This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Sunday 9th October 2011 at 11.50pm
Percentages
Louigi just shared this link to a very nice autobiographical essay by Sady Doyle from the USA. It's called "The Percentages: A Biography of Class".
It's odd hearing about people being fiercely protective of their middle class status, because my mum was fiercely protective of our working class status when I was young. "We're working class, Matthew." And that was that.
"And that was entirely my mother’s doing. Her fight — to get into college, to be the best at her college, to do all her homework on the back of the washing machine when it was her turn to do laundry, and she only ever wore hand-sewn jumpers, young lady, and she cried when she didn’t get straight As — was the subtext underneath everything I believed, about my family, and intelligence, and education. We didn’t cry when our clothes weren’t new or cool, we didn’t want more toys; our family bought books, because we cared about learning. We didn’t hate school, we didn’t slack off, we didn’t resent homework; we were there to actually learn things, not fool around or worry about prom."
That's my favourite bit, because it reminds me of my mum, and how she was bullied in school because she had holes in her shoes, and of how my grandad refused free school meals for his children because he didn't need government handouts thank you very much. I'm glad that I never faced the same difficulties. That's part of what Doyle is talking about - that you can count yourself as the same class as someone else ("the 99%", or "working class" or "middle class") without living with anything like the same circumstances.
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