The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.
Barbara Ehrenreichin our culture, the professional, and largely white, middle class is taken as a social norm - a bland and neutral mainstream - from which every other group or class is ultimately a kind of deviation.
Barbara EhrenreichThe Republicans hardly need a party and the cumbersome cadre of low-level officials that form one; they have a bankroll as large as the Pentagon's budget, dozens of fatted PACs, and the well-advertised support of the Christian deity.
Barbara EhrenreichRoman Catholicism: a hundred million people bowing down before a flesh-hating, elderly celibate.
Barbara EhrenreichBoth chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about.
Barbara EhrenreichIf men were equally at risk from this condition - if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains - then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.
Barbara Ehrenreich