Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich, in her collection of brief essays The Worst Years of Our Lives, presents the general thesis that the 1980s, the infamous Reagan era, were indeed not good years for many if not most Americans. The book argues that the 1980s comprised a decade of superficiality, corruption, deceit, selfishness, racism, sexism, and so on. In short, every false and/or destructive value which can be championed was championed in the 1980s in the United States. The corruption was shared by all to some degree, says the author, but especially flowed from the top down, specifically from the White House down.

This book of essays is comprehensive in the subjects it takes on, exploring political, social, economic, sexual and religious topics which preoccupied America during the decade in question. She shoots her arrows not only at the political /religious right, which is certainly her favorite target, but also at targets on the left, from feminists to sensitive "new men" to wimpy liberals.

The book is effective in skewering with much humor all these various targets, so that the reader leaves the book with the feeling that there was little of any value whatsoever in the country in the 1980s. It is up to the reader to decide whether this is true or not. However, the reader should perhaps not condemn Ehrenreich simply because her essays focus primarily on what seems to be condemnation, or at least judgment, of so many people and positions. To be fair to Ehrenreich, the purpose of sa

Related Essays

Women's Lib as a Ressentiment Movement .... different perspectives by Betty Friedan in her book The Feminine Mystique, with Friedan approaching the issue as a feminist, and by Barbara Ehrenreich in The .... (2195 9 )

Children and Divorce .... On the other hand, Barbara Ehrenreich (1996) claimed that much of the trouble for children resulting from divorce may be attributable to the drop in income .... (2123 8 )

Development of the feminist movement .... different perspectives by Betty Friedan in her book The Feminine Mystique, with Friedan approaching the issue as a feminist, and by Barbara Ehrenreich in The .... (2359 9 )

Post-Industrial Society .... Yet during this economic change, as Frances FitzGerald and Barbara Ehrenreich both suggest, socioeconomic or "class" issues became much less important than .... (1775 7 )

Making A Living One is Vivian Gornick in Working in the Catskills and the other is Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. .... (1768 7 )

it in words whose cuteness undermines the message: "No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots" (11). Does she really see herself as a rebel and a dissident? Why? Because she is a writer in America who has gained her fame by criticizing the Reagan administration? Most writers for major periodicals in the United States are liberals and most liberals had nothing but criticism for Reagan. Being a part of an elite, wealthy and well-esteemed crowd, such as Ehrenreich certainly is, is not being a rebel and a dissident. The problem with to many "rebels" such as Ehrenreich is precisely that they don't really dissent, don't really fearlessly and dangerously threaten or challenge the evildoers who run things, but instead merely gently poke the ribs of the people and institutions they should be barbecuing alive. For example, of Reagan and the other evildoers who ran the country in the Eighties, she has these cute and unoriginal things to say: We were told . . . by the president or his henchpersons, that trees cause pollution. . . . It tickles my sense of patriotism that Third World insurgents . . . borrowed the ideas of our own Afric

Category: Psychology - B