Talk:Barbara Ehrenreich

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Barbara Ehrenreich article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

A news item involving Barbara Ehrenreich was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 4 September 2022.

Wikipedia

Biography: Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Women's History High‑importance

	History portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Montana Low‑importance

	Montana portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Montana, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Montana on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MontanaWikipedia:WikiProject MontanaTemplate:WikiProject MontanaMontana articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Journalism Low‑importance

	Journalism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Journalism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of journalism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JournalismWikipedia:WikiProject JournalismTemplate:WikiProject JournalismJournalism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Feminism High‑importance

	Feminism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Feminism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Feminism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FeminismWikipedia:WikiProject FeminismTemplate:WikiProject FeminismFeminism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women writers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women writers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women writers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women writersWikipedia:WikiProject Women writersTemplate:WikiProject Women writersWomen writers articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Socialism

	Socialism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Untitled

Queued image:

File:Barbara Ehrenreich.jpg

Photo of Barbara Ehrenreich by ~~Robert Birnbaum~~ David Shankbone

File:Ehrenreich 2004.jpg File:Ehrenreich 2001.jpg http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/images/tows_20010521_ehrenreich.jpg

What's going on with all these photos? The one just added to the article isn't a particuarly good image. Having met Ms Ehrenreich once, I would say the Birnbaum photo is the best likeness. Why can't we use that? -- Viajero 10:38, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Her bridge from scientist to politics

Staffer at The Budget Office of The City of New York; recruited as Member of Health Policy Advisory Center (Health/PAC), co-editing The American Health Empire

Barbara Ehrenreich was Deputy Director of The Budget Office of The City of New York and then A Member of Health Policy Advisory Center (Health/PAC), with whom she co-edited The American Health Empire. This was considered her bridge experience from research scientist to politically active journalist and organizer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Red Dogg (talk • contribs) .

Hillbilly->Jewish?

I've read "Nickle and Dimed", and I remember her mentioning how she went to a church service in one town, where she commented that the hillbilly-like townspeople reminded her of her own people (her maiden name being Alexander). Now, she's Jewish, according to the list of Jewish journalists? Did someone just make an assumption about her married last name?

Probably. She was listed on the list but I moved her to discussion because I couldn't find a source. So - looks like you solved the mystery. Mad Jack 22:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've made a note on the list discussion page for her removal from the list that needs to be verified, since she isn't. Michael 22:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. Someone reads Ehrenreich, and then comes the hasty conclusion: ah, she's jewish ! - But her maiden name was Alexander. Ehrenreich results from a former marriage. Thanks. --129.187.244.28 (talk) 08:35, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism?

Article appears to be compromised by removal of large portions of material by an anon IP add 68.... See history. This IP address user or these users appear to be attacking other articles (e.g., Alan Dershowitz. --NYScholar 19:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Liberal or Socialist?

Pick one please! They are two different things. --69.143.105.237 (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can be, maybe even should be, but in common vernacular useage in modern-day America, they are virtually one and the same (at least if you listen to those talking the loudest). Are you a U.S.-style "libertarian" who insists (like I once did) that U.S. Democrats aren't true liberals, and that only total absolute laissez-faire capitalist minarchists (or near-anarchocapitalists) are in fact "real liberals", since they are the closest thing in modern times to the "original" classical liberals of the 18th and early 19th centuries? Or are you a moderate modern U.S. liberal who does not conflate some "welfare statism"/semi-regulated capitalism (or mixed economy) with true socialism? Either way, I think your point is moot, but especially if you are trying to redefine all uses of the word "liberal" to mean only U.S.-style libertarians or quasi-anarchocapitalists. Furthermore, yes, an individual can be both socialist and liberal, in fact, most democratic socialists have been liberals, or have at least self-identified as such (when it comes to terms of civil rights and personal freedoms). Obviously, authoritarian & totalitarian Communist socialists are not liberals, and likewise, "privatize-everything-even-the-air-we-breath" propertarian neo-classical liberals are not socialists.173.16.125.178 (talk) 20:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism

Resolved

– "Case closed."

Ehrenreich is in the category 'American atheists', but nothing is mentioned in the article. Is there a source on this? --Karuna8 (talk) 23:16, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing? Well, I removed it. Put it back if you have a source. --Karuna8 (talk) 02:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Bait and Switch she writes she is an atheist. 82.130.23.80 (talk) 19:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now the article even mentions^H^H^H says << In a talk she gave in 1999, Ehrenreich called herself a "fourth-generation atheist".[7]. >> To me, that sounds like "Case closed." --Mike Schwartz (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of category -- (what [more] evidence is needed?)

This edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barbara_Ehrenreich&diff=prev&oldid=531061118 says "Undid revision [...] by [...] not in article, blp violation". It undid the addition of "[[Category:American cannabis activists]]".

Is there any doubt that this person is a leader of (or, at least, she seems to have lent her name to) "NORML"? And isn't "NORML" one of the biggest and most well-known [US] organizations advocating / promoting "reform of marijuana laws"?

The article does already seem to contain this: "She also serves on the NORML Board of Directors, [...]".

So (humor me here), does that not count as being a cannabis activist? I am not un-doing the "undo" at this time (partly because it's a "blp" .. plus I could be wrong.) However, it seems to me that the "[[Category:American cannabis activists]]" was appropriate.

Any advice? or other comments? --Mike Schwartz (talk) 01:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Translation section

The translations section just contains book titles transferred into other languages. I don't think this is necessary. Any argument against removing the content? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:30, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been bold and removed it. I would hope that any individual book articles mention the translations, though. Gareth E Kegg (talk) 16:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Barbara Ehrenreich. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041016004838/http://www.sfbg.com/lit/march00/smile.html to http://radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Barbara Ehrenreich. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:58, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Something Else She Co-Wrote

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=017096020116091006011029005017091098015051021063079059125001019095123125109011070127006055125009047120052113027116025103017066052085021064086102092092090097001064028045087117118006001087101003112126024085067015116090072088002121073113067084101071027&EXT=pdf is a journal article that is available for free. Footnote 10 says:

"Barbara Ehrenreich & John Ehrenreich, The Making of the American 99 Percent and the Collapse of the Middle Class, in THE OCCUPY HANDBOOK"

"Occupy" refers to "Occupy Wall Street." This is not in the list of essays she wrote.

EvanJ35 (talk) 21:27, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Barbara Ehrenreich. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110503214236/http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/hillman-prizes/hillman-prize-magazine-journalism to http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/hillman-prizes/hillman-prize-magazine-journalism

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:40, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Barbara Ehrenreich. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121006204928/http://www.motherjones.com/toc/1979/11/table-contents to http://motherjones.com/toc/1979/11/table-contents

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One-sided "Criticism" section

I've added an "NPOV-section" tag to the "Criticism" section of this article. It is clearly an Ehrenreich bash-fest and igores the fact that many commentators saw Ehrenreich as a victim of left-wing purity politics and a circular-firing-squad mentiality, and/or as yet another example of negative social media "callout culture".

I'll also add that this section is an example of WP:RECENT, putting undue weight on criticism she has received during a recent event, and the inherent bias that a "Criticism" (as opposed to "Reception") article section has. Ehrenreich has had a lot career as an activist and writer, and has received a great deal of praise and criticism from across the political spectrum over the years. Her work cannot be distilled down to one recent Twitter war or a pithy statement like "Overall, we’re faced with yet another milkshake duck situation–where the people we thought to be good and pure end up showing an ugly side." Peter G Werner (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not notable

As someone coming to this article knowing nothing about Barbara Ehrenreich, including a single controversial tweet she made seems jarring and doesn't fit the scope of the rest of the article. Just my thoughts.

"In February 2019, Ehrenreich tweeted "I will be convinced that America is not in decline only when our de-cluttering guru Marie Kondo learns to speak English.”[20] This was called another example of a "milkshake duck situation" as she received negative feedback on social media and the press.[21][20]" Chris1564 (talk) 03:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's not one single tweet; it's the tip of the iceberg for someone with very little experience with people of Asian descent. She doubled down on the comment too.--A21sauce (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Move to remove "socialist" label

I move to remove the socialist label from this Wikipedia article. While Ms. Ehrenreich writes from a progressive standpoint and has had associations with democratic socialists, that does not make her a socialist. --CollegeMeltdown (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose She regularly refers to herself as a socialist and uses the first person plural in a lot of her writings about "socialists" or "as Marxists, we...". Just the first couple of hits on Google show her using these words across the span of her career:

I don't see what's gained by whitewashing a socialist voice into a mere "progressive". JesseRafe (talk) 20:32, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Promotional lead

The lead of this bio seems quite promotional, as if someone picked out the highlights of Ehrenreich's career as they saw it, regardless of what's in the body of the article. For example the lead says that Nickel and Dimed is probably Ehrenreich's best known book and goes on to praise it, but the book is not discussed at all in the body of the bio. Goodtablemanners (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the lead is an issue. Firefangledfeathers 20:58, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by expanding the body, which I can't believe didn't have anything about the book until now! Levivich 18:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Undergraduate degree?

I don't believe that Reed College awarded BS degrees in the years that Ehrenreich attended. Pretty sure it would have been a BA degree. 2601:1C0:6100:AD:556F:92E6:2237:3460 (talk) 06:12, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]