when she just feels like telling the people that she works for about her true identity in order to separate herself from the truth of what it is that she’s dealing with. Do you agree with this assumption, or am I mistaken?
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5 comments:
okay well to answer your first question i think that perhaps many females are low-class workers because of how men potray women as. Many of the wome are pretty old which lead to an assumption that perhaps during the time that they started attending school people thought that women where inferior and that the only thing they had to do was work and attend their husbands and families. Also many of the low-class women perhaps migated from their homeland to America and some are single parent so they are willing to take anything inorder to achieve their families necessities.
Hmm i really dont agree with the assumption. I actually believe that when she acts that way in wanting to tell everyone her really identity is because she misses a lot her REAL life her career her home family and her job. The jobs she has and has had are hard and NOTHING compared to her real career. I feel that she is just soo frustruated and so agree of what shes doing even tho shes getting to know other peoples lifes and she misses her real self thats wy she feels like telling people. Also anotehr reason would be because of the way shes been treated by her boss the low paying jobs and sometimes she doesnt even have time to eat or get her break thats why shes all tired of it.
Many women are most likely lower class workers either because they dont have the educaton and aren't qualified or because the men who run the etablishment see them as uncabable. Some men feel as though women can not do everything that men can do, thus concluding that they should not be in such a high working class as themselves. Women also may work in lower class jobs because they are easy to obtain, and when one needs money fast they wll take the first job that they can get.In Scrubbing Maine Barbaras coworkers were poor so naturally they would take almost any job they can get in order to barely survive.
I believe that women are not expected to have high paying jobs because the society made people believe that they do not own up to the qualities of one. Woman are unpaid because they are taken for granted and are told that they can only serve people. It all contridics on a family housewife. Society made people believe that woman are here to only cook clean and serve others. So they get underpaying jobs in return to the theories.
I do agree with your thoughts, because Barbara do get a little big-headed and she feels as if she is better then the women. In relity she is but deep down in life she is not. She does not have to act as if she is better than the other women and she shows a little imaturity causing her to look childish.
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