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To say that the working class wear cloth hats, live in red bricked terraced houses and go fishing in there spare time is offensive I think.
To say that all trackie wearing kids from the local estate are scum is offensive in much the same way only a little worse.
It's always those that are most disadvantage that get the roughest treatment. Snobbery and the class systme hasn't gone away, it's as stong as ever with Chav bashing.
9 times out of 10 people who live on council estates with their trackies, burberry and pramface girlfriends ARE chavs in the behaviour sense of the word and the dregs of society. Why do these people conform to such detrimental stereotypes? You can't seriously suggest that they're unaware of the connotations of how they dress etc.? If they don't want to be labelled chavs why do they make a conscious effort to appear like one? It makes no sense. It's like going to a job interview in jeans and a t-shirt and complaining it's bullshit when you don't get the job.
Maybe they don't care what some judgemental prick thinks about how they dress? This article didn't come from a working class person after all.
Does that mean I can call Bradley Wright-Phillips a chav though? Professional footballers salary, and he's caught on CCTV stealing money from a waitress' bag in the restaurant. Scum. But maybe some behaviour is habit, and money doesn't necessarily change that?
Thank you for highlighting my point.
I was being a little ironic with the cloth-cap/terraces thing (perhaps that didn't come across) but my point was that the term "working class" is almost as archaic as that perception. Class hasn't gone away in British society, but its far from being the rigid and relatively clearly distiguishable upper-middle-working divide that existed until circa the late 1950s. Thats why contemporary sociologists/marketing and advertising types often use the A1, A2, A3...C1, C2...E1, E2 etc system to indicate today's more complex social stratification.
I don't see that it is offensive to "divide" people up into class/social position though. Its what academics and social scientists do in order to understand society and economy, and in many cases to improve people's conditions. And then there are examples of intellectuals who do the same in order to try to change society for the better - most obviously, Marx (who described "the underclass" or the "chav class" of his time as the lumpenproletariat).
But I agree with you that the way many people use words like "chav" is indicative of snobbery and amounts to social ostracism. Nevertheless, I think it is a bit disingenous to deny that the generality does not correspond at all to a real phenomenon/issue.
It is when you you goign to label them as scum and the word for that 'division' becomes a derogatory one.
In my experience, it's a definite majority. Being a working class man who lives in a brick terrace house I think I'm more qualified to judge than the gimps of the Fabian Society in their ivory towers.
Not caring about about the implications of how you dress, especially when it's a conscious choice to conform to a 'negative stereotype' is an extremely childish and immature attitude. Regardless of whether is 'right' or not to judge people on how they dress, people still do and I highly doubt you're entirely innocent of it yourself. "I don't care what anyone thinks" will get people nowhere in life; chavs are the perfect example of this.
Thanks for copping out of a thoughtful reply.
It didn't need one. You highlighted my point perfectly.
Where as treating everybody that wear trackies and comes from the estate as scum is adult attitude is it?
You're right appearances are important, but to realy on them that much and generalise to that degree really takes some ignorance.
So clearly that yet again you're incapable of explaining how or even what point it actually is it supposedly highlights?
Nice straw man argument.
Did I say it's right to treat everyone that way? No, I said 9 times out of 10 that the generalization is correct in the behaviour sense of the word. I also said in an earlier post that 'chav' has a meaning that goes far beyond a persons class. I did not say that people should be prejudged because they're from a council estate and wear trackies because I've been pretty clear that it wouldn't make them a chav, but in most cases they turn out to be when you've got a real basis for judgment.
Is choosing to take on the appearance of a 'chav' a conscious choice or not? Why is wrong to make judgements on the type of person who would make that choice fully knowing its negative connotations? Assuming all 'chavs' are disadvantaged or 'low class' is it not ignorant of them to reject pragmatism and effectively label themselves in the eyes of the public?
Chav isn't offensive, it's just descriptive, like emo, goth. I find it's descriptive of the clothing style, not the person directly, though people place it as an direct insult to the person, not their clothing choice.
I'd be offended if I was called a scally, not a chav. There's a noticeable different these days.
But it's not just clothing though that's the point. Does someone in a suit who drinks on street corners and shouts abuse at passing people make that person a chav? What about a youth who wears burberry and trackies who does charity work? Is he a chav, it doesn't matter if he does charity work cos people have already made their minds up on that person before even speaking to him. So where does a chav end and a non-chav start? There are so many ambiguities involved that it renders the term useless as well as offensive.
It's always going to be the easy way though to take a look at something you dont like - like thieves - say they're all chavs and then incorporate everyone who dresses or talks or behaves a certain way in that stereotype.
http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2008-07-15-Link-between-deprivation-and-violence-putting-pressure-on-health-services
It's easy to play with statistics.
So where does a scally end and a chav begin? I bet the thousands of people who use both terms couldn't agree on a single statement that encapsulates both.
When you say 'Chavs have no pride in anything they own, or anything they do, and therefore dont deserve anyone's respect' you have coined a definition of chav that is not necessarily accurate. People believe people they label as chavs to be all of these things, but they will often just label working class people as chavs. Or travellers as 'gypos'.
Your definition is just what you tell yourself so you don't feel like you're being prejudiced when you say it. But do you know that everyone you think of as chav, those people who get on a bus wearing - god forbid - a tracksuit, pushing a pram, really fills all the other nasty criteria you have so succintly listed? Of course you don't, and 99 times out of a hundred they wont if you cared to find out.
It goes both ways, obviously, I get gay jokes all the time whenever I hang around with working class guys because I do sound 'middle class' to an extent. But that's more of a joke than the people who -genuinely- wish all 'chavs' were dead.
I have plenty of bones to pick, I've been victimised by youths, targetted by youths, burgled by youths, had the house bricked by youths. But I don't fall into the trap of just saying 'they're all the same, these chavs'. Because people most people would happily describe as chavs might have no greater flaws than just a poor taste in fashion (in someones arbitrary opinion) and more likely than not it seems to be a 'have not' of society. The worst fucktards I've come across have all come from a combination of social care, homelessness, real poor upbringing. And that's when they're kids.
Again, it's considerably more offensive that you're confused between 'chavs' and the working class. The likely reason is that you're middle class. 'chav', 'pikey' 'ned' etc. are terms coined by the working class. They've existed for far longer than they've been used in the media.
I class them as scallys, not chavs.
Oh dear.
Well if you want to take a Marxist dialectical outlook on things these "chavs" you refer to are most certainly working class. Decline of industry and poor social provision in working class produces material inequalities among the populace, thus resulting in lack of employment and criminal aspects of those areas. Then again, it's something that we should actively try and change and help people in these areas, not calling them scroungers or chavs. But you're too snobby and on your high horse to give a fuck aren't you?
Is living on a council estate a requirment for a chav then?
You say not all working class are chavs, but are all chavs from the wroking class
So you can spot a chav simply on appearance then? The 'whole package' you listed consists of only physical and rather shallow attributes. Nothing there about behaviour and personality.
Chav is offensive anyway but it becomes even more offensive when use lazily to descibe people that fit your appearance criteria, people that you don't actually know.
So trackie wear youth that does charity work is a still a chav or in other words scum. Does this mean that chav will be a chav for life? That they'll never 'deserve any respect'.
It's bullshit.
Chav and Chavi are part of the Romany language. They were not coined by the working class. Where I live there still used as a term of endearment, or meaning young boy or girl. That's probably because there's quite a big Romany population round here.
Pikey is an offensive racial term in the same way Paki is. So it's really best you try an avoid that one.
No, I KNOW they have no pride. They're stood in front of me looking an absolute mess. I'm sorry, but being poor is NO excuse. Don't call me naive, I do understand the concept of not being able to afford things, but you can go to primark and put together something cheap that doesn't make you look retarded. This person, as I've already said, has CHOSEN to conform to a negative stereotype. I've been to council estates, I have friends who live on them, there's a clear different between my friend's family who all work their arses off to scrape the bare minimum together to look after each other and the scum that live next door who run around setting cars on fire, playing loud music till 3am and not going to work.
And it's not JUST about the clothes, look at the next one you see. They've got greasy unwashed hair, facial hair where they can't be bothered to shave and just generally look like they don't look after themselves at all. There is NO excuse for that.
I would never ever look down on the working class as a whole. Again, this is NOT about money. anybody who gets out of bed in the morning to do a job and earn what they can day in day out to provide for their family deserves respect for doing that, doesn't matter who they are. I'm not on my high horse at all. There are plenty of schemes in placve to try and help these people into work and to educate them properly, they get to go to school like everyone else, though granted, the local schools especially inner city schools aren't always the better state schools. The point is, they seem to actively reject help of this kind in favour if "signing on", because for some reason they believe themselves to be above and beyond work. The real problem is breaking the cycle and I'm not sure how that can be done, but it is absolutely not because I'm too snobby to care. I said I was PLAYING the snob to make a point, I've had a relatively fortunate upbringing, that's luck really, and my parents have worked hard to get us here, I don't at all think that makes me better than the working class as a whole.
A dog is a mammal, so all mammals must be dogs? Please try and use basic logic.
Of course it includes behaviour. Do not even try and tell me you don't make judgements about people based on your initial observations. This includes everything from what they're wearing to their body language to the way they speak, the words they use, EVERYTHING. This often tells you a huge amount about a person within a few seconds of seeing them so don't make out that it's shallow, absolutely everyone does it. Again, they're consciously aware of all of the above, so I don't feel bad judging them on it, because that's how they WANT to be seen.
Actually, I think you'll find the etymology is pretty unclear and that's just one possibility. That's not important though, many words have roots in other words and are adopted by others over time. Meanings change, words change, it's called semantic drift. Chav's current and most widespread meaning certainly didn't start with the middle class.