Sunday, November 23, 2008
The “Upper Middle Class”: Doctors, Lawyers, and Prostitutes Too
Earlier this year, the Governor of New York resigned after it was discovered he had been involved with an “escort”, a euphemism for a prostitute. Now that it is clear that Eliot Spitzer won’t face any criminal charges for the incident, the woman he hooked up with, Ashley Dupre, has given an interview to the media. The interview is particularly interesting and relevant because it involves the notion of social class, a subject written on by Richard H. Anderson.
The angle that ABC News approaches the interview from centers on the fact that Dupre comes from an “upper middle class” background, her step-father being an oral surgeon. What the interview perhaps does not stress enough is that Dupre did not experience downward mobility (a sociological term) when she became a prostitute. Dupre, who has since quit “escorting”, was an “upper middle class” prostitute. She was paid so well by the “company” she worked for that she did not have to work daily. A night with her cost Spitzer $4,300 in case you were curious.
Anderson would have to place Dupre in the same category with step-father, an oral surgeon, despite her lack of education and profession that is typically associated with those who are poor and struggling to survive. Ironically she is “upper-middle class” in the sense that she served or aided the “upper class” though not at all how Anderson envisioned. Overall, this case shows how class boundaries are not so rigid.
Check out the interview and be sure to read the user comments on pg. 3: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=6280407&page=1
The angle that ABC News approaches the interview from centers on the fact that Dupre comes from an “upper middle class” background, her step-father being an oral surgeon. What the interview perhaps does not stress enough is that Dupre did not experience downward mobility (a sociological term) when she became a prostitute. Dupre, who has since quit “escorting”, was an “upper middle class” prostitute. She was paid so well by the “company” she worked for that she did not have to work daily. A night with her cost Spitzer $4,300 in case you were curious.
Anderson would have to place Dupre in the same category with step-father, an oral surgeon, despite her lack of education and profession that is typically associated with those who are poor and struggling to survive. Ironically she is “upper-middle class” in the sense that she served or aided the “upper class” though not at all how Anderson envisioned. Overall, this case shows how class boundaries are not so rigid.
Check out the interview and be sure to read the user comments on pg. 3: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=6280407&page=1
Labels: social class
# posted by Jeffrey Josevski @ 3:34 PM 
