Reflecting on Women Without Class

In the fifth chapter of her book, entitled "Border Work", Bettie examines social mobility between classes within the site of her ethnography-- a public, Midwestern high school-- and the population of her study, mainly white and Mexican-American middle and working class girls.  She examines how some of the girls choose to "embrace" their class identity (for example, working class girls who wear a lot of makeup and embrace alternative hairstyles, music, and "markers" of their anti-mainstream viewpoint and working class status) even as other girls practice upward social mobility by "performing" the identity of a middle class girl. 

I was pleased that Bettie noted that "exceptions are the rule" when it comes to performing class identity.  Yet she does make tentative generalizations and provide an in-depth study of how the girls see themselves, how they would like to be seen, how they view the "others" in their school and outside of their social groups.  I find her connection between the girls' social mobility and their futures-- ie whether they go to a four year or community college or "experience maternity" (as she so deftly puts it) upon graduating from high school. 

The sixth chapter brings up an interesting point.  Most of the girls who Bettie interviewed for her book had no discourse to speak about class, even if they did understand something more about the intersections of race and gender.  Class is often a marginalized facet of girls' and womens' identities, even within ethnographic studies such as Bettie's.  After reading her references throughout the book to the bestselling ethnography Saving Ophelia, I felt compelled to read the two to have better means of comparing them.  It is absolutely true that sociologists and researchers studying young women look first to upper-middle class, white women as their subjects. 

Through her book, Bettie has obviously filled a great void in our understandings of identity and how it intersects with gender, class, and race.  That the girl themselves seemed to have no discourse to discuss the class which they, nevertheless, constantly "performed" suggests that women often view themselves as "class-less", as Bettie suggests early on in her book.  I remember reading that women, much more frequently than men, identify as "the daughter of X" or "the wife or mother of X", in accordance with their relationships to family members and to men in particular, rather than first identifying themselves as part of a socioeconomic class or by their occupation, hobbies, etc.   I believe this is something of a travesty, and that Beattie brings up an important point: "women are never without class" and learning more about how class intersects with how women identify as women, as having a racial identity, etc, is essential to gaining a better understanding of women's identity, discourse, and economics.

In regards to how this book and our study of it enriches our class's discussion of identity, rhetoric, and writing, I feel that many of us will be able to relate to the socioeconomic world-- the world of high school and that of a small town-- presented by Beattie in this book.  We have previously also not considered gender in terms of how it affects identity to the extent that we have considered ethnicity, class, and socioeconomic status through our other readings and discussions.