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Champion of poor, women speaks out

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published December 1, 2005

TAMPA - Barbara Ehrenreich, a bestselling author who champions the rights of the lower class and women, warned more than 300 Planned Parenthood supporters Wednesday that a "Talibanization" of society is taking root. Islamic and Christian religious fundamentalism threaten to erode women's rights, she said.

Ehrenreich was keynote speaker at "A Choice Affair," the annual luncheon of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida commemorating the 33rd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade . Ehrenreich wrote Nickel and Dimed , which recounts the struggles of minimum wage workers.

She lives in Florida and has been a longtime advocate for reproductive rights. She told the crowd of mostly women at the $50-a-plate fundraising affair that she had two abortions in her 30s. "I have no regret," she said, just relief that the right was available when she made a "family planning" decision.

A biology major who went on to earn her doctorate before becoming an activist and writer, Ehrenreich said she pored over old medical texts to learn how being a female wasn't a gender in the early 20th century "but a disease."

"Pregnancy was a chronic disability," she said. Later, women were seen as deficient learners. In the 1950s, psychologists adopted Freudian arguments to lobby against ambitious women.

On the horizon, Ehrenreich said, the religious right seeks to put "women in their so-called place." She cited the Southern Baptist Convention's position that wives should graciously submit to their husbands and the battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools as causes for worry.

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 01:06:06]