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Essex girl

Essex girl, as a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom, applies to a woman viewed as promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from the county of Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s.

Negative stereotype

The stereotypical image formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, mini skirts, silicone-augmented breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity, and socialising at downmarket nightclubs.

Time magazine recorded:

In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice and her childhood friend Laura Efi, as she was – are the acknowledged queens of that realm ...

Accent

As mentioned above, the stereotypical Essex girl has an Estuary English accent, but with a very modern element to it. It has some pronunciation features of the Cockney accent but without the traditional element, and a very modern prosody.

Here are some examples of pronunciation features of the Essex girl stereotype:

Segments

Vowels

Strong diphthongization of the FLEECE, happY and GOOSE vowels [ɪi̯~əi̯, ʊ̈ʉ̯~əʉ̯]
The FACE and GOAT vowels may be very open [ɛɪ~ɐɪ̯, ʌ̈ʊ~ɐʊ̯]
Very open utterance-final /ə/
The sequences /uːl/, /ʊl/, /ɔːl/ and /əl/ may all be pronounced [oː~oʊ̯~ɔo̯]

Consonants

The sequences /ən/ and /əm/ are nearly never syllabic consonants.
Very strong tendency to vocalise coda-/l/, thus [ʊ̯~o̯~ɤ̯] instead of [ɫ]
Final /ɪŋ/ can have [ɪn] or the typically northern [ɪŋɡ̊]
Strong degree of t-glottalization [ʔ] and glottal reinforcement before /t, p, k/ → [ʔtʰ, ʔpʰ, ʔkʰ]
The /k/ in like may be glottalized as well.
Frequent th-fronting

Prosody

Isochrony

Tendency to lengthen the final syllables of words or sentences: happen [ˈhæʔpʰəːn]; couldn't [ˈkʰʊdəːnʔ]; lovely [ˈlʌv̥ləˑi̯ˑ]; what's that? [wɒʔts d̪æːʔ]

Intonation

Dipping tone on the final segments of words or sentences: basically [ˈbɐ́ɪ̯sɪ̥̀kl̥ə̀ˑǐ̯ˑ]; someone else [ˈsʌ́mwʌ́n ˈɛ̂ˑʊ̯̌ˑs]; say to me [ˈsɐ́ɪ̯ tʰə̀ mə̀ˑǐ̯ˑ]

Challenging the stereotype

In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.

The Essex Women's Advisory Group was set up in 2010 to combat the negative stereotyping of girls living in Essex by supporting Essex-based women's charities helping those in need as well as by funding projects that promote women's and girls' learning and success in science, technology, the arts, sports and business. The charitable fund is administered by the Essex Community Foundation.

On 6 October 2016, Juliet Thomas and Natasha Sawkins of The Mother Hub launched a campaign on social media to draw attention to the negative definition of Essex girl in the Oxford English Dictionary and Collins Dictionary. Their main goal was to raise awareness and to open a dialogue around the derogatory "Essex girl" stereotype. Their campaign centred on changing the definition of "Essex girl" to "a girl from or living in Essex" by encouraging women to use the hashtag #IAmAnEssexGirl and included a petition to change or remove the dictionary definitions. The campaign reached the national press. In December 2020, after campaigning by the Essex Girls Liberation Front, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, used to teach non-native English speakers, removed the term.

References