EOTO #4 : Barbra Ehrenreich

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Barbra Ehrenreich is considered to be a trailblazer in the Journalism Community. She was born in Montana in 1941 she moved around a lot due to financial issues. She would later go on to attend Reed Collage In Portland. There she would go on to change her major about three times until she finally got a degree in biology.

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She later became a mother and that was when she really discovered her passion for writing as well as her concern with women’s health. So she decided to quit her job that she had at the time as a teacher and peruse her writing career full time. This caused her to face financial hardship however, she got her first big break when she wrote a piece for Ms. Magazine. Her piece was on the myth that the feminism movement was the root cause  of  women’s health issues. Their was the beginning  of her reputation for myth busting.

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Though she is a renowned essayist and Journalist she is known for her bestsellers. Specifically her Book titled ‘Nickel and Dimmed’ her goal was to expose the problems with the minimum wage and the way that it created a huge pay gap in America. In order to prove this she went undercover and applied for certain minimum wage paying jobs. She did this by creating a normal resume without all of her accreditations, then once she go the job she lived her life as though she was a  low income worker. For example, she worked as a waitress, and lived financially as best she could as a waitress and only used the money form that job to pay her bills. Additionally, she worked as a nursing home aid, Walmart Employee, and finally as a maid. 

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This is how she got her title as a veteran Muckrucker, she is known for her passions for social injustice. As well as her passions for equal rights and equal opportunities and social issues such as ‘Toxic Positivity’. Since then she has written and been punished in many newspapers. A few of the most notable being The Guardian,  The New York Times, as well as The Nation. She has gone down in the list of some of the most influential Journalist of all times. To this day she continues to make an impact.

                                                                

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