Asses the ways in which class and gender were intimately linked in the formation of the middle class?
Asses the ways in which class and gender were intimately linked in the formation of the middle class?
Class and gender were closely linked in the formation of the middle class. The distinctions between the private and public spheres were integral to middle class identity in its inception at the end of the 18th century. The gender roles which this distinction played out make the formation of the middle class and gender central to the development of a middle class.
Defining the middle class is essential to this debate. As if we define class is terms of wealth and status alone then class formation and gender relations are unrelated. Where as if we concede that although wealth has a role to play class is much more and that cultural factors can too play a role. Then gender relations can be seen as playing a far more central role to the formation of the middle class.
It was at the end of the 18th Century when the middling sort as they had previously been know began to be referred to as the middling sort. The question of weather the middle class was really a new and autonomous group or weather they were simply an extension of what had gone before is central to this debate. The division of the private and public spheres was far more pronounced under the "middle class" than the "middling sort". If you argue that the change from "sort" to "class" was evolutionary then gender cannot be seen as important to class formation as the gender distinction were only clear after the middle sort existed. Where as if you consider "middle class" to have referred to something different from what had proceeded it then gender relation may have been key to the origins of the middle class
Cowper and seed Both appear to suggest that there is no great difference between the middle class and the middling sort. This is due largly to their economic definition of class. Cowper describing the situation in the 17th and early 18th Century stating that the middling sort are "Tenants of life's middle state...securely plac'd between the small and great'.1 In the late 18th Century Seed distinguished the aristocracy from the middle class by the latter's need to generate an income via active occupation and from the "labouring majority by their possession of property and their exemption from... manual labour". Although from hugely different periods of history these two definitions of the middle class are quite similar one simply being an extension of the other. These definitions aren't without their problems.
"Passive and static class definitions based upon quantifiable information," 2cannot uncover the relationships between members of a class nor between that class and wider society. Class is more than simply a means of classifying people according to their wealth. Social status is dependent upon property, occupation, connection, politeness, breading etc. Therefore class cannot be defined in purely economic terms.
Class and gender were closely linked in the formation of the middle class. The distinctions between the private and public spheres were integral to middle class identity in its inception at the end of the 18th century. The gender roles which this distinction played out make the formation of the middle class and gender central to the development of a middle class.
Defining the middle class is essential to this debate. As if we define class is terms of wealth and status alone then class formation and gender relations are unrelated. Where as if we concede that although wealth has a role to play class is much more and that cultural factors can too play a role. Then gender relations can be seen as playing a far more central role to the formation of the middle class.
It was at the end of the 18th Century when the middling sort as they had previously been know began to be referred to as the middling sort. The question of weather the middle class was really a new and autonomous group or weather they were simply an extension of what had gone before is central to this debate. The division of the private and public spheres was far more pronounced under the "middle class" than the "middling sort". If you argue that the change from "sort" to "class" was evolutionary then gender cannot be seen as important to class formation as the gender distinction were only clear after the middle sort existed. Where as if you consider "middle class" to have referred to something different from what had proceeded it then gender relation may have been key to the origins of the middle class
Cowper and seed Both appear to suggest that there is no great difference between the middle class and the middling sort. This is due largly to their economic definition of class. Cowper describing the situation in the 17th and early 18th Century stating that the middling sort are "Tenants of life's middle state...securely plac'd between the small and great'.1 In the late 18th Century Seed distinguished the aristocracy from the middle class by the latter's need to generate an income via active occupation and from the "labouring majority by their possession of property and their exemption from... manual labour". Although from hugely different periods of history these two definitions of the middle class are quite similar one simply being an extension of the other. These definitions aren't without their problems.
"Passive and static class definitions based upon quantifiable information," 2cannot uncover the relationships between members of a class nor between that class and wider society. Class is more than simply a means of classifying people according to their wealth. Social status is dependent upon property, occupation, connection, politeness, breading etc. Therefore class cannot be defined in purely economic terms.
