Formations of class and gender: becoming respectable (1997)

Beverley Skeggs

Chapter ONE social positions and positions in knowledge. Access,

Respectability is one of the ubiquitous signifiers of
class. It uniforms how we speak, who we speak to,
how we classify others, what we study and how we
know what we are (or are not). Respectability is usually
the concern of those not seen to have it. Respectability
is desirable as it is the property of ’others’ who were
legitimated and powered.
Respectability was a central mechanism through which
the concept class emerged. Respectability was central
to the development of Englishness. It was a key
characteristic of what it meant to be worth and to be
individual. It embodies moral authority. Individuals were
the respectable, the moral, the worthy, the English, the
white, the non-working class who could sit in
judgement of others.
Respectability has always been a marker and a burden
of class, a standard to which to aspire. Working class
formed as the other, produced from middle class
anxiety about social order and an attempt of the middle
class to consolidate their identity and power as other.
power, capital, are controlled.
White and male forms of knowledge become
centralised (becoming the normalised) forms of capital.
Wills (1977) studied ‘lad’ culture. Men occupy
stereotypical macho roles, with physical fitness,
strength, and ability to protect women central to this
role. Women occupy stereotypical female roles;
passive, carers of children and husbands – seek
protection and security from males.
Males identified in the ‘Lad’ culture possessed symbolic
and social capital that cannot be exchanged within the
service economy. They can exchange their protective
qualities to gain power (but not capital) in relations to
women.
Femininity is utilised in trade for power in marriage but
not institutional power.

The possession of capital, in all four sense: Economic

capital. Cultural capital, social capital and symbolic
capital is linked to class. The higher classes possess
capital and moral authority, their possession of power
and class enables them to dictate the moral code of
the other. They are able to frame the other through
their capital and values to re-affirm their identity as
other and to ensure their continued exclusion.

From being born into gender, class and race relations

we occupy the associated social positions ‘women’,
‘black’, ‘working class’…. We also inherit ways of
understanding, we inherit the meanings associated with