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Original poster

How do you define class?

39 replies

ButterPie · 21/12/2009 21:13

After a conversation with DP, I have come to wonder what class I am. I suppose, on paper, I am working class, as DP works in a warehouse for minimum wage, we live in a rented house, neither of us have degrees and so on, but, I dunno if I am being somehow snobby, but I feel quite posh somehow. We read the Guardian, we have an aga, we use terry nappies, until recently we were regularly in various pieces of performance art, basically we are the big stereotype of middle class left wing bohemian nobs. I was looking at my house this morning, it might be rented, but when I was little I would have thought it incredibly posh - double glazing, central heating, garden, semi detached, french doors, basically what my mum used to dream of.

Hmm, so, what class are you, and why do you think that?

OP posts:
ilovemydogandmrobama · 21/12/2009 21:15

No idea. I'm American, but check out the degree thread...

Tortington · 21/12/2009 21:23

you are WC apsiring MC

i hate aspiring - its like this ladder and you get the wc at the botom and then somehow everyone wants to be MC.

i have a degree, i own a house, we have 2 cars, we are in well paid jobs. I have a range cooker, don't have a telly. I am firmly working class. I am proud to be working class.

Original poster
ButterPie · 21/12/2009 21:54

I'm not ashamed of being wc, if that's what I am, I just seem surrounded by people claiming to be incredibly deprived because they only had two skiing holidays a year or whatever, and I don't want to do the class version of that.

OP posts:
scaryteacher · 22/12/2009 02:26

Does class matter? I'm not proud and will talk to anyone...I'm a teacher.

I have met some very unpleasant people who regarded people they judged as not PLU as way beneath them, and other totally charming people who had little education and didn't earn a great deal.

It's the person that matters, not the label.

BitOfFunderthemistletoe · 22/12/2009 02:47

Strictly speaking, I take a Marxist view- i.e. how much control of your working environment you have, if you manage/employ others etc.

But cultural definitions predominate in here, and basically mean "Are you a bit common or not". That is not about class, to my mind.

Original poster
ButterPie · 22/12/2009 09:47

scaryteacher - I do think class matters when you can have 20 year differences in adjacent towns with different class profiles, just as an example.

OP posts:
SleighBelleDameSansMerci · 22/12/2009 09:56

Aristos - do what they like and don't care what anyone else thinks.
Upper Middle - want to marry up to aristos see Kate Middleton (if she is upper middle?).
Middle - always aspiring to be upper middle.
Lower middle - think they're upper middle.
Working class - traditionally also don't care what others think.

Soooo, Aristos and Working Classes have more in common than the others.

I'm half joking, obviously!

Read "class" by Jilly Cooper - bit dated but highly educational if, like me, you were born working class with pretentions!

SolidGoldpiginablanket · 22/12/2009 10:02

I'd say it's got a little more to do with attitude and education than with income: a supermarket shelf stacker doesn't become an aristocrat just by winning the lottery.

I come from the very bottom layer of the aspirational middle classes so i'm a peasant with pretensions.

Swedington · 22/12/2009 10:08

Do you ignore sell by dates on food? If yes you aren't middle but you could be either working or upper. If you put jam in the fridge you are almost certainly middle - prob lower middle.

Original poster
ButterPie · 22/12/2009 10:16

Ah-ha! but I both ignore sell-bys and put jam in the fridge...

OP posts:
AMumInScotland · 22/12/2009 10:38

I don't think the usual set of definitions of class is all that useful - there's such a variety of people in any of them, that you just can't generalise.

I know I'd be counted as middle class - we own our house in a "nice" neighbourhood, university educated, professional level job etc. But when people talk about what middle class people are like, it really doesn't seem that much like me - and I certainly don't aspire to be upper middle class! We don't privately educate, or have dinner parties, have a cleaner, or go skiing - and wouldn't do any of those things even if we had enough left after paying the mortgage.

Equally "working class" can cover anything from someone who's happy to have a trade, a rented home, a few pints in their local on a Friday night, to someone determined to "make something of themself".

So in all, I don't think those categories tells you much - you would have to list a much more detailed set of shadings to be meaningful.

Ronaldinhio · 22/12/2009 10:43

It seems that as long as you aren't middle class you are fine
All that endless bloody striving and comparing

AMumInScotland · 22/12/2009 10:49

See that's the thing - I don't spend my life striving and comparing... but I couldn't describe myself as working class or upper class...

AngryFromManchester · 22/12/2009 10:54

We live in a huge house, have two new cars, dh has two degrees and is in a highly skilled profession and I am two years into a degree but I work in a shop and he comes from a council estate. We are quite happily proud to be hard working class. I really could not give a badgers arse whether someone views me as any less because of this. Scareyteacher is right though. You should judge people on who they are, not what they are.

Bonsoir · 22/12/2009 11:02

Class is about what you do, not what you have - a cultural, not a material, concept.

Which is why a dustman who wins the lottery doesn't become upper class - his behaviour doesn't get transformed nearly as quickly (if at all) as his bank balance.

AngryFromManchester · 22/12/2009 11:04

Are dustmen badly behaving citizens then?

Original poster
ButterPie · 22/12/2009 11:13

I doubt very much that the middle class privately educate - isn't it about 5% of kids that are privately educated? That's not the middle of anything.

I'm not too sure about this striving thing either - we really couldn't care less about money as long as we can pay the rent, but we study hard and encourage the kids to do so too, not to get better jobs but because we believe there is intrinsic value in education. Does that count as "striving"? Surely if the working class just accept their lot and shut up and put up they will be a lot easier to oppress?

OP posts:
Bonsoir · 22/12/2009 11:15

No - I didn't claim behaviour improves as you climb the social ladder, did I?

It just changes!

AngryFromManchester · 22/12/2009 11:25

Oh yes you take gifts to dinner parties and the working classes never do this '

It is all English bullshit you know

Bonsoir · 22/12/2009 11:27

Taking gifts presents to dinner parties is super naff! Flowers or nothing (preferably sent in advance)

AngryFromManchester · 22/12/2009 11:28

Are flowers not classed as a present/gift? are they in some superior gift class of their own?

We must call it the floral class darling

Botbot · 22/12/2009 12:06

Parents both came from council estates but went to grammar school and did fairly OK (no money to speak of, though). I went to university and have an EXTREMELY middle-class (but not particularly well-paid) job. Due to high London house prices we live in a very working-class area (on a council estate, in fact, though we have a mortgage), and dd will be going to school here. So I've no idea what class I am. Middle, I suppose, though you wouldn't think it by appearances.

Bonsoir · 22/12/2009 12:24

Dead curious as to what an "EXTREMELY middle-class" job is... Teacher?

ChickensHaveNoTinsel · 22/12/2009 12:30

I have always been baffled by the whole class thing. I suspect I just have none

Botbot · 22/12/2009 12:48

Bonsoir - book editor. Can't really get more middle-class!

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