Is it easier to be a feminist when you're middle class?

[BlingLoving]

I don't know how to express this properly but would be interested in other views. In my office, we have a wide range of men and women who have varying levels of education and who I think range also in terms of old fashioned "class" from working class to quite posh.

I've started to notice that in my office it's the traditional middle class types, men and women, who seem to be the most in touch with issues of feminism while those on the furtherest ends of the scale on both sides, tend to be less aware of feminism issues and seem to have more sexist relationships.

So, "standard"* middle class men are both taking turns at doing school run, taking responsibility for cooking and cleaning and I can often hear them negotiating with their wives on the phone regarding nights out etc. Similarly, the "standard" middle class women in the office seem to have a better split on household tasks with their partners and split nights to get home early for childcare and so on.

However, the poshest man in our team, has a SAHW (who used to be a hotshot lawyer but who stopped because trying to do both was too hard, which I completely understood as while she was still working I think he left the office in time to relieve the nanny no more than once every 2 weeks) and although his second child is 7 months old, he has yet to spend any time alone with both his children together. Ever.

Similarly, the more working class women in the office all cook and clean for their partners and regularly talk about how their partners don't so much as run the hoover round. And the ones with children have all dropped from full time "professional" positions to support positions, ie taken a few steps back in their careers, in order to allow them to work part time and/or to leave every day at exactly 4:30pm because their partners are unable/unwilling to do the same.

So, is feminism not just a gender thing but also a class thing?

• Clearly, "standard" middle class is a made up term that simply reflects some kind of Bling's-view-based-on-tv-and-newspapers-that-she-couldn't-really-articulate-if-she-tried-but-that-she-hopes-you-understand.

Well I have just learnt feminism is in no way snobby or elitist so I'm sure the answer you will get is no

I think you have a point. And the challenge of feminism is to be relevant to all women, not just the "chattering classes".

Of course there is the view that as 'working class' women have always worked outside the home so don't get caught up in the debate on how to manage work and kids - they just get on with it.

I don't know enough about this to talk about wider patterns, though I know there have been studies about feminism in relation to class, so I'll just talk about personal experience.

My grandparents were typical working class. She worked in a shop, he had a variety of manual labour jobs, including a stint at mining. They had a more equal relationship that many of those I've come across today. My grandfather did most of the daily cooking (though my grandmother baked cakes and pastries on weekends) and they shared housework equally. When he retired several years before her (partly due to ill-health), he pretty much took over most of the housework. Obviously I was a child so I don't know how that arrangement was reached, but it seemed to be perfectly amicable. My grandmother was a very sweet-natured, mild-mannered character who I can never remember being cross at any point in my childhood, so I can only conclude that either she ruled with an iron fist behind closed doors or my grandfather loved her and voluntarily treated her as an equal.

My parents were aspring middle class. Humble backgrounds but white collar jobs etc. My mum certainly did more than her fair share of the housework and they had very traditional gender roles. Despite that, they adored and respected each other which was very obvious to me growing up, and certainly any big decision or spend was made in consultation and my father never 'overruled' my mother or anything. If anything, she was more the more forceful of the two, but they grew up in a world where society normalised housework and children as something women did and so they behaved pretty much like every other couple of the time.

My XH came from an upper-middle class background, though by the time we got together he had no more money. As an intellectual exercise he seemed to believe in equality and also did his share around the house. I was the main earner and he struggled to get anything other than part-time, short-term jobs, but that wasn't really an issue. However, it was the wifework aspect that created an inequality in our relationship. It always seemed to be me listening to him, sorting out things for him, etc., and in the end I felt like his mother rather than a partner. That could have been a personality thing rather than a gender thing though, since a similar relationship pattern seemed to be in existence in his male friendships, too.

My XP (father of my children) was from a working class background. He is an entitled, sexist abuser who definitely believes that a penis absolves him of a certain degree of housework, etc. Unfortunately, he kept this quite well hidden until I was pregnant.

Among my social circle today - people I know, work with, socialise with, etc - I'd say the anecdotal evidence supports your OP. I don't know how this reflects nationally though. I also wonder how geographic location affects things, too. I'd be interested in hearing from someone who knows a bit more about the research that's been done.

The miners' wives got rid of Page 3 in the workers' paper, the fight for equal pay was led by working class women, unionized wage-earning women led the struggle to place women's employment rights on the national agenda: I don't think you can say that working class women are less interested in equality, but I think that middle class women have more access to the media and tend to set the agenda of much of what gets talked about.

Patriarchy affects all classes, so feminism is needed for all classes. It's not just class; it's race, culture, media, the list is endless.

Let's remember also the women of Dagenham! And the women who were match makers in the 19th century.

I think sexism manifests itself in different ways depending on circumstances. So inequality might look different for middle class women than working class women but it doesn't mean it's not there.

I think it's a valid question to ask whether the aspects of feminism someone is interested in depends on class - equal pay is something which probably is of interest across the whole spectrum, but what about gender roles, pinkification etc?

I'm saying "question to ask" as I've no idea what the result of a survey which analyses feminist statements and their importance to people according to class would be, but I'd be certainly interested to read it.

Well said leBof.

there may be some things that class insulates you from having to worry about, and i think that the voices who are most likely to be heard in mainstream media are thise of elites, or who otherwise fit the paradigm. i can think of a lot of working class feminist voices who you would be hard pressed to find in a mainstream magazine or newspaper, but they exist, and their ideas have been important in shaping feminist thought and discourse

i don't think this means that feminism is classist, or that it can not/does not speak to the concerns of working class women - there was a photo in the paper last weekend i think? of maids at posh new york hotels who were protesting over the strauss-kahn case

talking about class here always here makes me feel weird as i am not british, and i don't identify with any class here - i feel not classless but unclassed, if that makes sense. everything i think about class then feels v theoretical

i will now defer to people who know what they are talking about

I should clarify that i think feminism as a method of analysing and theorising about structural inequalities due to gender is not necessarily classist, though some feminists may be

Maybe the Middle Class like to think so.

Whether feminism is middle class or not, it sure is represented as being so by its detractors. The best way to portray something as trivial is to call it middle class.

How many times have we been called a bunch of middle class feminists who have nothing better to do than drink lattes and moan about issues that don't really matter? I count a zillion .....

Bling, its interesting in that I would draw very different conclusions looking at the people I know.

I live in a small rural town, lots of people who I think you'd categorise as working class. I also have a group of university friends who live in London / the South East who I'm still in touch with.

I'm sure that the university friends & their social circle are all much better at talking about feminism and saying the right things. But from my discussions with them basically as far as I can see the family set ups are much more traditional - the DH works full time, and if the DW works then she does so by paying for childcare and probably a cleaner (no doubt the money comes from joint budgets, but my impression is very much that the women are doing the arranging and the sorting of it all). Friend's description of school pickup is basically all women there, whether mothers or nannies.

Whereas, you go to DD's primary school and you'll see at least a third at my guess of the children being picked up by men, school events (with the bizarre exception of the PTA meetings - why?? do they think we bite?) have plenty of men there, etc etc. I imagine plenty of the men I know would be if you wanted to talk feminism with them, but when it comes down to it they arrange their shift patterns so they are there at 3.30 and have time off for sports day.

I have to say if you go into the very WC communities the women seem to 'put up' with blatant inequality and fathers generally being quite deadbeat.

It's easier to have any principles if you aren't busy fighting for survivial.

If you live in WC communities you will find thats not really the truth.

It is quite like that,
I do live in one I'd have to say amongst younger women rather than older ones.
Alot of young dads amongst my mates are like jeremy kyle treats , they dont even work most of them and still use the fact they are men as a reason to not to anything .

It's an interesting question.

But with the example you give, is it possible you're muddling cause and effect? ie that the women with feminist viewpoints do better in their careers because they chose partners who support them and share domestic responsibilities, whilst the women who expect to be doing all the domestic jobs and choose partners who expect them to do it, end up in low paid jobs?

Well in my experience thats just bollocks.

That was to hoebag

Why is it?

we all have different experiences.

I agree with T

IF we're basing class on income, it could be the case the WC women have more equality. Parents on NMW for example are more likely to need two incomes and the jobs are less likely to allow for flexible working. Whereas it may be more likely for a MC woman to be a SAHP or to use flexible working patterns, which may serve to entrench traditional gender roles.

I agree with Takver, the middle classes may be better at talking about the academic side of feminism, they do tend to set the agenda.

My Father was unemployed and basically a sahd for long periods of my childhood, my Mother was constantly employed, cooking and chores were shared etc. They may not have identified as feminist but circumstances dictated otherwise.

I find on Mn sometimes that the working class are shrugged off as Jeremy Kyle fodder, or simpletons. It really really pisses me off, you can actually be of worth to society and an intelligent human being without a massive mortgage and a phd.