Women's Week to feature author

Journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich will keynote the University of Utah's 2005 Women's Week Celebration on Wednesday, March 2.

Ehrenreich, author of the New York Times best-seller "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America," is known for her original social commentary.

The 10 a.m. program at Olpin Union Ballroom will be followed by a book signing.

In 1998, Ehrenreich, in order to find out how millions of Americans get by on poverty wages, joined them. She left home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and took jobs from waitress to hotel maid to Wal-Mart sales clerk.

"My aim here was . . . just to see whether I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day," She said.

What she discovered was that she could not.

Ehrenreich has been a contributing writer for Time magazine since 1990.

For more information on Women's Week, visit: www.womensweek.utah.edu.