Barbara Ehrenreich

From Philosopedia

Ehrenreich, Barbara (26 August 1941— )

Born in Butte, Montana, Ehrenreich graduated from Reed College in 1963 and earned her Ph.D. at Rockefeller University in 1968, working in the field of science, then turning to writing.

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (1972), co-written with Deirdre English, was a widely acclaimed expose, of male domination of female health care.

Other of her books include For Her Own Good: One Hundred Fifty Years of the Experts' Advice to Women (1978, with Deirdre English), The Hearts of Men (1983), The Worst Years of Our Lives (1990), and the classic expose Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America, in which she went undercover as a waitress and member of the working-class poor.

In the introduction to her book, The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990), she mentions that several of her ancestors were atheists. Her great-grand-mother, Mamie O'Laughlin, once called for a Catholic priest to administer last rites for her dying father. When the priest sent word that he would not perform last rites unless Mamie gave him $25 in advance, Mamie was so outraged by the priest's greed that she eventually became an atheist.

Essays by this atheist, socialist, and feminist are regularly featured in mass-circulation periodicals, such as The Nation, Ms., Mother Jones, Esquire, Vogue, and The New York Times Magazine. For many years, she was a regular columnist for Time.

"U.S. Patriots: Without God on Their Side" originally appeared in Mother Jones (February/March 1981) and is reprinted in the anthology Women Without Superstition.

In an essay for The New York Times Magazine, Ehrenreich proudly described her family as "the race of 'none,' " as being "the kind of people . . . who do not believe, who do not carry on traditions. . ." As for her descendants, Ehrenreich added,

• Furthermore, whether out of filial devotion or natural intelligence, most of us have continued to avoid organized religion, secret societies, astrology, and New Age adventures in spiritualism.

Of her mother, Ehrenreich has written,

• The worst thing she could find to say about a certain in-law was that he was a Republican and a churchgoer, though when I investigated these charges later in life, I was relieved to find them baseless."

As for her family,

• In my parents' general view, new things were better than old, and the very fact that some ritual had been performed in the past was a good reason for abandoning it now. Because what was the past, as our forebears knew it? Nothing but poverty, superstition and grief. "Think for yourself," Dad used to say. "Always ask why.”

In addition to her discussion of her family history, Ehrenreich also wrote a tounge-in-cheek essay about secular humanism, "Give Me That New-Time Religion," which is also included in Worst Years. She says,

• I was raised in a real strong Secular Humanist family - the kind of folks who'd ground you for a week just for thinking of a dating a Unitarian, or worse.. . . What gets me is all the mean things people say about Secular Humanism, without even taking the time to read some of our basic scriptures, such as the Bill of Rights or Omni magazine."

In 1998 she was the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year. The Freedom From Religion Foundation named her “Freethought Heroine 1999” at their annual national convention held in San Antonio, Texas.

{CA; E; Free Inquiry, Spring 1998; WWS}