Column:

Cultural perceptions part of word definition

By Erica Zucco

Published Nov. 6, 2009

We all know the scene in "Mean Girls" in which Lindsay Lohan narrates, "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it."

On Halloween this year, I don't know how many times I heard some derivative of the word "slut" used to describe a girl or woman walking around. A lot of the times, women even described themselves as a "slutty cop" or "slutty Hillary Clinton" or "slutty Care Bear." I hear the word so frequently I rarely notice it anymore — it's basically engrained in our generation's cultural dictionary.

But the other day, my friend and I heard a girl on the street say to her friend, in the most affectionate tone, "I'm so glad you're my main bitch," and we started to wonder whether calling yourself a "bitch" has actually become empowering, as some people claim. And that brought us to thinking about the word "slut" and a lot of other words traditionally derogative, but the people they're meant to describe have tried to instead own and use to describe themselves.

From some sociological and psychological perspectives, language shapes thought. It organizes emotions, perceptions and relations we have with other people into comprehensible chunks we can categorize. The way we perceive the world around us and the way we can describe it and relay that information to others is, essentially, formed by the words we have available to communicate that data.

So in this sense, words aren't just meaningless strings of letters — they're powerful transmitters of perception. This means the only way to really change the context or meaning of a word is to transform the thoughts and beliefs it constructs — to eliminate the derogative definition in the social sphere and form a new one.

In David Guetta's song with Akon, "Sexy Bitch," Guetta explains: "She's nothing like a girl you've ever seen before/Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood whore/I'm tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful...Damn you'se a sexy bitch." Now, I've never believed pop music necessarily prompts people to act in certain ways, but I strongly believe it reflects the common cultural sphere in which it is written, and this is a perfect example of how we have altered the meanings of two words that were traditionally used to demean or marginalize women.

The top urbandictionary.com definition for neighborhood whore is "A person, usually a female, who has had sexual relations with many different people." Although Merriam-Webster claims a whore is someone who has sex for money, pop culture and our social structure have transformed its meaning to something different — any woman who has a lot of sex with different people. And even though Merriam-Webster defines a bitch as someone unpleasant and use of the word as a form of abuse, in the song "sexy bitch" assumedly means an attractive but high-maintenance woman, something generally found desirable. Basically, we have changed the meanings of these words over time.

If we really want to change the meanings of words and use them for empowerment rather then degradation, we need to change the cultural perceptions surrounding them. You can call yourself a slut and intend subversion, but if no one respects or supports your method of use for the word, it just doesn't work.