‘THE ESSEX’ AND I, an essay on the Essex stereotype
Written by Poor Tom
The Essex stereotype, depending on which of the sexes you are talking about, is considered a negative. The ‘Essex boy’ and the ‘Essex girl’ are seen as gaudy, loud, brash and an offence to common decency, but in reality ‘The Essex’ is a symbol of perseverance, success, and is an unrelenting model of agency. It is a fairly recent manifestation resulting from working class families moving out of East London after the Second World War to find jobs and careers in Essex.
I was born in Ilford over two decades ago, living in a place that sits between East London and Essex for the majority of my life. I find I have a sense of distance from ‘The Essex’ and can view this subculture from a third party perspective. I would now consider myself to be an Essex native, though others who live in the in-between would not. Being from Ilford my claim to Essex is constantly questioned, as though I’m too Essex for London and too London for Essex. To be frank, I’m not an Essex boy, my experience of the county is starkly different to that of someone from Brentwood, Southend, Chelmsford or Colchester, for example.
An example of a town that also sits in the in-between would be the town of Dagenham. It is home to the largest council estate in the world and the site of the 1968 women’s equal pay walk out, a walk out in defiance of the new pay structure that valued their labour as less skilled compared to similarly skilled work of their male counterparts. It is, in my opinion, an Essex town, but due to it now sitting in a London borough its proximity to Essex is challenged. In similar fashion to towns such as Barkingside and Woodford which can be considered part of London due to their existence in London boroughs, but even when I lived in Barkingside back in the 2000’s they were considered part of Essex.
The Essex stereotype is one of national embarrassment. No matter how hard you try to hide the accent, the second you tell someone you’re from Essex, their opinion of you is already made and unlikely to change. Often characterised as loud and over the top, excessive and “too much”, a product of materialism and capitalist extremes. The Essex Girl is seen as a young woman with a rich orange tan, unnaturally blonde hair, a heavily made up face, stiletto heels, a woman of little intelligence and somewhat sexually promiscuous.
But what this stereotype lacks is the comprehension that an Essex Girl is in control of her body. She chooses to dress that way, look that way and express her sexuality in that way; she is a creature of control; it is her choice to sleep with as many or as little people as she desires. Feminists throughout the ages have fought to be what an Essex Girl is; a woman in control of her destiny.
A prime example are the women on the popular show, ‘The Only Way Is Essex’. A reality TV show depicting the lives and events of a (somewhat large) group of friends, enemies and lovers all hailing from Essex. And what we see on screen is what we would believe to be the stereotype, albeit a hyper produced and dramatised version of it. However behind the scenes these women are successful business owners, social media moguls, they’re fashionable and trendy (to a large portion of their audience), becoming so popular several have spawned their own spin off shows. Because they look, sound and act a certain way, the Essex Girl is treated like a simple bimbo, and we forget that she is more capable and aware then we give credit for. The Oxford dictionary defines an Essex girl as “A brash, materialistic young woman of a type supposedly found in Essex or surrounding areas in the south-east of England” but find I Germaine Greer’s description in a 2001 article for the Guardian to be more fitting, “Anarchy on stilts”, an Essex girl is unashamedly herself, and there is no better description then “Anarchy on Stilts”. Sarah Perry, in her book ‘Essex Girls’ argues that Kim Kardashian can be considered an Essex Girl, “She is an Essex girl elevated to her purest form, displaced from Southend to Los Angeles: hyper sexualised, irredeemably vulgar, a body presented to an avid and insatiable male gaze in a fashion which is somehow both gratifying and confronting... adopting a manner of speech which is irritating to the ruling classes”.
Let’s think about a similar example of loud and authentically true to themselves brits, the cast of Geordie Shore! While the two shows are similar in character stereotypes and drama, I find the cast of TOWIE to be less (overtly) party and sex oriented and can be more aligned with the Barbie and Ken model - many fingers in many business pies, always presentable, plastic, etc. Both showcase people with strong working class backgrounds but one is largely about the interpersonal relationships through a sex and party lifestyle and the other is about interpersonal relationships through everyday interactions. A night and day dichotomy. I would also like to add that I am solely talking about stereotypes here and what is portrayed on screen, it is important to understand that what we see on television is dramatised and edited to portray a particular version of people and events.
Similarly, the Essex Boy is also a creature of control, the stereotype of a boy racer, flashy and shiny, slick hair, expensive clothes, more makeup on then the girls; again he is loud, brash and unrelenting in his authenticity. The Essex Boy is hot and he knows it. The Essex boy is often characterized as a ‘tradie’ wearing tracksuits and high vis or as a business type in a suit commuting into canary wharf everyday, but one constant between the two is that he is unbelievably groomed, not a hair out of place. To be an Essex boy is to care for oneself. A straight working class man who deviates from the conventional norm of masculinity, he is seen as effeminate and less of a man, a joke of what a typical bloke should be.
To the nation he is not a man, he is concerned more with his looks than anything else, a child lacking intelligence and decency. But what is often overlooked is the immensely protective nature of this man; his tribe comes first, a family man through and through.
The stereotype of The Essex is that of national embarrassment, but to be an Essex Girl is to claim autonomy over your body and to be an Essex boy is to care for your loved ones, a core aspect is the pride in their appearance, presentable in most if not all situations. Such as the stars of TOWIE, they are on television and know damn well what their mothers would say if they saw them not looking their best (at least I know what my mum would say).
I am proud to be an Essex boy, and will get defensive when people criticise my county for our vapid stereotypes. Look past TOWIE and you’ll see Anne Knight (Chelmsford), a radical feminist who in her time fought for the civil rights of not just women but poor people and for the abolition of slavery; Vera Sime (Dagenham), a woman part of the 1968 Ford Dagenham sewing Machinist strike; Munroe Bergdorf (Stansted), trans rights activist and model; Paul Stephenson (Rochford) a civil rights activist who lead a boycott against the Bristol Omnibus Company for its refusal to hire BAME drivers and conductors; the members of The Prodigy, a music group who revolutionised dance music in the 1990’s; and Dame Maggie Smith (Ilford) a world famous actress.
‘The Essex’ is a type of person not bound by county or country, ethnicity or class, it is a person who is unashamed to be themselves, no matter how loud and gaudy that may be, The Essex is a type and we should all strive to fit the mode.
Selected bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/05/gender
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/05/britishidentity.gender
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/27/the-invention-of-essex-how-a-county-became-a-
caricature
https://tuc150.tuc.org.uk/stories/dagenham-womens-strike/
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-heroes/the-bristol-bus-boycott-of-1963
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‘Essex Girls’ Sarah Perry