Class: Feminism

Question 1

Abbott:

Answer 1

• Criticised the Goldthorpe study of social mobility for completely ignoring women.
• Abbot says that there is a need to study women’s mobility as well as men’s.
• This is because women’s experiences in the workplace are different to men.
• The fact that women have less absolute mobility in comparison to men shows that they have less chance of reaching the top jobs which increases men’s upward mobility
• This led to the creation of the surrey scale which reflects the gendered nature of work. In this scale women are classified based on their own occupations.

Question 2

Surrey scale:

Answer 2

• Classification system which represents the gendered nature of work

Question 3

Arber, Dale and Gilbert: Surrey scale

Answer 3

• existing classifications have a patriarchal base
• In the scale women are classified by their own occupation not their husbands
• Women dominate sales jobs and men dominate skilled manual jobs

Question 4

Evaluation of feminism:

Answer 4

• Women move in and out of jobs due to pregnancy (Can’t assess class position if always changing jobs)
• Women partners often determine the income of the household