Topic > Social Stratification in Murdoch Mysteries: The…

Although wealth is an important factor in an individual's status, but it is not the only distinguishing characteristic (p.117) as the female experts in Murdoch Mysteries express their status through their luxurious clothes, hats, gloves and other expensive accessories, but they are not yet fully respected as equals by all the men they encounter, such as the government official, Mr. Foster, or the assistant prosecutor, Mr. Garland, or the crown attorney (Henslin, 2014, p. 117). To determine social class, prestige and power must also be taken into account (Henslin, 2014, p. 117). An occupation with greater education, autonomy, reasoning, and salary should give an individual like Dr. Ogden, Dr. Grace, or Mrs. Martin great respect or prestige (Henslin, 2014, p. 122), yet they continue to they faced degrading discourse that belittled women as a whole when they protested on the streets of Toronto. Basically, there is a status inconsistency or difference in ranking for the three factors, whereby the established women in the series score very high in rankings for prestige and wealth, but are given a very low score in terms of power (Henslin, 2014, p. .123). According to C. Wright Mills, power is the ability to execute one's choices despite obstacles (Henslin, 2014, p. 121). Evidently, the power given to the women of the Suffrage Society, or to the city of Toronto as a whole, is very little since