Getting By on the Minimum
The Lives of Working-Class Women
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- $54.99
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- $54.99
Publisher Description
First published in 2002. Jennifer Johnson profiles the real-life stories of more than sixty women who have no college education, are married with kids, and earn an average of $16,000 per year, giving us an important window into a large, poorly understood segment of our society. Through the words of these women, Johnson captures the essence of women's working-class experience: from job stagnation, low self-esteem, and social isolation to camaraderie among coworkers, loyalty to one's roots, and even pride in a job well done. This compassionately told book offers a captivating and emotional study of the difference class makes in women's lives, as well as the problems, restrictions, and rewards common to all women.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For this Nickeled and Dimed line field report, Johns Hopkinds researcher Johnson spoke to 60 white, married, Baltimore-area mothers between the ages of 35 and 52 who work in settings ranging from convenience stores and customer service centers to hospitals and beauty parlors. In general, her working-class interviewees married young, never received adequate education or career guidance, struggled to raise their children and were striving for a second chance at finding more rewarding, lucrative work. Even as these women work toward goals such as GEDs or professional training, they continue to view what many would consider to be attainable careers, such as nursing or teaching, as beyond their reach. While Johnson provides plenty of statistics and cites a wide range of secondary sources, she wisely gives her interviewees ample space to tell their own stories, and their narratives inject the book with vivid realism. They discuss not only the challenges and rewards of working life but also such family issues as children struggling with substance abuse, aging parents grown mentally or physically ill and grandchildren in need of care and attention. As Johnson addresses the influence of their upbringings on these women's adult lives, the link between employment and their self-esteem, and related topics, she largely avoids editorializing and lets the facts speak for themselves, and her writing is compassionate without being heavy-handed. As a non first-person-based complement to Ehrenreich's book, this study could be recommended to anyone interested in class an gender.