I got very wound up by the use of the word chav at gencon in 2005 because people were using it as a general term for the people who went to Butlins, who were mostly just normal working class families. I dislike the implication that all working class people are chavs. However, I don't necessarily dislike the term chav when used in the way the words mod, rocker, hippy, teenybopper etc might be used - as a term for a fashion trend. I have also been a victim of classism. I come from a relatively working class background and when I was at secondary school - mostly with kids from middle class, wealthy backgrounds - many of my friends were not allowed to visit my house because I lived in a working class area. In fact one parent of a friend said she would drop me home late at night after I had visited the friend but then dropped me off about 1/4 of a mile from my house because, she said:" You must understand I couldn't be seen in (insert name of working class area)" That left me, as a 14-year-old, to walk home alone after dark through an area this adult wouldn't consider driving in!
I know the kind of thing. Living on the only council estate in an otherwise quite well-off area wasn't fun. Going to school with people who when they said their mum and dad were short of money actually meant 'we're going to the Canary Islands this year instead of Florida' wasn't fun either. I've heard people using the term chav as interchangable with 'this person's family is on benefits and lives in a council house/flat' at which point I feel like saing "well in that case I'm a bloody chav". Actually of late certian quaters have taken to writing off whole towns or estates as 'chav areas'. I don't mean to sound like I have a chip on my shoulder but the casuualness with which these generalisations fall from people's mouths winds me up somethimes.
I have also been a victim of classism. I come from a relatively working class background and when I was at secondary school - mostly with kids from middle class, wealthy backgrounds - many of my friends were not allowed to visit my house because I lived in a working class area. In fact one parent of a friend said she would drop me home late at night after I had visited the friend but then dropped me off about 1/4 of a mile from my house because, she said:" You must understand I couldn't be seen in (insert name of working class area)" That left me, as a 14-year-old, to walk home alone after dark through an area this adult wouldn't consider driving in!
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I don't mean to sound like I have a chip on my shoulder but the casuualness with which these generalisations fall from people's mouths winds me up somethimes.
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