Godfrey Bloom, a right-wing English politician, has got into trouble recently at the United Kingdom Independence Party’s annual conference, for calling women in politics ‘sluts’ because they don’t clean behind the fridge.
It’s not the first time he has been deliberately offensive, and no doubt won’t be the last either, but what intrigued me about this particular statement is that – apart from putting most women, me included, in the slut category – his use of the word is correct, if sadly dated.
The online Oxford English Dictionary’s primary definition of ‘slut’ is ‘A woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance’ – though it also adds that ‘This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1912).’ I suspect the word, if not Godfrey, has moved on since then.
The first ‘Slutwalk’, Toronto, 3 April 2011
Historians are Past Caring 