Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

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I had no real idea what this book was about, I’d seen it briefly mentioned once before by a mutual on TikTok so when I saw it available on audiobook in my library - I snatched it up. The title of this book alone grabbed my attention, to be honest I didn’t need to know anything else about it before I jumped straight in. And what an immaculately chosen jump that was. Some words change definition over time. Thus moot once meant one thing and now, at least in common usage, means something else. But slut, almost from the outset, was more fluid. Small wonder, then, that today both men and women use the word to mean pretty much what they want it to mean, whether talking slut-shaming, slut walk, or slut-o-ween. At its heart, this work reflects a tenet of sociolinguistic study: language is not divorced from culture; it both reflects and creates beliefs about identity and power. Modern stylings situated within foundational research will hopefully bring a new audience to the field of language and gender studies.” I’m interested in how word-usages evolve, such as with “stupid.” When the characters of Austen (and other 18th- and 19th- century writers) use it, they mean “dull” and not the (U.S. American) connotation “stupid” has today. And by “dull,” I don’t mean the usual way we think of that word, as in “boring.” The same kind of evolution (and worse) happened to words like “slut.” Slut (archaic: slattern) is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is sexually promiscuous or considered to have loose sexual morals. [1] [2] It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of disparagement. [2] [3] It originally meant "a dirty, slovenly woman", [2] and is rarely used to refer to men, generally requiring clarification by use of the terms male slut or man whore. [4] [5]

Samuel Pepys Diary February 1664 complete". Pepys.info. Archived from the original on 1 January 2013 . Retrieved 27 August 2012. Shillinglaw had been discussing the “slut” issue with scholars and archivists “for about five years”, with no inkling of the Swedish angle.

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Finally, as with all "pop science" literature in my experience, there were a plethora of conclusions drawn and generalizations made without evidence or cause.

According to OED "Of doubtful origin," but probably cognate with dialectal German Schlutt"slovenly woman," dialectal Swedish slata"idle woman, slut," and Dutch slodde"slut," slodder"a careless man," though the exact relationship of all these is obscure.More or less entirely written about white US people/language. If you're going to talk about 'reclaiming the English language' it's a bit, oh, American-imperialist barely to notice that American English is but one dialect of many. (There are various mentions of AAVE but no sustained look or chapter on non-white, still less non-US, English.) If you're going to do a section on sexual swearing that basically implies women who use 'cunt' are letting the side down by using misogynist terms in an unexamined way, how about talking to some English, Scots, Australians? Or romance / erotica writers, come to that? a b Breger, Melissa L. (1 July 2014). "Transforming cultural norms of sexual violence against women". Journal of Research in Gender Studies . Retrieved 10 August 2018– via Free Online Library. a b Flood, Michael (2013). "Male and Female Sluts". Australian Feminist Studies. 28 (75): 95–107. doi: 10.1080/08164649.2012.758024. S2CID 54991899. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017 . Retrieved 10 August 2018– via Taylor & Francis Online. English–Arabic English–Bengali English–Catalan English–Czech English–Danish English–Hindi English–Korean English–Malay English–Marathi English–Russian English–Tamil English–Telugu English–Thai English–Turkish English–Ukrainian English–Vietnamese Tanenbaum, Leora (2 February 2015). "A Brief History Of 'Slut' ". HuffPost . Retrieved 17 January 2020.

the feminist theory here was... surprisingly third wave for a book published squarely during the midst of 4th wave feminism. the discussion rarely talks about the intersection of identities when evaluating word chloice, and broadly prescribed behaviors for all women which just seems too naive at best and ignorant and arrogant at worst. The selection of examples (ex, for choosing famous modern women leaders, the author selected only white women war criminals(or dubiously close to war crimes; margaret thatcher, Hilary Clinton what a #girlboss move there)) further reiterated what seemed like a criminally unaware perspective on modern feminism from the author. As a queer person, the chapter on gay voice and lesbian history was particularly difficult to read. the author presents a quote that there was no lesbian culture pre sexual revolution bc it was hard for lesbians to exist, when any queer historian knows this is provably untrue. Finally, the constant quips about wanting a men free world were crimgey at best. I truly do not understand how you can be aware of the gender spectrum and still make comments about hating all men when gender is so complicated you have to put 400 qualifiers on the type of man (cis/straight/abled) and it should really serve to show you hate types of behaviors/toxic masculinity and not just men. Rose, Amber. "The Amber Rose Slutwalk". About the Walk. Amber Rose. Archived from the original on 3 December 2016 . Retrieved 1 December 2016. People tend to think of prescriptive grammar—that’s the grammar your English teacher made you learn—as this almighty, unchanging force that has been there forever, like gravity or the sun. We forget that grammar rules are a human invention, and they’re constantly evolving.” This feisty, fascinating critique of the English language will make you feel smarter after every paragraph. Amanda Montell’s analyses are sharp and provocative but also funny and accessible. She’s the cool feminist nerd we need.” — Whitney Cummings, creator of 2 Broke Girls

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It's very internet white feminism. If you can tolerate "folks" as a synonym for people and "dudes" or "bros" for men all the way through the text, or sentences like "You may or may not have heard of a little thing called the patriarchy", you're less irritable than me. Admittedly, this is highly likely. More materially there's no bibliography, no sources, don't get me started on the tiresome claims about languages with grammatical gender, and it's full of unproven assertions (eg a random sentence tells us that prehistoric humans were happily polygamous and female sexuality was then considered "totally normal and great". That's based on what? a b c Paludi, Michele A.; Martin, Jennifer L.; Gruber, James E.; Fineran, Susan (2015). Sexual Harassment in Education and Work Settings: Current Research and Best Practices for Prevention. ABC-CLIO. p.15. ISBN 978-1-4408-3294-9 . Retrieved 4 December 2015.