“She said to me ‘I can’t afford it anymore. I can’t afford to be this person anymore’… I was so shocked when she said it… She said the quiet part, out loud.” She describes wanting to “shed a light” on this truth and stigma that exists for those working in magazine journalism. Not to create a moral of the story or anything that explicit, but more to voice the nuances of different social classes and how they impact someone’s survival in an industry full of financial and cultural expectations.
Another journalist shining a spotlight on the crucial relationship between social class and the wider arts industry is Jessica Phillips. Recently she launched Instagram page @theproletariart which interrogates the crucial relationship between social class and a career in the arts. “Magazine journalism is as elitist as banking or law, and is as competitive to break into,” she tells Glamour. “The difference? When you ‘make it, it’ it doesn’t come with the same pay packet or job security.”
Growing up in an ex-coal mining town in Wales, Jessica broke into journalism the same way that I did – through unpaid internships. Now even less of these opportunities exist than when we started out a decade or so ago, meaning that working class creatives are having to fight even harder to make their voices heard in a middle-class magazine industry. “I’ve worked at magazines where editors have asked a room full of staff one by one which private school they went to,” Jessica tells me. “There’s an air of Bullington Club behaviour in magazine journalism. 11 years into my career, I still feel like I’m on the outside.”
She started Proleteriart to “shed light on the elitism in the creative sector. It shouldn’t be one subsection of society who get to have their stories told or who get to tell the stories of others.” Stories like Jessica’s and mine are two of many. Earlier this year, writer Kate Pasola published a book of essays from 33 working class writers in Bread Alone: What happens when we run out of working class writers? Research presented in the book confirms an uncomfortable truth: 80% of journalists come from upper-class backgrounds; 78% of working-class writers say their background has hindered their careers.
So yes, a job in magazines and the creative world is, indeed, a job that a million girls would kill for. Even 20 years on. But we must acknowledge – and do something about – this second fact: it takes a certain status, access and support to even get in line for the kill.
