In today’s world of slang and informality, many women (and men) use derogatory terms as jokes or in casual conversation. Words like “slut,” “hoe,” and “bitch” are frequently used as jokes and are not given much thought otherwise. It is not uncommon to hear girls of all ages using these expressions in conversation with friends as a joke or over text messages.
But does this type of behavior transcend the surface meaning – a silly joke – and actually have deeper meaning and consequence than it appears? Males, of course, traditionally use these terms as insults to describe women. Now one can walk down the street and hear these terms in any variety of ways—from the traditional, insulting sense of the word, to the new way of using it, and perhaps the strangest way – as a friendly greeting. “What’s up hoe?” or “hey slut!” are two common ways of using these expressions.
By using such words in a casual manner, the goal is to take away the power attached to them – power that only the opposite sex could utilize before this kind of speech became common. Such is the case with the n word; some blacks use it when speaking with one another to remove the power associated with it in its negative usage. But is this really what it happening here? Or is using them, even if the purpose is to diminish their negative connotation, still just perpetrating the usage of these words to continue? Are we simply making these words more accessible and acceptable for anyone to use?
These questions continue to linger; only time will tell whether these derogatory terms will remain in our society or if they will fall by the wayside as people realize that perhaps they are only hurting the progress of society by continuing to use them.
3 comments:
It is disgusting how frequently I hear the word "slut", "whore", etc. in people's every day conversations. I feel as though these terms are used so much that in some way they lost their true meaning- as being degrading. Now, when a man calls a woman a slut or whore to her face or to his friends, it is not as powerful as it once was. These kinds of words are used so much that they simply became part of most teenagers "regular" conversation. People say things like, "Hey slut," all the time but they obviously don't mean for it to be degrading. Now-a-days people know that terms such as these are common and when people use them they don't necessarily mean for the degrading term to mean its dictionary definition.
It is very interesting to note that in the past, men would always use terms such as "slut" and "whore" to describe women. However, in today's society, you constantly hear women calling each other these words. It appears that the terms are derogatory only when males use them. However, if females use them to describe each other, the derogatory meaning diminishes.
This post helped me shift lenses to realize some of the implications of my own actions. Although it is a complete joke like the author has said, I commonly say things to my girlfriend that are way over-the-top degrading. I have complete respect for her and these comments obviously hold no water, but I can't help but jokingly answer the phone "what up slut?" every once and a while. And, unless there is some major subconscious battle going on, she is never offended. Thinking about the power these words have when used with their original intent, this might not be such a laughing manner. I can definitely see how incorporating it into my vernacular through jokes can increase the chance of labeling another woman through the same language.
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