Class Discrimination?

[Moomintroll3]

I have noticed the notion of class discrimination being discussed recently R4 has a program on the idea which was interesting. I believe the last Labour Government planned to make it illegal in the same way that disability or racial discrimination are illegal but the tories scrapped the idea when they got it.

I think its a very interesting idea. I think that there can be no doubt that class discrimination exists in the UK and on several levels. We are a very stratified society and the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. In the UK you can also be rich and successful but if you don't have the right background people will still look down on you.

Even where I am in Scotland where I don't think inequality is quite so extreme as say london there is very little mixing /socialising between the classes. I am from a working class background and have a strong regional accent I did go to uni and I have had my accent mocked and assumptions made about me because of my background. I don't know if any of that held me back directly but I know I was a lot less confident than my middle class peers and that I didn't have the same expectations as them I was just amazed to be at university at all.

I think that sometimes it is assumed that because of the post war boom and many working class people in the 50's and 60's moving into traditionally middle class jobs that the question of classisim was sorted and that issues such as racism and discrimination against the disabled or elderly were focused on. Now looking back the situation in the 50's and 60's was a unique situation, economically driven and didn't really solve the issue of prejudice about class in the UK.

I think that in the past 10 years due to austerity and the nastiness of the british press that any positive image of the working class has been further eroded and we are encouraged to think of strivers and skivers and so on.

I think it would be very difficult legislate for class discrimination, to try and work out what counts and what doesn't, what makes you working class, is it your income, where you came from, what your parents did, if you have a degree etc, then their are questions of cultural capital, confidence and expectation. I also don't think it can be seperated from our current economic model. How can you make class discrimination illegal in a country where the economic system relies upon the stratification of society?

I just wanted to start a conversation about this really and get some views on this issue, what do you think?

One thing the Government could do straight away is to make all job applications institution-blind. Some large employers have started to do this.

So employers can actually check with the institution that you have the qualifications you say you have after making the offer, but only get to find out which schools and colleges afterwards.

Education is a huge class marker.

I don’t agree with institution blind - a 1st from Surrey is not the same as a 1st from Oxbridge or even RG

I picked Surrey as they issue more 1st than any other university...

Floribuna: Interesting I agree education is a big class marker and a common question at uni I got was what school did you go to!

BlueSkies: On the radio 4 programme I mentioned in my OP there was a woman who went to Cambridge, she had come from a very poor working class background and got in the oxbridge, got her degree and she was now hacked off that because of institution-blind application processes she wasn't even benefiting from that achievement. So I agree it is difficult.

However grade inflation is an issue even with RG universities there are far more 1st given out across the board these days vs 20 years ago.

Put the words social housing , housing association in the MN search engine. You will see plenty of those kind of attitudes.

I agree that it's an interesting topic and worthy of discussion but I don't know how you'd go about legislating against class discrimination because first of all, you'd have to determine which class a person belonged to. Would you base it on income, wealth, property ownership, education, occupation, culture or all of the above?

I remember years ago, getting a Saturday job showing people around properties for sale (before Suzie Lamplu) and when I was hired, I saw the file with the recruitment notes for all the other candidates. Some of the comments were shocking. One of the partners had written 'low class - Would not be suitable with THAT accent.' Another had written 'dressed for the nightclub, not the right sort.' I lived in Newcastle-under-Lyme at the time.

In the UK we seem to have spent most of the last year celebrating the centenary of (partial) Women’s Suffrage and as a good feminist I don’t begrudge a single second of the untold hours of airtime that we’ve spent marking that anniversary.

However, the same bill marked the granting of the vote to working class men - the first time that the right to a voice in the running of the nation was made independent of assets. A fight for which the Chartists and others fought and died, just like the suffragettes. And I heard literally nothing about that centenary all year. Almost every schoolchild in England could give you a brief “Suffragettes for beginners” paragraph. How many of them could tell you anything about the fight for the working class vote? I think it’s partly because our civil rights history is colonised by American narratives. Our laws never mentioned race, their laws never mentioned class (AFAIK on the latter).

I don’t agree with institution blind - a 1st from Surrey is not the same as a 1st from Oxbridge or even RG

Then you are prejudiced.

I'm studying at studying at Surrey ATM

I do think you should put institutions on CVs though, I'd be more impressed with AAA from X town high, Deprived town then AAA from say Roedean.
And at university level some post 1992 unis are great vocationally, some have Iinks to industry etc...

I agree that class discrimination is a huge problem in British society but the only obvious solution I can think of it ensuring that state schools teach children to do things ‘the proper’ way the way that private schools do to eliminate cultural disadvantages. But I doubt could ever be imimented firstly because a lot of people who don’t don’t things the proper way get offended (which is fair enough I suppose if they’ve had problems connected with that in that past) and secondly because a lot of teachers don’t do things the proper way themselves and would need to be taught.

Theb there are cases of legitimate discrimination. There are some instances where it is legitimate to discriminate against class markers (although not class itself). The most obvious example is accents. If you are a business that deals with a lot of international clients/has a large number of international employees then some lower class/ regional accents are a problem because they simply aren’t comprehensible to people from abroad. I really struggle to understand people who use these accents. It’s fine to speak however you want in your personal life but if a candidate/employee isn’t willing to make an effort to ensure that they are understandable to everyone in their place of work then that’s not really acceptable. University degrees are another one. By and large they serve as a class marker. But they also have variable value. It’s not fair to say that employers can’t discriminate against people with degrees from less good universities of those universities happen to be class indicative.

Ultimately the problem isn’t going to go away until British people grow up and stop refusing to mix with others just because they aren’t the same. This is very much something that has to happen on both sides. It doesn’t matter if snobbery is ebolished if inverse snobbery persists and vice versa.

Sounds like a ridiculous idea to me.

For a start, how would we define “class”?

Could you be discriminating indirectly because you don’t want to hire someone that has tattoos on their knuckles, because that’s potentially indicative of them coming from a lower class background?

Would you be prevented from hiring someone that had a crap education due to their “class”, when there are oxbridge candidates going for the same job?

Would you be prevented from enforcing dress codes in higher end establishments because that might prevent poorer people from going?

Our discrimination legislation at present is very comprehensive and doesn’t need adding to IMO. There’s already arguments in the legal world that obesity and Veganism are now likely to be protected so it’s very much open to interpretation anyway but adding class would be ludicrously complex!

Yes I agree it works the other way, Camomilia.

I have teased my other half who went to a grammar school and red brick university and got the same results as me who went to a really quite poor comprehensive, a local sixth form college and ex poly university, that it must mean I am cleverer than him .

I do think though that there is even more argument for institution blindness now there are tuition fees, and most universities charge the same. So they are all the same quality, right?

I have recently been applying for jobs after being a sahm for 16 years. Even though I've been out of the workforce for 16 years I've had 7 interviews out of 6 applications. 3 job offers after a few days. I went to private girls school, gained 4 grade A A levels and went to a top university.

I probably won't accept any job as my mental health is so bad. There will be many more suitable candidates who paper look much worse but would be much more capable.

Class is not everything. I know so many absolute grafters who I respect and so many clever people who are screwed up.

itsabitshitinsidemyhead
Why are you attending interviews for jobs you have no intention of taking? What a waste of everyone’s time.

Back to the subject at hand, I dont see why we should refuse to legislate against sonething simply because it’s difficult.

As for veganism and obesity discrimination being made illegal, that’s simply ridiculous. Your size and your diet have nothing to do with wether or not you can do a job, theyre lifestyle indicators.

ffs ... whether

FindPrimeLorca That has been annoying me as well. Why not celebrate centenary of all men getting the vote in 2018 and all women getting the vote in 2028?

I am a foreigner living somewhere else and I wonder (and do not expect an answer):

• what is the 'proper way of doing things' and
• why is the proper way the way of a certain type of school and
• why don't you (generic / neutral you) cherish regional accents and dialects?

It's all very well being institution blind when looking at a cv but someone's use of language in a covering letter will be a clue as will their dress and accent in an interview.

Unless we're going to have blindfold interviews behind a screen with a voice changer...

Being overweight is not necessarily a lifestyle marker.

I thought that obesity actually was a type of class marker. Due to poor diet.

@WeeTinkerMonkey

@Moomintroll3

Perfect example of your OP here...................

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3507571-skint-britain-friends-without-benefits-on-c4?pg=1

I think this is really interesting op. Agree it'd be so hard to legislate. The institution blindness is a difficult one, I agree a lot of students at RG unis are from more privileged backgrounds however, I attended one of the top RGs but I am from a w/c background. (i know I'm more of an exception rather than the rule)

Some people are obese due to the drugs they need to take. The press were awful to Hilary Mantel when she won one of the literary prizes.

YY Gilead A friends mother has asthma The worst ive ever seen it. She has to take strong steroids. Her choice is to be overweight or to be dead.

I'd be more impressed with AAA from X town high, Deprived town then AAA from say Roedean.

Why? If a degree from Surrey is as good as a degree from Oxford then AAA is the same no matter where the student lives.

The qualifications are the same and to judge someone from Rodean as not having achieved as much as someone from a deprived area is a pretty shitty thing to do.