Women and Class – A Problematic Relationship?

Abstract

The relationship between gender and class is important and controversial within sociology and has significant theoretical and political dimensions. But how do women experience class? Is it a meaningful dimension of everyday life The experiential aspects of class were explored with two hundred women, A third of them perceived social class m terms perceived of income. Others perceived it in terms of occupation their parents. their partner's or their own type of housing or the need to work to earn a living These different perceptions relate to women's own occupational class and educational background more closely than they relate to the occupational class of their partners. Women occupied full-time as housewives did not appear to differ from those m full or part-time paid employment m terms of their perceptions of class, nor did they experience their situation as marginal to the class structure of society. Although women's class does count there arc problems with assigning individual women to classes solely on the basis of their current position in the occupational hierarchy.