The phrase 'Essex girl' to be removed from dictionary for promoting misogyny

This removal from the dictionary is a step towards the right direction in the fight against the mistreatment of women.

The phrase 'Essex girl' to be removed from dictionary for promoting misogyny
© Getty
The phrase 'Essex girl' to be removed from dictionary for promoting misogyny

After campaigns were launched claiming the term was sexist, classist and ultimately promoted slut-shaming, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary will be removing it from its pages.

Discover our latest podcast

The dictionary, designed for foreign students learning the language, currently defines the term as 'a name used especially in jokes to refer to a type of young woman who is not intelligent, dresses badly, talks in a loud and ugly way, and is very willing to have sex.'

Redefining what it means to be an 'Essex Girl'

Considering the incredibly reductive and misogynistic nature of the term, author and founder of the Essex Girls Liberation Movement, Syd Moore, fought incessantly by creating a campaign to permanently erase this term from pop culture. In an interview with Sky News, Moore said:

The stereotype is just really reductive and it puts women and girls in this tiny little box. Yeah you can have extensions and an orange tan, but you can be a doctor and you can be a professor and you can be an engineer.

Others have also been fighting for the cause

This isn't the only effort that has been put forth in an attempt to change the negative image the media has portrayed of Essex. Helen Mirren was a supporter of the 'Snapping the Stiletto' campaign that aimed to celebrate Essex women by dismantling stereotypes.

In response to the dictionary's inclusion of such dated terms, The Only Way Is Essex star, Gemma Collins told Sky News that:

the dictionary should be paying everyone in Essex compensation for use of the phrase. We have evolved over the years. It is very derogatory what has been said about us. And it does need to be changed.

Still, the main Oxford English Dictionary has no plans of removing the term because publishers claim that it is much too historical of a publication to ever take anything out.

The sinister story of the Radium Girls, the women who worked in clock factories during WWI The sinister story of the Radium Girls, the women who worked in clock factories during WWI