To ask another 'class' question?

[PonyLo]

I know.
But i was reading another thread and it brought this to mind. People keep blithering on about it on MN, but the topic is often about signifiers such as clothes, house, job, schools, consumer choices and such.

So I had this thought - if a huge amount of people were just placed together in a big group wearing only a simple cotton dressing gown and no make up, could you tell what *social group they belonged to?

Like the bare bones?
My guess is that probably not! You might try to pick 'hair style' but I have found that varies wildly (I am middle class with a good amount of natural frizz). Which kind of confirms my suspicion that it's all about perception, rather than fact.

*'Social Group' is a much preferable description since it disqualifies attempts to use hierarchical judgements.

There are a fair few who have correlated class with intelligence, and many more who’ve correlated it with wealth. All incorrect and rather depressing.

Ahhh yes, we're fully in 'how to identify & avoid the great unwashed' territory now. We played around the edges a while but here we are, two feet in & utterly committed.

'The More Educated Ones'.

We really need a set of arbitrary & pretentious rules around a normal, daily activity so we can more easily ascertain someone's status. There simply must be an easier way to to judge who to sneer at. A quicker one that a mere glance would give us all the information we need.

Might I suggest we ask the room of people to sit & eat a meal together?

How do you come to this conclusion? Runs counter to reality - UK now has more graduates, more white collar jobs, fewer blue collar jobs than in Major's day.

The fact jobs don't pay enough is a separate issue! We're all skint now (thanks, Tories!)

I mean exactly that. That there are less blue collar jobs so the working class must either not be working or working white collar jobs so i feel white collar jobs are not a marker for middle class. I dont think there are ladders of progression in the same way and i dont think a job asking for a degree means it needs a degree. My first job was not a graduate role, it was what bright working class girls did after school. It now it requires a degree. I think we are moving from a society with distinct classes my grandparents new to one where my grand chikdren will be either haves or have nots. It wont go neatly that you work in an office so are middle class.

From my own experience, yes you can tell, and it is more of an overall aura, a sense of belonging.

This has hit the nail on the head. It is one of the markers of a private education too.

Imo as long as there is royalty in a country there will always be a pecking order class society. Like ants climbing over each other to be first in the pecking order 🤣

The rich arrived in pairs
And also in Rolls Royces
They talked of their affairs
In loud and strident voices.
The poor arrived in Fords
Whose features they resembled
And laughed to see so many lords
And ladies all assembled.
The people in between
Looked underdone and harassed
And out of place and mean
And horribly embarrassed.

Hilaire Belloc

I think if you tried doing this 30 years ago it would be harder but now it would be much easier. The below might sound mean but it's not meant to be, I really wish it wasn't so obvious but I don't have any control over social policy...

First of all, you could pick off the smokers by the smell or (if long term smokers) the skin damage. It's not a perfect system but the numbers of middle and upper class people smoking have dropped dramatically in the past 30 years.

Second, you could probably look for signs of drug use. Again, not a perfect system but it'll lower the odds of someone being working class if there are signs of drug use, especially cocaine which seems to be a more middle class hobby.

Third, hair will still give things away to some extent. If someone has badly coloured hair (especially the copper kind that looks like an attempt to not be fake) that's a pretty good sign of them being working class.

Fourth, tattoos. Middle class people are starting to get them now but located in certain places like the lower back or upper thigh, oversized or bad quality it will still give people away. Middle class women are more likely to only have a small tattoo on the upper back or something flowery on a foot.

Fifth, nose rings. Massive giveaway. Nose studs aren't, but nose rings definitely are.

Sixth, general health. We live in an age when millions of people have bad diets either because they rely on foodbanks or on cheap food full of hydrogenated fat. I encourage people to look at the differences in the quantities of fat in supermarket budget and supermarket finest ranges to see what I mean (cheap burger cheese slices in ASDA have around three times as much fat content as their standard range for example). I could probably spot the poorest people because they were gaunt and pale and the second poorest group would be slightly overweight (without red "middle class face" from excess consumption of wine) through no fault of their own. People in particularly good health I could probably accurately identify as being at least professional middle class.

Seventh, bad teeth. NHS Dentistry is in a mess at the moment. People with bad teeth would probably be poor to lower middle class.

The system would by no means be perfect but I reckon I could get it right more often than I got it wrong.

Not questioning you, but hair dye? (She said with a question mark 😂) It wouldn't occur to me associate a bad hair dye job with class. I'd just inwardly channel my mum and tut about how it doesn't look well.

We had a visitor recently- extremely rich (she has her own it company but has retired in the last five years) lives abroad, very non descript clothes but you could literally see (somehow!) that her clothes, skin, hair, everything was just so perfect and understated. Afterwards dh commented ton how it’s her lifestyle as much as anything but I don’t know. I’d never have thought you could tell except the very obvious like you say hair etc

I would absolutely never notice someone's hair. I'm a bit of a dope obvs but it's just something i'd never notice. Also, isn't it true that old money types are often a crumpled mess? They're able to be distracted by random stuff/the universe because they're not spending their time worrying about the leccy bill etc. And appearance is less important than the 'big' questions. (*this is solely my own interpretation of the properly rich people i've known)

If I was only allowed one clue, hair would be it. I'd struggle with the bald blokes but with everyone else it would be a big giveaway. Fake "red" hair is a massive, massive giveaway for me. I work in a middle class occupation, I've worked across multiple industries and in different countries and I have never encountered a woman with badly dyed red hair in the workplace. Then when I shop at ASDA, they are everywhere, not infrequently also in their pyjamas 😂

Edit: I would also say hair is a massive giveaway because it shows the signs of smoking (or being in smoky environments) and also it can give away the kind of job someone is doing. Someone who always has their hair up in an untidy fashion or in the case of men have hair that is dirty or greasy could well be working in a dirty manual job.

Bad skin as a result of a bad diet or a dirty working environment can give people away too, as can the roughness of their hands.

This would make a FANTASTIC tv programme

Chickenkeev
That was it- her hair just looked non styled but sat there beautifully, and she was blond but so natural and healthy looking. You just kind of stared at her but couldn’t figure out why. Afterwards mil was like ‘just how much of an old hag am I, we’re the same age’, I said well I’m nearly thirty years younger and I look like a hag next to her too!

I think you can.
There was a sociologist who said "class is written on the body"
I cant remember who it was now and googling just comes up with a mucky Jeanette winterson book!

But, just because you can doesn't mean you should pay any attention to it.
Some of the worst people ive met have come from all "classes" as have some of the best.
I think theres a deep insecurity involved in judging on class.

if a huge amount of people were just placed together in a big group wearing only a simple cotton dressing gown and no make up, could you tell what social group they belonged to?

As soon as they walked and talked, yes. Possibly some of them before that, just from their posture.

I totally would not notice that at all! But yeah, true style is effortless isn't it. Alas, i shall never know it 😂

Re bad skin, some people are just afflicted with it. And re the roughness of their hands, i have visions of (a faceless) you accosting randomers to get a feel of their hands now, to see if they're 'old money'. On the whole though, everything you're saying makes sense. It's like skin tan, 100 or so years ago, or maybe 200, it was a marker of poverty, as it signified you were outside working. Whereas the upper classes had porcelain skin.

Physical indicators will still exist, but be imperfect. Actually conversing with people will allow for easier sorting.

identifying class isn’t a means of keeping people under control or viewing them as lesser. The value of recognizing classes of people is that we can see trends and the ways different policies and events are impacting different types of people.

On seventh, bad teeth isn't a reliable indicator. I well and truly lost the genetic lottery on my teeth and I'm not working class by any marker. No matter how I try, I always have some issue. No doubt once I'm 6ft deep, my dentist will still find a way to get some work out of my teeth and charge my estate!

I agree with the rest though.

I had presumed the OP meant worn in private. I think the only “dressing gowns” worn in public by anyone above working class would be tailored fit and called a wrap dress.

Er, no. The OP suggested lining people up in dressing gowns. It would be a very specific scenario that I would have no desire to carry out in practice!

My friend is a primary school teacher, in a deprived area of our city.
I know this is anecdotal, but he said when they took Y6 to play football tournaments, you could see a small but marked overall height difference between them and the school from the wealthiest areas.

I wasn't talking about dressing gowns though, i was responding to a list of class of class signifiers you posted.

Chickenkeev
You and me both😅🙏

On seventh, bad teeth isn't a reliable indicator. I well and truly lost the genetic lottery on my teeth and I'm not working class by any marker. No matter how I try, I always have some issue. No doubt once I'm 6ft deep, my dentist will still find a way to get some work out of my teeth and charge my estate!
I’ve bad teeth, couldn’t afford to get 4 fixed so have gaps (and as a result smile with mouth closed, don’t stand close to people etc) I’d assume someone with money might get dentures or something, they wouldn’t just leave themselves gummy if you know what I mean?