Katie Beswick’s Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture, published last year, “offers a personal and cultural history of the word ‘slag’,” a misogynistic slang term that implies both promiscuity and worthlessness. Beswick discusses the representation of female characters in popular culture (such as the self-defined “total slag” Kat Slater in EastEnders) and female artists (such as Tracey Emin, whose tent installation Everyone I Have Ever Slept With exposed her sexual history). The book’s cover illustration is from Kelly Green’s performance art production Slag.
Beswick briefly considers the reappropriation of ‘slag’, arguing that this is not yet possible: “We are not at the stage of reclaiming slag... or even being able to weaponise it effectively as resistance — and yet its complexities must be acknowledged in any reckoning with the term.” She conducted a survey of 169 people’s attitudes towards the word, and only two respondents “expressed a sense of reclamation”. A more common response was that “unlike other offensive sexist words, such as ‘slut’ and ‘cunt’, ‘slag’ was unable to be reclaimed, and therefore felt worse as an insult.”
Beswick briefly considers the reappropriation of ‘slag’, arguing that this is not yet possible: “We are not at the stage of reclaiming slag... or even being able to weaponise it effectively as resistance — and yet its complexities must be acknowledged in any reckoning with the term.” She conducted a survey of 169 people’s attitudes towards the word, and only two respondents “expressed a sense of reclamation”. A more common response was that “unlike other offensive sexist words, such as ‘slut’ and ‘cunt’, ‘slag’ was unable to be reclaimed, and therefore felt worse as an insult.”
Slags on Stage is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Bitch by Karen Stollznow, Harpy by Caroline Magennis, Hags by Victoria Smith, In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet, Bimbo by Ashley James, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).