In a society characterised by inequality, it is evident that some groups in society face much tougher life challenges than others. Women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, in particular, face much more difficulty than women from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. It is therefore not so much that working-class women are less proactive in facing the challenges that life throws up, but rather that the challenges are too great to overcome.

Girls who are born into disadvantaged families are less likely to succeed in the education system, often leaving with very few qualifications, if any at all. This limits the options they have as adults, but they may not bother to think much about the future when they are not given the encouragement or support they need from teachers and parents. Instead, some of these girls will decide to spend time with their friends, getting drunk and engaging in disorderly and reckless behaviour.

Sometimes such behaviour will result in an unplanned pregnancy. A teenage girl with few prospects may view the birth of a child as a way for her to make something of her life. However, children born to teenagers are likely to be raised in poverty, which will affect their opportunities in life as well. Girls born to middle-class parents obviously have more choices available to them because their parents can afford to provide them with a decent education and are better placed to offer their offspring the necessary support.

Clearly, then, middle-class girls are not likely to face the same kinds of life challenges. The priorities that poorly educated girls from deprived areas are going to be different from girls who have lived a privileged existence. Working-class girls are not less proactive in tackling life’s challenges than middle-class girls, but the challenges they face are different which means they have to deal with them in their own way.

Middle-class commentators may feel that women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less proactive in facing life challenges because their aims in life do not generally revolve around moving up the social ladder. Most working-class women are more concerned with providing for their family and getting some enjoyment out of life, rather than trying to transform the way they live.

These women may not have the time, inclination or support needed to ‘better’ themselves and if they are already making a positive contribution to society why should they bother, anyway? Not every woman wants to have a high-flying career or to get heavily involved in the running of a school, which goes for middle-class women as well as working-class ones. It is therefore clear that individual women respond to life challenges in different ways.