Women of the Upper Class

1. Introduction: The Upper-Class Woman

Introduction: The Upper-Class Woman 1 Contrary to popular belief, the life of the upper-class woman is not all champagne and roses, trips to Paris and Palm Beach. The upperclass woman is also not very interested in high fashion, nor is she a jet-setting party-goer. Her days are not spent lying around the country club pool or attending elegant ladies' luncheons. Though she certainly lives in far greater luxury than women---or men-of any other class, she is no lady of leisure, no spoiled and pampered grand dame. She is, rather, an active and important member of community service and arts boards, an involved and dedicated mother, and a devoted, subservient wife. In short, she is a hardworking member of society; though, as this study suggests, her work serves largely to uphold the power and privilege of her own class in the social order of things. This study describes the day-to-day activities of upper-class women, 'Nith an emphasis on their meaning and consequence. It ex3 Copyrighted Material amines what these activities mean for the women themselves and explores the consequences these activities have for maintaining the upper class. The subjects of this study belong to the wealthiest, most powerful and socially prominent class in American society. I show how their activities are essential to maintaining this class. Further, I demonstrate that their activities are given meaning within a class framework that they themselves construct, and that this framework creates and perpetuates the social-organizational forms and patterns of cultural life necessary to class domination.I ..Meaning " is defined here as the institutional framework(s) that subjects use to make sense of their daily activities: in this case, the frameworks are class and gender.2 "Meaning" is not being used in the sense of intent and purpose, nor as a subjective category (since the institutional frameworks that give meaning are objectively real though created and maintained by subjects). Thirty-six upper-class women were interviewed for this study. The descriptions of their everyday activities and their meaning are presented here as they were presented to me-grouped into the social roles of wife, mother, club member, and community volunteer . Beyond these descriptions, the consequences of the women's activities for upholding the position of the upper class are necessarily a matter of interpretation. My interpretations and explanations are intended to be plausible and suggestive rather than conclusive. Since this is the fIrst study to focus on women of the upper class, it is frankly and appropriately exploratory. It is important to establish from the outset an objective definition of"upper class. "3 When people in the United States think of class, they usually think first of money. The class they belong to generally depends on the kind of work they do, the income they earn, and their education. For the upper class, the definition of "class" goes well beyond income, occupation, and education-factors used by social scientists and the general populace alike to determine social class. For the upper class, the most important factors 4 Introduction Copyrighted Material are the ownership of wealth, the exercise of power, and membership in an exclusive social network. E. Digby Baltzell has argued that the primary characteristic of the upper class is the exercise of power in society.4This power derives largely from the concentrated ownership of personal wealth and ownership of the economic forces that produce the goods and services upon which we all depend. The American upper class, estimated to comprise only one percent of the population,5owns half of all the corporate stock in the United States6 and one fifth of the national wealth (real estate and other property, cash, bonds, and insurance).? G. William Dornhoff concludes that the upper class "controls major banks and corporations, formulates economic and political programs through a series of policy networks, and dominates . . the federal government in Washington."8 In addition to economic and political aspects-the ownership of wealth and the exercise of power-the social aspect is an important definitional characteristic of the upper class. Some social scientists, following Weber, would call this "status" instead of class. Baltzell focuses on this aspect of the upper class, claiming that it provides the social supports for the exercise ofpower. He defmes the upper class as: a group of families whose members are descendants of successful individuals of one, two, three or more generations ago. . the top...