Page 122 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

In search of a ‘good mix’ 115
tion was the most obvious, but didn’t quite seem to fit the bill (the areas she
was discussing are all within a 10- to 15-minute walk of each other). Rather,
what she was perhaps unable to say was that there were wider processes of
self-selection and inclusion and exclusion going on. While she did talk about
‘middle-class’ women, she could not name the other ‘social classes’, instead
identifying them by geographical area. She assumed that I would understand
the different, classed nature of the other areas she named. ‘Race’ worked in
a similar way; she identified her playgroups as white, but does not name the
‘other’, other than naming racially marked areas.
In contrast to Stephanie, her friend Teresa who lived in the same area
found that involvement in a playgroup did bring her into cross-class interac-
tion. This was not always a comfortable experience.

Teresa: We had to do so much and raise so much money, which is fine,
I mean, I’m pro all of that, um, but it did have its frustrating
moments when it was you against the world, and nobody else
was helping [laugh]. When you were trying to collect sponsor-
ship money, and everybody would walk out of the room as soon
as you walked in [laugh]. You began to feel like a social pariah
really.
BB: So that was a voluntary-run kind of . . .
Teresa: Yes. It was. Playgroups in essence are like that. Well, they have
playgroup workers that are generally a part of the Playgroup
Association, but they do have a very limited amount of funding
from the local authority . . . but generally you have to have a
good parental input for them to survive. That’s why many have
closed down. Um, Clapham’s an interesting area, as you know. I
mean, it is quite a mix of people. It’s a mix of a lot of privilege
and money, all the rest of it, and a lot of deprivation. So . . .
BB: So how does that . . .?
Teresa: That exactly reflects the playgroup. Very much so in its com-
position. Which is great, just very frustrating . . . when you
couldn’t get any help. It was quite ironic actually because ...it
was quite absurd because people although I guess you can un-
derstand it . . . mothers who probably had a choice but again
probably the more educated mothers were doing all they could
to keep it running, and those that had no choice whatsoever, but
probably had 15 million other things more pressing to worry
about, were doing nothing. You know, and not just doing noth-
ing, but . . . fairly sort of ‘what good is this?’ . . . But I can sort
of understand that as well, you know. You see these . . . pushy
women, I don’t know, get you to do something when you’ve got
other things on our mind.
(Interview 18)