The first time I became aware of class as a concept was when I moved to the UK. I had been a student at my independent girls’ school for precisely three days when I heard some girls in my class talking about “townies”. “What’s a townie?” I asked, all innocence.
A barrage of explanations came out, each mystifying me more and more. Then someone said, “Townies wear shell suits, you know, those shiny tracksuits.” Unwisely, I said, “But I have a shiny tracksuit.” Total silence fell, and then one girl said, “Well, she’s Australian, the rules don’t apply to her,” and everyone relaxed again. This was my introduction to the English class system. I later became aware that people could be categorised at 50 paces merely by the way that they dressed, stood and walked, a categorisation which was confirmed or denied as soon as the person opened her mouth. Accent and what one’s father did were the final determinants necessary to “put one in one’s place”. Luckily for me, I was impossible to categorise as anything other than a “colonial”, which meant that I had leeway to put my foot in it and generally make social gaffes all over the place.
The thing was that by and large, if you were born in a particular class, it was very difficult to get out of that class. If you were lower class, the educational opportunities were less and you were automatically hallmarked as someone who was “not quite right”. For the first time, I understood what Marx and Engels were on about (after all, they used Manchester as their primary example, which happened to be where I was living). Indeed, one of my best friends at high school was a neo-Marxist, but I noted that, although she had a keen sense of social justice which I admired, she didn’t actually like the lower classes very much in practice. They were constantly disappointing in their lack of interest in throwing off the shackles of class, and rather more interested in watching Man U rise to global dominance and downing pints of lager.
When I returned to Australia, I was more acutely aware of such divisions in Australian society. I was amazed that the main question when I started Law School was, “What school did you go to?” My answer made no sense to anyone, because of course I had attended a school in Manchester, but I liked the fact that I couldn’t be categorised.
Of course we have class divisions in Australia too, it is just that they are not quite as rigid as the English ones. Therefore, while my grandparents on both sides of the family had to leave school at the ages of 12 or 13, my parents were the first in their families to complete high school, undergraduate university degrees and postgraduate degrees. A pretty darn impressive acheivement if you ask me. I have always been aware of the fact that my education is an immense privilege.
Anyway, I was interested to read this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about the English class system, and the author’s subsequent comment that Australians can’t be too smug – we also have snobbery:
But a new snobbery has also materialised in Australia. Where Britain’s middle classes look down on their chavs, ours look down on “bogans” – VB-swilling, mullet-sporting, flannel-shirt wearing, Holden V8-driving ockers. Once the ocker was a source of folkloric affection but today he’s an object of derision and ridicule. Earlier this year, residents in Wahroonga petitioned Ku-ring-gai Council to change a street name from Bogan Place to a more genteel Rainforest Close because of its negative connotations.
Someone also had to explain the concept of the bogan to me when I was about 13 (I must have been a very naive child really), and I seem to recall that this explanation also made no sense to me, as it revolved around the wearing of moccasins and flannelette shirts. How could wearing certain clothes make you a bad person?
As with my high school friend, I have noticed that often, those who deride the lower classes in practice are often those who also purport to espouse principles of social justice and equality. People who campaign loudly against discrimination laugh long and hard at Kath and Kim and think that it’s a very funny show. I’ve never been comfortable with this show: it reeks of middle-class snobbery and stereotypes of the “lower classes”. I find it to be cruel.
These kinds of considerations came sharply to my attention yesterday with Catherine Deveny’s piece in The Age about Brendan Nelson. Long time readers of my blogging will know that I’m no fan of Deveny’s. Deveny said:
I can’t tell you how often I seriously wish I were living in some outer suburb content with signed and framed football jumpers on the wall, no bookshelves and a coffee table covered in remote controls, happy to read romance novels over my Cup-a-Soup. At least I’d have some peace. In the immortal words of Radiohead: “No alarms and no surprises.”
Clearly she’s referring to the bogans who live in McMansions in the outer suburbs with their plasma televisions and their football jumpers. Let’s think about this. Deveny’s implication is that such people do not have informed political opinions. And even, as an extension of this, that their opinions are less valuable than hers. Here is a prime example of snobbery, while all the time she is protesting that she is socially aware and supposedly “left wing”. A supporter of the lower classes in theory: it is just that the actuality of the lower class doesn’t live up to her expectations, and she’d rather not have to listen to what they say where it conflicts with her view of the world. She’d rather resort to cruel stereotypes.
I really hate this kind of snobbery. Someone may read Mills and Boon novels rather than Dostoyevsky, but this doesn’t mean that her opinion is worthless. I think you have to take each person as he or she comes, not as a stereotype. My own experience is that, whether people are educated or uneducated, upper class or lower class, their opinions are interesting and valuable, and it is worthwhile trying to work out why they think as they do. We are all shaped by our different experience of the world, and in sharing our opinions rather than writing off the opinions of others, we may actually be richer for it.
[UPDATE by SL: Via Laura in comments, I learn that there may be something more to Deveny's rants in the Age. Rather than attempt a summary, I suggest you wander over to Laura's place and take a look]
38 Comments
The snobbery against bogans has been around for decades. The main difference is that now the ratio of bogans to the middle aspirational class favors the middle class, so the greater number of people sneering at them is more obvious — Before it was the minority sneering at the majority whereas now its the opposite.
Your last paragraph is spot on, and represents how I feel pretty well. Despite that, it’s still a challenge to think that way.
I’m firmly lodged in the middle classes, but like many in my situation have designs on being something ‘more’. Be that more educated, more wealthy or whatever. Because, by and large, ‘bogans’ don’t represent the things I desire to be, it’s difficult not to almost subconsciously demote them in my world view and promote other classes who possess more of the attributes I desire.
For these reasons, it’s really worth reminding people about the cruelty of perpetuating stereo types. Hopefully it will make people think, and serve as a reminder for people like me to stay vigilant in making our inbuilt and subconscious prejudicial thoughts and actions into conscious non-prejudicial thoughts and actions. It’s worth seeking and listening to the views of everyone, no matter how much their views differ from your own.
Simon, in every stereotype I think there’s a grain of truth in some cases, which is why it is really challenging for people to think beyond that.
My parents-in-law live in the outer suburbs in a newly built estate. Some of my parents-in-law’s neighbours might fit Deveny’s stereotype pretty well on first glance. It is also true that, from what I’ve seen, some of them are not naturally people with whom I have a great deal in common. This makes it harder to for us to relate to one another, and not succumb to prejudice (on both sides)!
But I don’t actually know these people well enough to know whether their political opinions are informed or not, nor what makes them tick – it may be that they think deeply about these things – or it may be that they don’t. From my parents-in-law’s stories of neighbourhood parties, there are all sorts, just as with any group of people. So, like you, I shall try not to judge, and I will try to remain free of prejudice.
Remain free of prejudice?
We all pick and choose our friends, which is to say, we discriminate. Even if our judgment is fallible, there’s nothing wrong with exercising it.
There are only two sources of trouble. One is becoming a closed-minded old stoat. This is to become, literally, a little more stupid: the old brain stagnates, uninformed by new data, because it is unwilling to grant that new data may exist and be worth exploring. We all know people cramped and vicious in this fashion.
The second problem is trying to enforce our judgments by means of public rules. You may want nothing to do with chavs, Catholics, or “colonials,” but if they want something innocuous or good to do with you, why not let this be possible? Is it such a blow to your sense of self-worth that an upstart from some other social and economic class might have something productive to offer your team?
I’m American. We take all types. The only useful standard, deep down, is performance. “Classes” ruin performance because, after a while, maintaining the identity of the class tends to take priority.
That said, some of the traditions that the English upper classes have created are quite beautiful. They affirm one’s desire for dignity. It’s no wonder people in a position to appropriate some of them, want to.
So I think we should be generous rather than “free of prejudice.” This generosity should extend even to the harmlessly pretentious. Does one really “cringe” when someone refers to a napkin as a “serviette”? Why?
The only people who truly deserve scorn are the willfully stupid and self-absorbed (which cuts across classes). Even a chav hell-bent on maintaining his “street” identity is a bit like Mr. Elliott in Austen’s novel. It’s just that his copy of Debrett’s is written in slang.
Feh to all that.
By the way, well said, Legal Eagle.
Why does everything go back to a life of brian scene? (or seinfeld)
I’m reminded of the one where john cleese asks – “what have the Romans ever done for us?”.
Class distinction is little different to nationalism or race distinction – all are grades along the prejudice line.
Well said Godfrey, for a yank
Catherine needs J H back so she can direct her hate to something pure, and stop the naval (or heaven forbid, lower down – yuch) gazing.
I always call napkins “serviettes” – a mix of my Australian and English upbringing. My husband spend a year and a half in the US as a child, so he calls them “napkins”.
You are right, Godfrey, it’s really about being generous rather than free of prejudice: listening to other people’s ideas. And it cuts both ways.
I guess Deveny’s attitude irritates me more because I see it as more hypocritical than a narrow-minded toff or chav – she purports to be a fan of social justice and inclusive of people from different backgrounds. Just not if they disagree with her and happen to live in the outer suburbs.
I realised that according to Deveny’s definition, I probably live in the outer suburbs, and we do have multiple TV remotes…gosh, I must not have any informed political opinion!
What a terrific post. You put into words the mix of cross but undefinable feelings I got from reading Deveny’s article.
I think Godfrey has pretty much hit the nail on the head although I think ‘tolerance’ is the word you were looking rather than ‘generous’.
As has being said we all have our prejudices and once we have taught ourselves to be tolerant, we shed the shackles of prejudice (even if only temporarily) and open our minds to a better understanding of others. Yes we can continue to form our own circles, but only fools would think themselves divinely better or wiser than others.
Would you think ‘Lebs’ in Australia and ‘Pakis’ in the UK form a class of their own?
LDU, that’s not so much class as a different immigrant culture. It doesn’t matter whether the “Pakis” or the “Lebs” are rich or poor, high class or low class – the fact is that they are of a different ethnicity, and so considerations such as racism, language barriers, fear of immigration, religion, difficulties in integration and the like complicate the picture. Even if they are “high class” at home, they’ll never quite fit into the upper classes in the UK.
I guess class issues can arise if immigrant populations are in “ghettos” where options are limited, and never have any opportunity to get out and find better employment: essentially, the second and third generations become ensconced as a subgroup of the lower class, with all those complicating factors of race, religion and ethnicity too.
When there’s gangs of young men hanging about driving souped up cars and generally looking macho and aggressive, I suspect that it wouldn’t matter if they were Anglo-Saxon, Lebanese or from the moon. People would still be uncomfortable with that kind of behaviour. That probably is somewhat of a class thing. Or just a general instinctive fear of aggressive young men with too much time on their hands?
Dispatches from the class wars: comment overheard in the gym when the Australian team came out of the tunnel during the opening ceremony: “eeeewww, sky-blue shellsuits”.
I was trying to do deadlifts at the time and laughed so hard I damn near dropped a 20 kilo plate on my foot.
It be fair, the ‘bogans’ aren’t without their own class prejudices. Most of my extended family are employed in the trades and live in McMansion housing developments at the coast, and the things they say about say about, for example, the unemployed family that -rents- (a horrible sin, apparently) next door, or the single mother, or the family with 5 or more kids, or the people who live in -units- (another dirty word) at the edge of the development, would make any snob I have met in the inner-city blush.
I totally agree, I really, really detest Deveny. I know she writes to provoke people, like Andrew Bolt (who I also hate) .. But come on.. She never does any research and is the typical inner city ‘trendy – creative type’ .
I’m doing Arts/Law at Monash (am fairly left wing, I voted for Rudd) but I’m surround by morons in the arts faculty decrying globalisation (it’s a reality) and free trade. I’m also surrounded by people who are ‘uni students’ and look down at tradies etc., who are probably going to out earn them during their lifetimes. I’m passionate about literature and fine art but really… I’ll be laughing when they are eating cat food… and feverishly study Marx.
What AJ said, in addition reverse snobbery is no better than the original item. Especially when it means contempt for decent manners and clear speech.
Sometimes I think it was unfortunate that England led the industrial revolution because the class system was so strong that many successful entrepreneurs joined the upper class (buying country estates and peerages), denied their humble origins and failed to promote respect for industry, commerce and enterprise. Plus the upper class contempt for manual work and PAID employment resulted in two classes of cricketers – the amateur (gentlemen) and the professional (players). Up until about 1962 they often had separate dressing rooms and came onto the ground from different gates!
Manners and respect for other human beings are good things, no matter what class you’re from. So I would ask that someone different from me in background give me the same respect I give them, regardless of where they are from or what class they are.
Snobbery is a pretty unattractive characteristic, regardless of whether it’s snobbery (looking down on those below) or reverse-snobbery (looking down on those above) – it’s categorising people before you even know them or have given them a chance.
Stereotypes can be established on the basis of very small samples. At uni in Tasmania my good mate was with a young engineering student and one day he discovered that I had been through Launceston C of E Grammar School. He became instantly abusive about the school and by implication all who sailed in her. This sounded like a joke but he was not smiling and eventually I managed to ask why he felt so strongly, given that he never abused me before. He said (loudly), “I knew a Grammar boy in Burnie”
“Who was he?”
“His name was X!”
X! X was the most unpopular boy at Grammar. He was the son of the local member, overweight, loud, rude, arrogant, lazy etc etc.
All the other Grammar boys from Burnie were perfectly decent people, some of them outright bogans, but he took no notice of them. It was the idiot X who he remembered.
I don’t recall much snobbery at Grammar, there was a weird mix of sons of the local business houses, the serious middle class and bogans from the bush, but sport was king and if you were competent and put in then you were good enough regardless of anything else. You could even get away with being a swot if you could get runs or wickets.
On the Olympic theme, the headmaster was Don Selth who was the reserve for the 4 x 400 relay at Melbourne in 1956. They took silver!
Yeah I agree Australia is developing a class system. How this works in practise is interesting but there’s a distinct underclass with people who haven’t the cultural capital to enter the job market. That is to say they have very bad spoken communication skills, no ‘professional’ manners, no sense of adequate grooming and the rest.
Bogans is a very wide term that applies to all sorts of people who are economically prosperous. It’s a snob term that can be more about taste than socio-econmic status. A Neo-Goth Marylin Manson type might refer to his Homeboy (dickhead) brother as a bogan.
That said in my experience people from all over the spectrum can be well-mannered or ill-mannered. The texture’s a little different but at base consideration for others and mastery of self are the common traits.
This is lost on a lot of the prosperous suburbanites that currently flood the town on week-ends (thank you John So). There’s routine and extreme Appalling Behaviour. And it’s all being done by people who give the impression of having too much money and taking it for granted.
Rafe, I once had an experience where a good friend who is usually open-minded suddenly embarked upon an attack of people who had attended private schools, and how they were all snobs. There was a long silence, and then I said, “Are you calling me a snob?”
She then said, “But you didn’t go to a private school!”
“Oh yes, I did,” I replied. “Lots of people who go to private schools don’t behave like tossers and are perfectly normal human beings.” I then pointed out that half my friends had gone to private schools too, and they were not snobs either.
She was very embarassed, and apologised. She hadn’t realised that I went to a private school because I was so “down to earth” and “normal”…just like half my other classmates. Of course there were some absolute tossers who thought they were better than other people, but I reckon you get that anywhere.
Adrien, that’s why I use the term class rather than socio-economic status. In the UK when I lived there, there was the concept of the “Essex man” – the prosperous tradesman who had made it big under Thatcher but lacked taste and class – no matter if he was richer than a middle class man, he was still “lower class”. And you’re right, it’s also about style (hence the frequent references to clothing in defining people as belonging to a particular group).
No wonder I don’t go into the city on the weekends these days.
I commented on my blog about the Deveny column too, saying it looked mentally unbalanced to me, and two different commenters have confirmed that she is actually going through something along those lines (at least one from hearing from Deveny herself.) That doesn’t excuse the column but it does perhaps mean she might not have meant for it to be quite as gratuitously insulting as it came across.
The relevant post & comments are here: http://allordinary2.blogspot.com/2008/08/embarrassing.html
Laura, I’ve just read your post and the comments, and since LE seems otherwise engaged, I’ve updated the post accordingly. I really do hope the Age hasn’t decided to let her lose her marbles on their Op-Ed pages, but having had a bit to do with newspapers in my time, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did – and purely to pull in ‘the punters’, too.
Just had dinner and read your link, Laura – I am glad I’ve cancelled my subscription to The Age if they’ve decided to let this woman lose her nut in public without (a) editing her column and (b) giving her a break to get treatment.
the concept of the “Essex man” – the prosperous tradesman who had made it big under Thatcher but lacked taste and class – no matter if he was richer than a middle class man, he was still “lower class”.
Two things come to mind.
One is the film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover widely interpreted at the time as being a critique of the Thatcher-era Essex thing. In it a wealthy but utterly uncouth man attempts to become a gourmand.
He’s hopeless and in fact so witless as to constantly fail to understand that his favourite restauranteur is making fun of him all the time. The berk says things like:
“A really good cook puts unlikely things togeva like duck n’ orange, like ham n’ pineapple.”
The guy’s never had a pizza!
His wife however, also ‘working class’ (very subtley conveyed by Helen Mirren) has excellent taste. This probably has something to do with the fact that she reads books.
At one point the man, the title’s thief says to his wife’s lover that he’s the only man whose read the book he’s perusing but every man in this restaurant has read the filthy limericks on the toilet wall.
Unbeknownst to him the fellow has been too busy with his wife to read in the toilet.
It’s a beautiful and macarbre illustration that being working class is no barrier to ‘culture’ nor does money buy you culture. Cultivation requires effort and a brain helps.
The other thing is Tom Wolfe’s portrayal of a couple in the early 60s New York Art World: “Bob and Spike”. They worked themselves up from the Lower East Side to society and did so by audaciously collecting Pop Art: being the first to do so.
At one point Bob goes to a tailor in Saville Row (only prospective clients withgood references from current valued clientsneed walk thru the door) and orders a sports jacket made in the racing pinks materials used for fox hunts. Naturally the Saville Row stiffo refuses but Bob talks him into it.
Here’s the American self-made man from da streets of Noo Yawk an’ he’s flauntin’ the rules n’ gettin’ away widdit.
Those friends of Bob’s who’ve grown up familiar with the Art Scene (and Park Avenue) would never even be able to think of flaunting such a rule let alone actually do it.
At a certain point in the arc of the Wealthy money’s not enough and they need to acquire Culture as well. When was is born to a family that has both one knows where the salad fork is, probably speaks French and has various luminous figures as family friends. But that is not the product of one’s own efforts it’s an inheritance.
It’s also stifling.
The use of cultural capital as a means to regard other people as ‘beneath one’ is the basis of snobbery. However finding, as the title characters in Educating Rita attempts to do, a better song to sing is not snobbery. It’s simply curiosity and an intuitive understanding of quality.
This doesn’t necessarilly have to have anything to do with class.
No I haven’t decided to ask you to help me fight the Oppressors for my right to have babies.
Yah sorry about that Adrien, the spam filter thought you were someone else and locked you out. I’ve only just retrieved the comment.
I am someone else Skeptic. When I wear Angora.
Thankyou. Seriously– a friend linked to your blog, and I gotta say– well done.
Two things about classism never fail to amaze me:
– Seeing classism packaged up by people and then sold back to the people it’s laughing at, and then being lapped up by that same group. Erm, guys, they’re laughing their way to the bank account. AT you, not WITH you. (I could possibly go along with the “for us, by us” idea if I didn’t know that at least one of the Kath and Kim “comedians” went to a toffy private school as a teenager.)
– Like you pointed out, seeing the amount of lefty types who’ll loudly denounce racism and homophobia (and sometimes sexism), yet who won’t think twice about calling people bogans and generally mocking them for not having had the same chances in life they have/the area they live in.
Anyway, yeah: thanks for this post.
And…
Legal Eagle: I went to a private school, too. Snobbery was rife there.
I think, once again, like it’s been pointed out several times, it’s about the person, not the stereotype, but if your experience has been shaped by being around people who fit that stereotype and only them, particularly if you’re on the “short end of the stick,” I can understand why someone would have prejudice against private schoolers.
Not saying it’s fair or right, but that it mightn’t be entirely baseless, and when you’re one of the have-nots, you’re going to notice things about the haves that they’re unaware of.
My take on this is that social divisions are inevitable, however odious. Difference is something we seek. The perception of inferiority, of others being lesser, is an attempt to cover our own underlying sense of inadequacy.
Australia is young and our social divisions are fluid and evolving, unlike the well-entrenched English class system. It was once free settler v convict, which incorporated race (Irish v English) and religion (Catholic v Anglican). These divisions have faded, to be replaced to some extent by East v West, Christian v non-C., and anti-Semitism seemingly always just beneath the surface.
I think generally speaking money is the biggest separator down here, and as such allows movement across boundaries (something no amount of money will achieve in England) although not all have need to make a ‘climb up’.
GBS’s Pygmalion says it best. She left him at the end remember (unlike in the saccharine My Fair Lady), finding Higgins essentially morally weak and a self-indulgent prick. Unworthy of her – don’t you love it. She could be taught to move up a class, that was changing the exterior, but he couldn’t grasp her reasoning at not being at ease in their class, that would mean him changing his interior.
Eliza 1, Class System 0
The Americans had a US version of this with Sarah Palin last week. Then she stuck it to the ‘elites’ and they suddenly realised they had a tiger by the tail. This must be excruciating for Obama, because – despite the odd snobby comment – I don’t actually think he’s a snob, and he had a very ordinary start in life. Being in politics makes it impossible to choose your supporters, I guess.
I hate the snide, snobby comments about Sarah Palin’s children’s names. She’s entitled to call her kids whatever she wants. If she were a movie star or a pop star no one would bat an eyelid at Trig (think of Moon Unit Zappa or Heavenly Hiraani Tigerlily Hutchence).
Jess –
I don’t want to endorse snobbery here. But I’d like to make a potentially unpopular observation.
The term ‘bogan’ (which I think comes from bogie – the Oz term for male 50s rockers) is not just a class term but one that denotes youth subculture. I had friends who were ‘bogans’ (bevans in Qld) who were middle-class. And I’ve known working class punks and mods.
The contemporary bogan is less a rocker than a b-boy type. B-boys I suppose reflect contemporary ethnic diversity. However certain stereotypical traits remain. Having coarse manners and being proud of that, a propensity for violence, an aversion to reading.
These are stereotypes. They don’t apply universally. There are those who do their best to aspire to them unfortunately. I wonder to what extent people are ‘bogans’ because of unpriviledged background and to what extent they choose to be.
PS I once knew an avowedly Tory Englishman who decried certain ‘working class’ northerners of our mutual acquaintance as ‘racistsexisthomophobic’. He spun these words out so many times they were a bit like the bleating of a sheep.
He was an out and out snob, proud of it, looking forward to his future in a posh townhouse while they rotted in their council flats. He felt entitled to this future. Given his lack of brains, talent, guts and common sense and the fact that he was born after the 60s I had my doubts about his rosy expectations.
They, btw, were not bigots. but he was a jerk.
I hate the snide, snobby comments about Sarah Palin’s children’s names.
L’eagle – your objections are foolish this is a vital issue in the world’s greatest democracy. It marks the high levels of intelligence, moral courage and enlightened civility that made American great.
We should have more of this kind of thing here. At the next election the Libs should run on the slogan Don’t Vote for Kevvie. He’s a pooey man.
While judgements on percieved “class” might be cruel and unnecessary, the new terms of “chav” and “townie” etc. serve as replacements for the original class distinctions of upper, middle and working. Since pretty much everyone now is middle class, new methods of categorisation are needed, and terms like chav and townie use accent and fashion cliques to make that categorisation. While these terms serve as blanket stereotypes, I have seen both sides of the coin when it comes to social groups of vastly different class, and therefore I consider myself qualified to make sweeping statements with very little evidence
. The general attitude of intellectual progress and academic exploration was present in my private school experience, and completely absent in the “chav” school I attended afterwards. Rather than distance myself from my peers for the year or so that I attended the poorer school, and make socially discriminating remarks about the other students, I decided to give them all a chance, and try to get to know them, and see if the differences between us in class would turn out not to matter, as I suspected. By and large, they were all idiots, disinterested in any kind of academic pursuit, with charmingly outspoken racist, homophobic and sexist views. They also all shared a love for sports clothing, and the “dizzee rascal” look. Trying as I am, it is hard not to connect their attitudes and lack of intellectual pursuit with their clothing style and accent. A stereotype has formed in me of this “type”, which I am trying to convince myself is not accurate. I see no evidence to prove this however, so I sympathise with your neo-Marxist friend.
Ok, next time I’ll read the dates of the forum posts… Sorry to moderator for necro.
Don’t worry James, interesting comments are always welcome, and may have the effect of enlivening debate/kicking off something interesting
Snobbery disgusts me. Just because a person is poor doesn’t mean they’re uncultured, a lot of factors influence a person’s financial situation.
Snobbery is even crueler when you’re young, because if you’re poor and young, there’s little you can do to change your situation. :/
I’ve let this comment through, but we would appreciate it if people supplied an actual name.