it used to be almost the first question (just after ‘Can you type?’) in the standard female job interview: ‘Are you now, or have you ever, contemplated marriage, motherhood, or the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?
BARBARA EHRENREICHit used to be almost the first question (just after ‘Can you type?’) in the standard female job interview: ‘Are you now, or have you ever, contemplated marriage, motherhood, or the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?
BARBARA EHRENREICHFrom the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8,000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.
BARBARA EHRENREICHwar has dug itself into economic systems, where it offers a livelihood to millions … It has lodged in our souls as a kind of religion, a quick tonic for political malaise and a bracing antidote to the moral torpor of consumerist, market-driven cultures.
BARBARA EHRENREICHWhen someone works for less pay than she can live on – when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently – then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life.
BARBARA EHRENREICHWars produce warlike societies, which in turn make the world more dangerous for other societies, which are thus recruited into being war-prone themselves.
BARBARA EHRENREICHMiddle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.
BARBARA EHRENREICHMoney does not bring happiness’ – only the wherewithal, perhaps, to endure its absence.
BARBARA EHRENREICHWar cannot be used as a means to prevent or abolish wars. … The idea of a war to prevent war is one of its oldest, and cruelest, tricks.
BARBARA EHRENREICHAmericans love marriage too much. We rush into mariage with abandon, expecting a micro-Utopia on earth. We pile all our needs onto it, our expectations, neuroses, and hopes. In fact, we’ve made marriage into the panda bear of human social institutions: we’ve loved it to death.
BARBARA EHRENREICHFor a long time on Earth humans didn’t worship good gods; that’s a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful.
BARBARA EHRENREICHThere is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?
BARBARA EHRENREICHAs anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems.
BARBARA EHRENREICHThe one regret I have about my own abortions is that they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking the kids to movies and theme parks.
BARBARA EHRENREICHAt best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.
BARBARA EHRENREICHThat’s the really neat thing about Dan Quayle, as you must have realized from the first moment you looked into those lovely blue eyes: impeachment insurance.
BARBARA EHRENREICHRoman Catholicism: a hundred million people bowing down before a flesh-hating, elderly celibate.
BARBARA EHRENREICH