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If the author had been a woman of color, she might have faced additional discrimination in hiring, and found she was kept away from certain jobs, even though such hiring practices are illegal. She does note often throughout the book that many (in fact most) of her co-workers are white, so it is clear immigrants and women of color work at even lower paying jobs behind the scenes. She also notes that no matter what their color, most of the women have to have a second job just to survive. She notes, "Of my fellow servers, everyone who lacks a working husband or boyfriend seems to have a second job: Nita does something at a computer eight hours a day; another welds" (Ehrenreich 39). Thus, these women work hard at one job, but cannot rest; they go to a second job just to pay the bills, leaving little time for recreation or relaxation, even if they could afford it.
It seems that race is quite important in "life chances," but even more important is class. If these women do not do something to develop other,...
As the author so graphically discusses in her "Evaluation" at the end of the book, many low-wage workers simply do not know what is available to them, or how to access it, and so, they continue in the world of low-wage jobs, unable to break out and make better lives for themselves. Different races can actually obtain some rights and education because of their race, but poor, lower-class, low-wage workers often do not even have that available to them. It seems that life chances favor just about everyone but the lowest classes, and that sometimes, there is just nowhere to go but down, or stay right where they are. It can be blamed on any number of sociological and cultural items, but the truth is, the lowest classes in America often do not have a lot of hope for the future.
References
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Owl Books, 2002.
Nickel and Dream People who are born or raised in the United States share unique character traits because of the American culture. Because this is considered a land of freedom and opportunity there are rights and gifts that are promised to each citizen. The American Dream is the unique idea that anyone who is willing to work hard can come from nothing and achieve their life's goals and ambitions so long
However, I did not feel in any way degraded by the position in the way that Ehrenreich did, and I believe that to be the case because many of Ehrenreich's positions were by their very nature problematic. For example, she worked as a waitress and a house cleaner. Both of those positions place the individual in a position of subservience. Working at Blockbuster is different because we are around
" (Ehrenreich, 2001, p.44) At least as a waitress, Ehrenreich is visible. Maids, which are usually, except in all-white areas like Maine, utterly invisible and socially isolated in the socially stratified community. Worse yet, while Ehrenreich might have had some anxiety about passing, even educated Black women occasionally have trouble 'passing' for the class they are a part of. 'Oh Look Mommy a baby maid," Ehrenreich quotes the poet "Audre Lorde"
Ehrenreich notes how girls who must work for hours cleaning houses often select a bag of Doritos over a sandwich for lunch, presumably because the Doritos are cheaper and taste good. Of course, for the workers at the lowest end of the pay scale, Doritos or the free burger Ehrenreich gets as a waitress for lunch is an undreamed-of luxury. Lunch might instead be some store-brand hot dog or hamburger
Ehrenreich Nickeled and Dimed In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, the workers trapped in dead-end service sector jobs have virtually no chance at all of escaping poverty or obtaining any meaningful quality of life. That is one of the main themes of the book, a constant struggle for mere subsistence with a high cost of living and a very poor quality of life. These jobs are all the same in that
Nickeled and Dimed In an attempt to prevent families from living below the poverty line in the United States, the government ensures that people are paid a minimum-wage. Through this minimum-wage, the government believes that people can afford to pay their rents and bills, and cover the costs of their groceries, etc. However, this is not true, as the minimum-wage is indeed too little for the average family to survive on.