Laurie Penny

Pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist

Willetts has reminded us that social mobility is a scam

The entire premise of social mobility rests on the blithe acceptance of social inequality.

By Laurie Penny Published 07 April 2011 16:56

If you want to slip an awkward truth past the guard dogs of Middle England, it helps to throw them a bone of contention. Last week, in a bid to set the terms of the new class debate, universities minister David Willetts MP casually mentioned that it might actually all be women's fault. Willetts's words, to the effect that mass female employment has been the 'biggest single factor' holding back working men, were tossed out just in time to cause maximum controversy in the Friday headlines and the Sunday columns. And off we all went, yapping after the bait, the liberal left and the chattering classes, barking and bickering between ourselves.

Have women sold out working men? Have working men sold out women? While the commetariat pondered these questions, everyone failed to draw attention to the solid, foundational fact that it is the rich who have sold out the poor, mortgaging their life chances to pay the debts of global finance.

Over the course of a fortnight, conservative spin-doctors have performed an exquisite feat of repositioning. Framing the initial debate as a whodunnit - which sex killed social mobility? - lays down two important principles as a given. Firstly, that social mobility is the highest possible public good; secondly, that whoever is responsible for the nosedive in social mobility since the 1970s, it definitely wasn't the free market.

Willetts's notion that "feminism has trumped egalitarianism" holds no water. Ask any unemployed labourer in any of the thousands of northern towns eviscerated by Thatcher's maceration of industry what's really holding them back, and chances are they won't say 'women'. The delusion that women selfishly taking the jobs and university places that should have gone to working class men, and then even more selfishly refusing to sleep with them - a practice that Willetts delicately calls 'assortive mating' - distracts us from the greater truth that the social mobility experiment of the mid-century is over.

Today, children born to working-class parents are overwhelmingly likely to remain working class. Children who go to low-achieving schools usually end up in low-paying jobs, especially in former industrial towns. Wage repression has meant that it is now nearly impossible to raise a family on a single person's wage, meaning that most couples with children are obliged to work two full-time jobs between them. Labour has become more precarious, and structural unemployment has continued to rise. Top jobs in politics, journalism, law, management, business and finance are held in trust for the sons and daughters of the wealthy, as opportunities go to those who can afford to work as unpaid interns or, increasingly, to pay for vital work experience. In fact, like nearly every other journalist under 35, the main reason I have this platform to talk to you now is that I'm a beneficiary of the private-school-and-intern system.

All of that was the case even before the June budget. Now, an increase in regressive taxes that hit the poorest hardest, a threefold increase in university fees that places higher education beyond the reach of many, and the withdrawal of the few remaining benefits, such as Education maintenance Allowance, that really did help young men and young women of all ages to cross class boundaries, have lacerated the ailing proto-corpse of social mobility in Britain. The government's suggestion that sending a few civil servants to give motivational talks in schools will somehow solve the problem is a the equivalent of smearing a little ointment on a gushing arterial neck-wound.

The cuts are already too fast, and too deep: the body politic is bleeding out. The government has begun to panic, desperate to stem the flow of public opinion in the best way it knows how : by appealing to the self-interest of the sharp-elbowed middle classes. middle England cares about social mobility. middle england wants its sons and daughters to be wealthy. Unfortunately, its sons and daughters are currently sliding onto the graduate scrapheap, stuck on the dole or in dead-end jobs, or tearing through the streets of London in masks and hoods, smashing up banks. This is not good news for coalition approval ratings.

If the Tories are to retain power, public discourse has to be shifted, and it has to be shifted fast. Nobody who has so much as squinted at growth projections could claim that social mobility is likely to do anything but decline in this country for the forseeable future, but that's not what matters to the government. What matters is the appearance of concern, a shadow-play of interest in helping the "squeezed middle" - a catch-all term for electorally crucial swing voters - rise through the ranks.

A brief shuffle through the social mobility strategy turns up glossy pages of utter vacuity, full of platitudes, vague half-policies, disclaimers explaining that government can't do all or indeed really any of the work, and doleful insistence that 'there is no magic wand we can wave'.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the document, however, is the opening premise: "a fair society is...a society in which everyone is free to flourish and rise." Social mobility is apparently this government's "principal" social concern. But are fairness and social mobility truly synonymous?

Social mobility, lest we forget, is not the same thing as equality. On the contrary: the entire premise of social mobility rests on the blithe acceptance of social inequality, so long as a handful of have-nots are able to scale the ladder of privilege. In a world where wealth and resources are finite, not everyone can be a billionaire. The encouraging notion that anyone can 'make it' relies on the unspoken assumption that most people, ultimately, won't.

That vision of unfettered self-improvement is the lie that has sustained free-market capitalism over a century of ruthless expansion. It is the lie that neoliberal governments across the developed world have used to justify the destruction of welfare, healthcare and education, the decimation of labour and the entrenchment of inequality along divisions of race, class and gender. It's a lie that convinces most when it is most manifestly false: indeed, recent studies have shown that in America, the more social mobility decreases, the more desperate voters are to believe that 'anyone can make it if they try.' It is the cross-continental American Dream, the dream of enterprise as redemption, the dream that, in the words of the late George Carlin, "you have to be asleep to believe."

Let's return to David Willetts, whose opening salvo makes the bigoted assumptions behind our understanding of "social mobility" plain. There are a finite number of places 'at the top,' for which citizens of all classes are supposed to compete. Middle- and upper-middle class men have first dibs on those places, and after that, middle-class women and working-class men are allowed to slug it out for the scraps. Working class women rarely get a look-in, but that's social mobility for you.

Social mobility is a scam. It's a scam that is useful to governments implementing austerity programmes: after all, if anyone can make it, anyone who fails to do so must be personally at fault. Social mobility, however, is not an adequate substitute for social justice.

Which brings us neatly back to feminism, and to the uncomfortable admission that David Willetts does, in fact, have a point. Mass female employment has affected social mobility. Feminism is nowhere near as significant a factor in the stagnation of social mobility as the destruction of industry or wage repression. The fact remains, however, that if one accepts an unequal system whereby only a handful of elites make it into well-paying professions, and if one also accepts a feminism which settles for cramming a few extra women into those elite jobs, then some people are going to be nudged off the podium. What we have, to paraphrase Willetts, is neither feminism nor egalitarianism. What we have is a ruddy mess of recrimination and sharpened elbows.

Willetts has a point, and he is using that point to stab innocent bystanders in the back. Along with most of Westminster, Willetts has mistaken bourgeois feminism, which merely boosts the life chances of wealthy women within an unequal system, for feminism proper, which demands redistribution of work, wealth and power in order to deliver equality. Along with most of the country, Willetts has mistaken social mobility, which merely boosts the life chances of a few middle-class aspirants, for social justice. As inequality soars and the standard of living in Britain drops through the floor, those mistakes are about to cost us all very dearly.

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Tags: David Willetts

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101 comments

Sun, 2011-04-10 20:50 — Anonymount (not verified)

Vinter i agree. But personally i don't sh*t in woods and do believe society is here to allow us all a fighting. Buckskins. Hahahahaha mini versus bailed out global backwater hahaggaha. Butseriously, no it's not my business luckily. What is tho? The point is very simple my friend. I am rich. My children, given a few nudges, will be even richer. Etc.

Sun, 2011-04-10 20:53 — InNegative (not verified)

@Divine

Twas a joke sir. I was drawing a parellel between the anonymous and ineffectual comment and the anonymous and ineffectual societal subject. It amused me if no one else.

Nor did I miss your point. You just didn't elaborate that point as thoroughly as you do here.

Interesting that you have this view of your life as a comment. I would personally see it differently - more that the blog host itself subsumes the comment and commenter as part of its own identity/notoriety. No one saying anything at the bottom of a blog actually matters in any really significant way.

Now, is there a parallel here between a popular debate forum like 'Question Time' or a speech? It's a fairly optimistic view. The action isn't here. This forum will be destroyed as arbitrarily as a career change and likewise any discourse here established. The blog comment (on professional blogs like this) isn't about establishing dialogue as much as it is about appearing to offer interaction with some established/incipient media icon. You can say what you like because it doesn't matter what you say. Responsibility, citizenship, participation happens elsewhere (probably only on and among authoritative screens). The blogger is the event, not the commentary they attract.

This, of course, isn't the blogger's fault necessarily - there is more potential for participation than any one person could handle and we all know nothing happens in a comment section anyway.

Fri, 2011-04-08 21:47 — ToryTwit (not verified)

I wish I was as perfect as you. I also wish I had your talent for using 24 long words where 1 short one would do.

Thu, 2011-04-07 23:10 — Al (not verified)

This is a really excellent article. Also, David Willetts looks like Adolf Eichmann's dad.

Fri, 2011-04-08 23:55 — Anonymount (not verified)

'David Vinter'. No need for me to be rude to you, I respect your points. I just would like to know two things. One, did your workaholic dad make your money, or teach you the ways of the world. And if more the 2nd than the 1st, guessing here, surely you didn't need his money, and would be proud not to have it. But still, I bet you wouldn't agree to put inheritance tax up to 50%... ?

Sat, 2011-04-09 00:01 — Anonymount (not verified)

And it's all tied up with that 'associative mating' inbreeding too. One doesn't need pots of money being passed through the generations too as well as taste, style, brains, looks and all the god-given stuff.

It clearly CLEARLY is the problem of society. A cultural rich man's trap of fiscal Darwinism.

By the way 'David Vinter' I'd say you would've been allowed at least 75k ish and his house for your inheritance tax-free..

Thu, 2011-04-07 23:43 — Ivan Miletitch

to friendly dolphin >> you're right there! But nothing like a sexist remark to get the sisters on the war path! Although Willetts is a cretin (first to formulate it in that way & then just becasue he is!), he has a statistical point. Let me explain: in France some 15 years ago, there was an under 21 unemployment surge simply due to the fact that National service was abolished. So a group of 30000ish suddendly found themselves looking for a job whereas they would have otherwise been 'serving the country'. Similarly, as women became more present on the job market, they started competing for (in certain sectors) jobs with men. I am not stating that it is either right or wrong, it is a simple fact.

Thu, 2011-04-07 23:48 — Finnegan (not verified)

Great article. Cuts right to the heart of all this "social mobility" bullshit.

Sat, 2011-04-09 00:22 — InNegative (not verified)

@David Vinter

I think the point was to make a distinction between 'social justice' and career-minded 'social mobiity'. In this, I think you broadly agree with her.

Interesting too you take against professionalism. I think anyone who's working class owes it themselves and all that's good in the world to farkin' despise all middle-class career aspiration - seriously, who really wants to be a bleedin' lawyer? Seriously. Christ... A jounalist too for that matter...

'Social justice' is not 'social mobility', nor is it conscription into the idea that a career is in itself valuable. 'Social Justice' should do little more than evidence that the people in the system actually matter and that each role is accorded its value. It's a funny sort of politics, I know, but there it is.

Fri, 2011-04-08 00:32 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

In my view, this vision of unfettered self improvement Laurie mentions might seem to go hand in hand with the idea of accumulative knowledge/science - as in the good old meritocratic society idea which has fallen so flat since we all found out one can buy essays or a degree on-line, or even attend some bogus college on the cheap - if one knows the right people.

But anyway, how strange it seems also (if it's true) that according to the social mobility strategy the practicalities of solving this so-called social mobility problem appears to involve yet more testing of citizens to see how we're doing. Apparently future generations may find themselves subject to even more tests throughout childhood to age 30.

Apparently Mr.Willets also mentioned some first round of feminist revolution having effectively trumped egalitarianism.
One wonders;

What feminist revolution? I wonder if Mr.Willets really knows what he's talking about -or is he simply getting our wonderfully generous (largely unwritten) and therefore flexible constitutional executive prerogatives mixed up.

Fri, 2011-04-08 01:21 — Anonymount (not verified)

Everyone, everywhere, helps those they like, the clegg debate is irrelevant to the point of blindness. I agree with your summary about the futility and lies behind it. But. The ONLY way to 'tackle social mobility' is to hike up inheritance tax, and increase a universal pension massively. Also would encourage familial ties, charity giving, active old age, reduce house prices and promote fluidity of money. All good. We all work our arses off, but some are left with nothing, whilst babies, who deserve nothing.. But there's no chance

Fri, 2011-04-08 01:27 — Anonymount (not verified)

How's it go again? A motherducking mammoth in a water closet?

Fri, 2011-04-08 01:32 — Jason (not verified)

As a man from a working class family in northern Britain I am a bit sick of hearing about all those poor made redundant labourers. I'm in my thirties and when I think about the hard graft people older than me, who laboured, I do have to wonder if I can really say it isn't their fault.

Being a child from a working class northern town (and lets not forget to get that northern as well as working class as close together as we can) my parents didn’t really think about university, even when it was free, and we couldn’t afford MTV, I think the alternative of the alternative has been beneficial. I was well into my twenties before I realised in a 'customer focused environment' was both totally unfulfilled and social unacceptable in the same way as university, perhaps charging fees will give the idea of education the value it needs?

The only thing to do in these working class northern towns is move away or join the masses who believe that no effort equals results, fortunately I moved before it too became a fashionable thing to tell us to do.

I have since returned to my home town where in my immediate family neither men nor woman work and do not even see the benefits of doing so, they have poor education, poor expectation and little motivation to even try anything. I certainly understand the argument that inequality killed mobility but isn’t the argument just reinforcing the already held belief that if you're not 'posh' you shouldn't even try.

This seems to have filtered into all aspects of life to the point that I know people (of similar age) who will not even try to switch on a computer because they do not know how to like its something more complicated than TV. Everything is so alien that it couldn't possibly be understood. Coupled with the idea that working in the public sector is both unrewarding and only for those people who value their jobs more than their family life surely growth in the private sector is going to be the only way forward? Cut the public sector and re-vitalise meritocratic values?

Is the problem one of motivation? Perhaps. It isn't one of 'destruction of industry'. I have never personally known working class industry, the very idea of it brings visions of old video clips and news reels in much the same way as documentaries about 'the war'. There has been many wars in my lifetime, as there have been many declining sectors of business so why are the working class northern men still considered, by others and themselves, as stagnant, hard done by and trampled on people? Do we really still exist?

It is definitely a lack of being a 'beneficiary of the private-school-and-intern system' but maybe too it is the very same class of people banding their sons or brothers together into believing all the opposites of feminist values are what define them, continually looking at what men used to be instead of what we can become. Perhaps younger men now would do well to look at feminists' have achieved and be inspired instead of sitting around complaining that life does not fit them any more and engaging with society to try to understand it and try to be included?

Fri, 2011-04-08 05:19 — Fred Davis (not verified)

"What feminist revolution?"

There's THREE that Willets could be talking about, one in the late 1890s through to the 1930s which saw a demographyic transition in which most middle class clerical work went from "men's work" to "women's work", one during ww1 which saw working class women gradually move from traditionally female unskilled working class factory work into traditionally male semi-skilled working class factory work and the most recent one in the 60s through to the present that involves women becoming more represented in highly skilled/highly trained middle class work sectors such as science, journalism and the civil service.

Willets of course doesn't know enough history to know that there's more than one major worker demographic shift of the kind he's referring to, because he only views history via the Great Man model of history, in which everything occurs because of the individual action of a few superlative blokes doing superlative thing by shouting superlatively at his slaves to do superlative stuff.

So what he's really saying isn't in reference to any of those feminist revolutions, because what he means is that Women MPs are all personally and solely responsible for the lack of social mobility in britain, which makes what he's saying not even daft, NOT EVEN inane, but absolutely and utterly INSANE, to a degree that out stupids even Boris Johnson's most stupid past statements.

Which of course means, as Laurie rightly says, that it's all just misdirection from a government that doesn't really have a plan A any more but literally can't think of a plan B to save its pathetic existence.

Bring on the general election.

Tue, 2011-04-19 03:33 — gault (not verified)

'lacerated the ailing proto-corpse'! Hahaha!

Sat, 2011-04-09 06:31 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

@Innegative: You're right.. who wants to be a lawyer? What a crap way of spending your life. Good money, but oh no the monkey suit, the long court sessions of yawn aching boredom, the absolute bull you have to read and write.

Or a journalist? Constantly having to produce writing in a certain format for your living. The money isn't even that good.

Middle class professions, long hours of work. Yuck.

Social Mobility .. who really needs to dress up in a monkey suit and spend your life indoors under the lights?

Fri, 2011-04-08 06:58 — Captain Sensible (not verified)

You could have married Willie and have become a Princess sweetie!

Fri, 2011-04-08 07:57 — RapidEddie (not verified)

What's held back working class men - and women - is middle class politicians. Specifically, the way New Labour became enamoured with The Third Way and the death of class.

If the working class doesn't exist, it can't be being held back, can it? Enter identity politics to fill the compassion deficit. This shouldn't be a zero sum game, but, in practise, it is. Women, ethnic minorities, disabled people all needed a more level playing field.

But the working classes? New Labour believed (and probably still believes) that we live now in a meritocracy, where people's stations are where their natural abilities have left them. This despite the fact that the strongest indicator of where you will end up in life is where you start from.

Incidentally, middle class women and working class men aren't fighting for the scraps. Middle class men and middle class women are divvying up the spoils and working class men and women can go and shite.

Take a head count in the NS office of social backgrounds and get back to me.

Thu, 2011-04-14 23:47 — Des Demona (not verified)

The Big Society is a great thing - so long as you went to the right school, never suffered panic attacks over how you were going to pay the electricity bill, didn't have to wait 5 hours to see a doctor, don't have to work every hour of every day just to pay the mortgage without the benefit of knowing that you have a few million quid earning dividends in the companies screwing the rest of us to the wall.
Yep, life is sweet.

Fri, 2011-04-08 10:26 — Martin L (not verified)

@ jason - excellent post- but no-one on here wants to hear it- they choose to believe that it is a conspiracay to keep people poor!

@ rapid eddie- You have got it all wromg. I sometimes describe myself as 'middle class', but in reality, there is no such thing. Middle class is simply working class (not to be confused with benefits class)............

Fri, 2011-04-08 10:33 — Roger JF André (not verified)

Great work Laurie. This, together with your recent 'Dispatches' report on Uni Chancellors pay packages, firmly nails Willetts as yet another right wing extremist who believes he and his pals have a divine right to rule. Like them he is propped up by the aspirant upper middle class who have always felt threatened by real feminism. Diversionary tactics such as theirs should not distract us from their divisive agenda.

Tue, 2011-04-12 01:13 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

@InNegative: The problem of attempting to quantify significance is that there is no thermometer, no independent mercury. You can't tell the final achievement of your words.

To me, you're not quite grasping the effect that words get passed on to other people. Buckskins, for instance, has now named a white horse 'Seal' because of my interaction with him. His wife will also say that I am the First Seal and she will pass on the information to her friends. So I've started a pyramid like scheme in Texas.

stuart also says that I am the First Seal so another pyramid scheme has started in Hackney. Ditto with Nick Dil in South Hamps.

InNegative: And the really good thing about this scheme is that you don't have to pay for anything. I will never show my image for all the public to see nor will I demand money or donations or adoration. And the only awards I will acknowledge are those that I present to myself. Are you interested in starting in the North-West?

Tue, 2011-04-12 01:36 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

InNegative: If you have a look at the link you will see an interpretation of me. I told Buckskins I was the First Seal and the First Seal comes on a white horse. And Buckskins get a white colt ... a coincidence or something out of this world altogher.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tbr/tbr026.htm

Sat, 2011-04-09 12:40 — David Vinter (not verified)

ANYMOUNT---Well sorry but your wrong, the amount I inherited was about 10k.After working for low wages as a teenager. I have never earned above the average wage in my life, I finished up at nearly 40 with a wife and two children and a mortgage, had to start again. But with hard work I'm OK,[EXCEPT HEALTH]. Today, Saturday my two graduate children have taken the cheque into my local building society [REALLY], to finish off my mortgage. I feel happy, and it's a lovely day. My non smoking, non drinking, farm labourer grandfather would have been proud, so am I a bit!

Sat, 2011-04-09 12:49 — Max Colson (not verified)

That is a fantastic article Laurie...

Tue, 2011-04-12 02:01 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

You might come across a person who says, " I saw the Royal Couple."

Your response will be, " So what, I correspond with the First Seal in the Book of Revelations"

Tue, 2011-04-12 02:47 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

The other thing about being at the bottom of the blog is that you can provide solutions. There will be no need for donations or any kind of monetary transaction. But in order to get rid of the 'celebrity'/upper class we must first provide a solution. Hence the First Seal, the final seal in our consciousness, for that is the ultimate celebrity.

How is the ultimate celebrity going to come? It is going to come through the word. But how can this word be divorced from the image of a person? Someone has to be here sitting here writing this but it had to be someone who wasn't prepared to flash his mug up in the world's media for pennies and attention. In fact I have been a celebrity in a small area of Japan for a year and I'd rather live away from being known. There's no way I would date Jemima Khan.

Mon, 2011-04-11 10:58 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

InNegative: 'No one saying anything at the bottom of a blog actually matters in any really significant way.'

Well no one really makes any 'significant' comment in any forum. And how exactly do we measure significance? What signifies what is significant.

When you look at history and think about the 40,000 years of Australian aboriginal history nobody has said anything significant.

What do you think of collective consciousness?
Perhaps you've heard I'm the First Seal in the Book of Revelations. I'm like a seal of consciousness. If you chat with me on this blog page something will happen to you in your life outside your computer time that 'seals' you to me. A strange coincidence will occur.

Where are you located approx InNegative?

Sat, 2011-04-09 15:56 — InNegative (not verified)

@Mr Divine

What I'd like to see re journalism is that sort of energy shifing out of established professional institutions and working to speak its own language elsewhere. As you say, the problem with professional journalism is that there is a pre-existing background model governing what it wants to say and how it is allowed to say it. The medium produces the writer insofar as the writer needs an audience and must be marketable, albeit on certain political terms. Some people, for example, still think Richard Littlejohn is real and not just the extension of an 'idea of what's real'. Very odd indeed.

I suppose it could be fun for a week or two being a barrister - researching a case and arguing it. The novelty would pretty soon wear off though.

Sat, 2011-04-09 16:08 — Briar (not verified)

Equality of opportunity is also a scam, perhaps even a greater one. It is not equality, anywaym for that would need to be established to provide it. Only when every child is brought up in a secure, comfortable home and every child is able go to an excellent state school will equality of opportunity exist. But behind it lies the bad old attitude that applauds the successful and rich as more virtuous for using their opportunity to soar and condemns those who prefer (or do not have to ability to make more than limited use of their opportunity) a more ordinary, less materialistically ambitious life. "Equality of opportunity" continues the tradition of damning the poor as ingrates won't succeed when given an opportunity and therefore don't deserve to live in dignity and comfort.

Sat, 2011-04-09 16:25 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

InNegative: I think the new form of writing is in the comment sections. It's more interesting to read than the actual articles. And you feel like you're part of it as well. It becomes very funny at times but I would like to see more author participation. This isn't one of them.

Fri, 2011-04-08 12:54 — Marcus (not verified)

@Spilliam Wooner, you serious?

Sat, 2011-04-09 17:59 — InNegative (not verified)

@Briar
I don't know if you noticed, but you essentially just rewrote her article...

Sat, 2011-04-09 18:15 — InNegative (not verified)

@Divine

Speaking as a humble comment myself, I propose we get organised and start writing our own articles here. Afterall, there is no need to view the main article as anything more than the first comment in an excremental effluence of enless opinion. Equality for comments is all I'm preaching.

Unfortunately though, we lack the relevant tools - img src=, bold headers and such like... Damn these hierarchies!

Sat, 2011-04-09 18:18 — Lox (not verified)

Hi Briar, you're right-but only if you feel a self-made millionaire is more virtous than someone who's not. Most people don't: I'm surprised that you do.

Thu, 2011-04-07 17:16 — Gerry Tierney (not verified)

I don't really know what to say, you've summed up everything I possibly could have.

Except maybe I'd have sworn quite a lot about Letwin, too.

Fri, 2011-04-08 13:24 — zumbum (not verified)

"Social mobility, lest we forget, is not the same thing as equality. On the contrary: the entire premise of social mobility rests on the blithe acceptance of social inequality, so long as a handful of have-nots are able to scale the ladder of privilege. In a world where wealth and resources are finite, not everyone can be a billionaire. The encouraging notion that anyone can 'make it' relies on the unspoken assumption that most people, ultimately, won't."

Poetic commentary at its finest.

Thu, 2011-04-07 18:17 — K in the USA (not verified)

"Willetts's notion that "feminism has trumped egalitarianism" holds no water."

Strong stuff! I read on excitedly for evidence and I see:

"Ask any unemployed labourer in any of the thousands of northern towns eviscerated by Thatcher's maceration of industry what's really holding them back, and chances are they won't say 'women'."

So apparently demographic, economic and sociological evidence doesn't mean anything unless unemployed labourers agree with it? Ridiculous.

Thu, 2011-04-07 17:40 — sianushka (not verified)

Laurie, i agree with everything you say here. Solidarity.

Sian

Thu, 2011-04-07 17:50 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

and maybe they should move the Welsh Assembly to Fishguard or Cardigan or maybe they should just leave it where it is and the same with The United Kingdom Parliament and do away with the house of Lords and open an English Parliament.

Maybe we should just have four independent countries, I'd be happy with that, just think about no more involvement with insane overseas wars, no more bickering amongst the four countries!

Thu, 2011-04-07 17:54 — DK (not verified)

Excellent post.

Sat, 2011-04-09 23:52 — Mary Tracy (not verified)

That is, indeed, a most excellent article.

Thu, 2011-04-07 18:30 — michaelpetek

Today, children born to working-class parents are overwhelmingly likely to remain working class.

If they go to university and try to get into professional or managerial employment - or whatever else the toffs have reserved for themselves - they'll be slapped down so hard they'll end up in the underclass of unemployables.

Having prepared themselves only for jobs that only toffs can get, they have neither the skills nor the experience for the working-class jobs they realistically could have got had they decided to stay away from uni.

Fri, 2011-04-08 14:06 — JimmyD (not verified)

I would like to echo the above.

For me, the below quote from Laurie's piece summs up the problem with the premise of social mobility:

'In a world where wealth and resources are finite, not everyone can be a billionaire. The encouraging notion that anyone can 'make it' relies on the unspoken assumption that most people, ultimately, won't.'

Therefore there will always be losers within the current system and that is not just because said losers have blunt elbows. There just isn't room for most at the 'top'.

Social mobility is nothing but a placebo pill to 'cure' the hemorrhage of social inequality.
A token of placation for the masses, but lets not be fooled.

Excellent post Ms Penny.

Thu, 2011-04-14 03:46 — InNegative (not verified)

@John

As far as I can tell you are in agreement with the article - that there is a distinction between social mobility and social justice. The article was not arguing that there should be more social mobility, it was arguing that the principle of social mobility in itself supports ugly, degrading competition and abuse. In a sense, it was asking:

"What's s o great about social mobility anyway?"

Didn't see much evidence of high middle-class intelligence at uni myself - this goes for the academics as much as the students. The academic aspect felt like an archaic simulation with rare flashes of authentic originality; the student aspect, mostly hedonistic imbeciles or uber-competetive careerists looking to make lots of money fast. Most of my favorite people dropped out, through disgust or mental dysfunction. "Best minds of my generation ... " and all that...

Re middle-class chicks taking working class positions, seems inevitable this would be a contributing factor to diminishing numbers of working class people gettin into uni. No real controversy here. If I valued the uni treadmill -

school->college->uni->change course->uni->gap year in France->uni->get job at dad's friend's->career

I'd say it was a shame. However, as it is I'd recommend anyone enter the world by whatever alternative means possible. The university is only of any use at all once you know what it is for. That's true of life in general actually.

Fri, 2011-04-08 14:29 — Brian Topp (not verified)

The hypocrisy of the author complaining about unpaid internships when she pays her your own researchers less than minimum wage.

It's so easy to criticise others, isn't it?

Thu, 2011-04-07 18:47 — KenDoll (not verified)

@K in the USA, you miss the point by being pedantic over the weight of "evidence" issue. The point that Laurie makes is that, the argument over feminism versus social mobility is an unhelpful distraction, lets not all fall for this con.
I agree with Lauries simple point that fairness and social mobility are not the same thing.
Only a rat can win a rat race

Thu, 2011-04-14 03:53 — InNegative (not verified)

No 'strange coincidences' as yet Mr. D., but I'll let you know when those angels blow those trumpets.

Sun, 2011-04-10 03:29 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

InNegative: What are you on about? The right tools! Who wants to be arsed arsing about with sorting out headings and bold and tabs. Give me a break. Leave that to the librarians. I'm a really messy person who needs other people to do things.

Besides your'e missing my point, the comment section is already where the action is. People go to 'speechs' and question time but the comment section allows a more literary approach. Look at the recent interview with Assange. There is an interplay of interruptions and body language trying to put pressure on each other.

The anonymous blog comments enables people to transcend all that and adopt a more 'reflective' and creative approach. It also gives scope to the freedom to just write as ya want in any way you want.

Consider the restraints of the person having to write the article. Compared to yours and mine, they're ina straitjacket. Our writing experience may not provide money but it is free from fonts, word count etc. All we have to do is type. Our thoughts are expressed in the way we want them to be.

Where is the best modern writing to be found?
In the comment sections.

Mr. Divine
Winner of Five Blog Commentating 'The Mr. Divine' Awards.

Tue, 2011-04-12 13:35 — InNegative (not verified)

Crikey, I think I've broken Mr. D...