Slammerkin Class

Sydney Bushnell

Women Studies 309

Blog #1

Slammerkin Blog

                  For discussion, it is suggested that the novel Slammerkin is just as much about class as it is about gender. Surely, we see as we are reading the novel the surface level issues of both gender and class: women’s rights in the world (especially in finding jobs and making a place in the world) which can both be an issue of gender and class. It is hard to find many issues with class or gender that don’t overlap one another. But the whole time I’ve been reading this novel, I can’t help but thinking of the underlying issue of her class and how she’ll never be able to get out of it. Which isn’t unusual because most people struggle moving up classes, especially if they are in the lower class. It is just the irony of Mary Saunders, who is attempting to use the “job” she takes on as a prostitute to give her freedom and money so that she can move up in the world, when the job itself will almost never let her leave her lower class conditions. Because she is a prostitute, it would be almost impossible, even while making more money than most women in her class, to move up because society still just sees her as a prostitute and nothing more. There are cases where prostitutes can make it in the world, and move up in class, but in all of the people we hear about in her life and that live the same lifestyle as Mary, we only hear of one such instance. Even the men in higher classes than her refuse her good services to her face. I do think that, for her class, prostitution will be the job that would make her the best money of all, but it is just unfortunate that prostitution basically strands her in the lower class position, with very little opportunities to move up.