Increasingly, we're seeing (cisgender, white) women claiming that everything from private property landlords refusing to accept Housing Benefit (part of UK State Welfare assistance for those out of work, or in low-paid jobs) to Zoom hosts demanding that participants have their cameras switched on is a direct and targeted form of discrimination against them, specifically, as women.
These things do discriminate against women - but only indirectly, and alongside much more negatively impacting discrimination against other groups and individuals, for example people with disabilities, neurodivergent individuals, transgender and gender non-conforming people, and, importantly, the (actual) working class.
The class that isn't eligible for loans, overdrafts, and credit cards - and so often don't have a nicely-decorated room to take those Zoom calls in, or the money to get a 'good' haircut, or 'acceptable' clothes (especially now charity shops are shut, as they are in UK Tier 4 areas...). The class that may not be able to afford storage for the necessary clutter of life. The class that can't afford to pay someone to keep their children occupied for an hour while they take a distraction-free online meeting. The class that can't buy the latest tech, the highest resolution webcam or smartphone. The class that is most likely to be working in low-pay sectors, most likely to be unemployed altogether (especially if they don't live in an urban centre - cars are expensive to buy, even second or third hand, and expensive to run, and employers HATE people who use public transport, something that, being medically banned from driving, I've learnt from bitter experience...), and most likely to be required (by necessity,by inability to afford childcare around full time work, by the DWP - the UK's Social Security department) to take part-time work.
Classism is actually the root form of almost all oppression - it's why a middle class woman of colour will have more opportunities than a white working class man, in general, and why so many white working class people are so easily swayed towards harmful, bigoted views.
Just today, looking for jobs (I've applied for almost 900 in the nearly two years since I lost a job I was good at and enjoyed because the bus service was withdrawn, walking or cycling 40miles each way, every day, wasn't possible, it was well out of my financial means to even rent a property within walking distance of the job, and my employer refused to agree to me working from home, even though I had worked from home for them on a part-time basis, proving both that the job could be done remotely, and I could be trusted to do it remotely), I came across a free course designed to "Educate, facilitate, and instill future-ready skills and competencies for job-readiness and employability" - excellent, I thought, I'll have some of that...only to find that the course was "only open to women..." Why is it only open to women? Men are expected to work - often significantly more so than women. Men cannot just decide to get pregnant, and get a temporary exemption from pursuing employment. Men are less likely, going by anecdotal and personal experience, to be given money by their parents, and also less likely to have well-paid spouses who can support them through unemployment. Yes, there will be working class women who will benefit from that course, and that's a good thing - but the working class men who've been shut out of an opportunity to improve their own prospects may find themselves facing just two options: crime or suicide. The only two options, all too often, that anyone who is working class finds are left open to them. For trans men, the increasing prevalence of opportunities that exclusively privilege women can be particularly distressing, while trans women frequently find themselves treated as though they were men by officialdom - a situation which has an exceptionally detrimental impact on their mental health, personal safety, and wellbeing, as well as on their ability to access opportunities, and their future prospects.
Prisons are full of working class inmates, brought in for dealing cannabis (while the middle classes start entire businesses based on 'CBD products'), punished for engaging in sex work (while comfortably employed, middle class women 'earn a bit of pocket money' from OnlyFans) 'stealing' items and/or food from supermarket dustbins (while celebrities get 'special permission' to go round refuse centres and intercept people dumping furniture and other items, which they then 'upcycle', and sell on for large profits), not being able to pay their council tax - a mandatory expense for home owners, renters, and social tenants alike in the UK (while Jeff Bezos et al refuse to even consider paying their full tax liabilities), and 'benefit fraud' - usually the result of ignorance of requirements, inability to access online reporting tools, or a genuine mistake (while UK companies defraud the government of millions through PPE contracts and the current furlough scheme).
The middle classes are listened to attentively, soothed, and indulged with promises of policy change when they complain about their treatment at the hands of the government; the working classes are routinely 'reminded' that "we could always bring back the workhouse/National Service/capital punishment", and threatened with dismissal, welfare sanctions, and/or eviction when we raise entirely legitimate concerns about safety, mental health, or discrimination.
Middle class cis women join MumsNet.
Working class trans children are beaten to death, or driven to suicide.
Still not convinced class is the problem? Consider how quickly the woke left will leap to the defence of someone who is mocked or criticised for speaking AAVE (African-American Vernacular English); that same support is prominent in its absence when people are being discriminated against (as they often are) for speaking with an accent identified as being from the North of England, from very rural areas of England, or from Scotland, Wales, or Ireland - very often, those with such accents are working class.
Consider that the "skills EVERYONE can learn" often include such barriers as "time management" (it's hard to be on time if the earliest bus you are physically able to take doesn't show up, the next one refuses to stop because it's already at capacity, and the third one is running late, however organised you are as an individual), "presentability" (which almost always includes women being judged on the condition of their hair, and their skill with makeup, men being judged on how closely they've shaved that morning, and everyone being judged on whether their clothes are up to date, and flawlessly unfaded and unfrayed at collar and cuffs), and "willingness to go the extra mile" (which is typically interpreted by companies as 'come in early, stay late, come in on the weekends' - things which may not be possible for people who can't afford childcare, or who are reliant on lifts or public transport.)
When I was in high school, in a very working class town, two different teachers, and the headmaster, on separate occasions, expressed the view that "It's not even worth bothering with the people who come here - you're all just going to work at Bowes (the local slaughterhouse, and the area's main employer) anyway." I was told that I'd be "better off getting as far away from here as possible, and telling people you come from somewhere a lot better", because "otherwise, all that intelligence you have is just going to go to waste." Try and imagine the reaction if someone were told that their intelligence would 'go to waste' because they were Black, or that it "wasn't worth" educating them, because they were a woman "and just going to get married and pop out babies for the rest of your life anyway." Imagine, as a teacher, not bothering to teach hope. Imagine thinking that a food sector employer was something to look down on. (My father worked for Bowes, as a maintenance electrician. He also spoke three languages, was teaching himself two more, and had an extensive knowledge of politics, philosophy, economic theory, and several world religions.)
The working class are consistently told that the jobs we do are "pointless", and "a waste of the education tax payers have forked out for."
We will be the first to have our jobs taken away from us by automation.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, the working class were typically the ones unable to work from home, whose employers remained open, who were required to choose between their health and their financial security if they were high risk individuals, or had high risk individuals in their immediate families. They were the ones who had to give up their jobs entirely when the schools closed, because their jobs couldn't be done from home, and they couldn't afford childcare.
Working class people with disabilities or chronic health conditions can't get the best, or most up to date, treatment. We don't get to fly to America to see the world's pre-eminent specialist. We can't participate in trials of "game-changing" drugs, because we can't afford to take that amount of time off work - even if the trial's paid, we'll be unemployed afterwards, and, in the UK, unable to apply for welfare support because we "made ourselves unemployed" by leaving a job.
Working class trans people are less likely, in the UK, to be approved for NHS transition, as judgement on suitability is often strongly based on personal presentation and employment status. When working class trans women are approved, they are often less able to "pass" as entirely cisgender women, and so are more likely to be the victims of violence, sexual assault, employment and housing discrimination, and murder.
Working class people have less access to the 'gig economy' - we can't afford to buy a van or a moped for delivery jobs, we can't afford the latest tech for YouTubing or digital content creation, we can't afford the fees to sell on Amazon, or open a Shopify store, we can't afford the latest consoles, games, products to do paid reviews, or create gaming content, we can't afford programmes such as Adobe, or creator software, we can't afford to work for just six hours a week.
In all of the social activism, social justice milieu, no one talks about class. People who raise class politics issues are screamed at for being "racist", for "derailing the issue." We are told to stay in our lanes, that we don't have the first clue what oppression looks like, that we could change our situations ourselves, if we really wanted to. We're called lazy, selfish, stupid, bigoted. Our accents, clothing, and appearance are mocked. If we are white working class men (including trans men who didn't go through the hell of transition to be bringing it up every five minutes for internet clout), we come to believe - because we are outright told - that even if we lived in a cave, and literally never interacted with another human being, we would be oppressing people by the mere fact of our continued existence.
That kind of guilt tripping and gaslight destroys peoples' mental health.
And working class people don't have the same access to therapists that middle class people take for granted. We often don't even have effective peer support, because our peers are in the same leaky boat. They're as broke and beaten as we are.
Class politics matters.
People don't choose their social class, any more than they choose their race, choose to have a disability, or choose the very real emotional experience of their gender.