Barbara Ehrenreich is one of my favourite authors. She has written (at least) three important works: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America (2001);Welcome to Cancerland (2001) ; and, Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer (2018).
Cancerland can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20131108181820/http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm .
To research Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich engaged in a three-month experiment surviving on minimum wage as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart clerk. Her book reports on the difficulties low wage workers face, including hidden costs for shelter and food. The work requires a wide variety of attributes, including stamina, focus, memory, quick thinking, and fast learning. Workers risk repetitive stress injury, have degrading and uninteresting tasks, and have to deal with managers who demeaned and interfered with productivity.
In Cancerland, she described a breast cancer cult, which “serves as an accomplice in global poisoning — normalizing cancer, prettying it up, even presenting it, perversely, as a positive and enviable experience.”
In 2014, at an age of 72, Ehrenreich realized that she was old enough to die. She did not want to waste the time on preventive medical tests or restricting her diet in pursuit of a longer life. She would seek help for a health issue, but would not look for problems. A wellness industry, a cult of mindfulness and food fads elude people into believing that we are in control of our bodies. But with her Ph.D. in cellular immunology Ehrenreich argues that this is not so. The immune systems can promote rather than prevent the spread of cancer cells.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/07/barbara-ehrenreich-natural-causes-book-old-enough-to-die
Originally, I had intended to use another photo to illustrate this post, one titled “Ehrenreich in 2015” that accompanies her Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ehrenreich
Unfortunately, when I attempted to trace the provenience of this photo, in Creative Commons, it refers to it as Barbara Ehrenreich 2 by David Shankbone, New York City. It also gives the creation date as 1 September 2006, nine years before 2015.
Lies everywhere.
From today’s Guardian, “In her latest book, Natural Causes, Barbara Ehrenrich criticises the recent paradigm shift in which “now, health is indistinguishable from virtue”. The last decade has witnessed the emergence of orthorexia – an eating disorder in which a fixation for “healthy eating” is what causes one harm.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/13/eight-feminist-ways-to-love-your-body-without-even-leaving-the-house