Rough Beginnings It was 1915 and the music scene was just getting hot. New Orleans was busting at the seam with young cats prowling the streets, lurking in seedy after-hours clubs looking to get a wild jam session in before the night was through. An insanely talented and equally arrogant ragtime pianist by the name of Jelly Roll Morton began to play with a different kind of flavor that drove audiences crazy, and with that the invention of Jazz was born. The heavy syncopated beats making your pulse jump, the bluesy lilt of a melody lapping lazily at your senses; this was the time to be alive.
It is a true story of a struggle to survive. She defines her experiment as an attempt of “a person with every advantage that ethnicity and education, health and motivation can confer… to survive in the economy's lower depths” (2001, p. 12). Barbara Ehrenreich paints a grim picture of a low-income earners' existence. In her book, even the titles of the chapters cause the depressed feelings, “Serving in Florida, Scrubbing in Maine, and Selling in Minnesota”. She states, “From the first day on, I find that of all the things that I have left behind, such as home and identity, what I miss the most is competence” (2001, p. 16).
I. Rank R., Mark.2011. “Rethinking American Poverty.” Context 10(2):16-21. II. Misconceptions the public has about poverty mostly who is responsible for preventing it.
“The Female Face of Poverty,” by Maria Shriver focuses on women who are at or near the poverty line. It discusses the issues women are faced with financially, including no paid sick days at work, lack of paid maternity leave, and low wages in general. It also includes poll results of low income women and how their views in life differ compared to the overall population. Shriver wants women to unite in this fight against the poverty they are unfairly faced with. Maria Shriver wants people to become more aware of what low-income women go through due to their lack of fair opportunities in the workforce.
This attempt at ‘empowerment’ drastically neglects the needs of women who are already working, perhaps more than one job, and still cannot afford to raise their children or feed their
Criminal Homeless Imagine yourself without a job and receiving a final note from your bank stating that you only have a week to dislodge. In consequence, you become homeless as a bug of society and if you sleep in any bench or under a bridge, you will end up in jail. Many people have been suffering such cruel reality due to their poverty. Barbara Ehrenreich, a political activist and author in her essay “Is it Now a Crime Being Poor?” discusses the problems of the US correctional system about the treat of homeless people. She explains how they are sent to jails for minor crimes.
During the 1960 the number of married women entering the workforce increased yet, the average working woman earned “only 60% of what men earn.” In addition, the textbook, Give Me Liberty support the dispute on gender discrimination by stating that women’s “husbands controlled their wives’ earning” (1004). Men generally treated their wives as nothing more than possession which resulted in many women to be dissatisfied with their lives as housewives and “educated women [were] trapped in a world that viewed marriage and
The women endured additional burdens like campaigns against hiring women because they thought jobs should go to male breadwinners and then three quarters of the school districts in the country banned married women from being hired as teachers (Henretta, 2009). The women in Minnesota in breadlines were subject to sit in employment bureaus and hoped for work to try to provide for their family (Bethel University, 2005). The women here are those who are middle-aged, some have families, while some have raised the children and now they are alone (Bethel University, 2005). The others are those who have men that are out of work (Bethel University, 2005). These women are left to struggle to fed many mouths by themselves, while the women who pride gets the best of them starves silently, leaving the children to find work (Bethel University, 2005).
Currently, gender inequality, although less than before, still exists, for example in wage gaps. “The gender gap in paid work is narrowing, but women still do most of the domestic work and child care… all of which is low-waged labor” (Lorber, 2001, 6). Many expectations for male and female roles, especially in religious customs, continue to exist and “legitimate the social arrangements that produce inequality, justifying them as proper” (Lorber, 2021, 6). Women are somewhat encouraged to work more “feminine” jobs which is causing many women to continue working in more low-paying, domestic jobs. However, there are still many, and a growing increase in successful women working high-paying jobs, inspiring more women to do the
My third book review discussion was about the book Why Culture Counts: Teaching Children of Poverty by Donna Tileston and Sandra Darling. I chose this book because I teach in a school where more than 70% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. In my opinion, this is a must read book for anyone in a teacher prep program. I really enjoyed the way the author not only described the differences in how children of poverty and other cultures learned, but also why they learn the way they do. She goes in depth about the psychological and cognitive aspects of learning.
Poverty is affecting billions of people around our world and the number is growing with each day. Many people think they can avoid the effects of poverty, but it is something that affects all of our daily lives. Many people see poverty as a person who lacks money, although this is true poverty is caused by many more things than being without money. Just the fact that one in two children live in poverty can help people see clearly the impact it has on our world. Poverty truly does influence the type of care and treatment a person will receive when they need it.
Trickle-down feminism makes breaking the “glass ceiling” a priority (Jaffe). With the focus on a small group of women, those who do not fit into that group like the working class, are also marginalized. Trickle-down feminism does not take into the account the hardships of the working class, with women of color being most affected (Jaffe). During the recession, women lost 60 percent of their jobs and were only able to regain 12 percent of the jobs lost, while men regained 63 percent (Jaffe). “Women’s work” is also seen as inferior by the upper class women (Jaffe).
Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and work habits, but that patriarchy, particularly the sexist division of labor, has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning. These dynamics serve to shove women into the private sphere of the household and to exclude them from full participation in public life. Hence, gender inequality is a hazard not only to the highly capable, talented and deserving women but also to the economy as a whole. Both awareness of the existing gender inequality and implementation of policies that address gender inequities need to be strengthened. Reducing the amount of time women spend on unpaid work is also essential.
It is proven that gender does contribute to a difference in wages in society and there for another cause of wealth inequality. The U.N. has found that gender discrimination is still a significant factor in holding many women and children around the world in poverty. In many countries, there is a gender income gap in the labor market. For example, in America, statistics show that “The median full-time salary for women is 78 percent of that of men”; despite the fact women make up half the workforce. One of the reasons women earn less income/money in their lifetime is usually because they are single mums and/or have more people/family to support on their
In many cases, women are the primary sources of family income, and are engaged in all types of activities such as paid domestic work as well as informal industrial jobs, trading and service. Unemployed poor people are often led
