Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (Live Girls) (Paperback)

~ Michelle Tea (Editor) "Being poor means waiting, for everything..." (more)
Key Phrases: San Francisco, United States, Aunt Lucy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

While many recent books have thoughtfully examined the plight of the working poor in America, none of the authors of these books is able to claim a working-class background, and there are associated methodological and ethical concerns raised when most of the explicatory writing on how poverty affects women and girls is done by educated, upper-class journalists. It was these concerns that prompted indie icon Michelle Tea-whose memoir, The Chelsea Whistle, details her own working-class roots in gritty Chelsea, Massachusetts-to collect these fierce, honest, tender essays written by writers who can't go home to the suburbs when their assignment is over. These wide-ranging essays cover everything from stealing and selling blood to make ends meet; to "jumping" class; how if time equals money, then being poor means waiting; surviving and returning to the ghetto; and how feminine identity is shaped by poverty. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Diane Di Prima, Terri Griffith, Daisy Hernandez, Frances Varian, Eileen Myles, Shawna Kenney, Siobhan Brooks, Terry Ryan, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (January 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580051030
• ISBN-13: 978-1580051033
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #253,173 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally, March 24, 2004

By	emily (humboldt) - See all my reviews

In a society that addresses classism as little as it does michelle tea and the authors of this book do marvels. I did cartwheels reading essays about why its messed up to say things such as 'ghetto' and the offensiveness of white-trash themed parties. I would love everyone to read this book, or at least my middle-class and upper-class activist friends. Class too often gets added on as just one more -ism without ever really being addressed... this book shows that it needs to be, but not in mouthfulls of long feminist theory, but in wonderful first person narratives that are inspiring and thought provoking. Michelle Tea continues to by my sheroe. As do theauthors in this anthology. Read it :)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diamonds in the rough, February 8, 2004

By	lindsay (U.K.) - See all my reviews

Michelle Tea has carefully selected some of the most sparkling, witty and promising female writers, each peice masterfully demonstrates the varying scope of which class has effected their lives. These life testimonies, although often heart wrenching demonstrations of strength and determination are as full of real life as they are of crafted prose, startling style and hope. The writers offer their different stories not for sympathy or sadness, but a proclaimation of how it was, is and will be for generations of women growing up working class in America, fighting, loving and shouting to get their voices heard. Brilliant! A rare proclamation of what its like growing up poor and female, we should hear more like this...

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't relate to all of this, but..., September 21, 2005

By	Feral Sirensong (Hallowell, ME USA) - See all my reviews

My parents divorced when I was 7 years old. My mother had primary custody. She was the first in her family to get a college education, even though she had to go back to night-school to finish her degree due to my arrival on the scene. Dad had a master's degree in social work, never a big money-making field. So, during my early years, we were fairly poor and I spent a whole lot of time with many different babysitters while Mom labored in the white-collar world to move us up from working class to middle class.

I don't have many memories of my poor years. When I was 6 or 7, I do remember pretending a porcelain cat bought at a yard sale with my grandmother was actually a Barbie doll, because we couldn't afford a real Barbie at the time. But I was young and didn't really figure out that money was at all tight until middle school. Then the typical image-conscious BS became part of my existence. I always worked to make extra for school clothes, so I could keep up appearances. I had to have the "right" Levis. The "right" WBLM t-shirt. The L.L. Bean tote bag purse. I couldn't look like one of those Salvation Army rejects. Thrift stores were not cool where I came from, possibly because the racks were filled with redneck cast-offs. Kids can be so stupid.

This book gave me a couple of "Aha!" moments, particularly when the contributors wrote about fish-out-of-water feelings when functioning within different social castes. Though I grew up working and then middle class, I went to a very upper class college. There were definitely times when I felt like I was "passing," as some authors put it. My upbringing remained a part of me, but not as some deep-seated shame. I felt power from my roots. It was nice to read about other women who also felt working class pride, pride in their survival skills and values.

I could also relate to the sense of loss of those who felt somewhere in between their class of origin and their current economic class. You can't really go home again, after a certain point. Yet, you never feel like you fully belong where you are either. You have to create a place for yourself. And that's what a lot of these women write about: finding their place.