"Dirty slut" in p6 reading book!?

[Iamlora88]

I need some advice from other mums. Kaylas class has been reading The Suitcase Kid by Jaqueline Wilson. There's a line in it when someone calls a character a dirty slut. Now I get that this is a children's book but there's no room for the word slut in a class full of ten year olds. Kayla told me and showed me the book and I asked her what the word meant and she told me it's the worst word you could ever call a girl. We left it at that. Kayla wants me to bring it up with her teacher and I do too but I'm not sure how to address it with the school without going all crazy raging feminist on them. Ten year olds shouldn't have words like that introduced into their vocabulary and that fact that the word is basically about shaming women for enjoying lots of sex (to put it very lightly) makes it even worse. If it was just a normal swear word I could let it slide but the word slut is so damaging and shaming and I'd hate to thing that they're all running around the playground calling each other dirty sluts! If anyone can help me draft an email it'd be much appreciated.

Tinkly my father still uses gay to mean bright/jolly/fun

"Gay" is a good one. What's it going to mean next?

"Slut" nowadays is used where "slag" was used when I was young. you don't hear "slag" much nowadays

DD came across this in year 4. The teacher threw the book in the bin.

I am surprised that a 10 year old doesn't know this word. I definitely don't think it is the worst word ever. Yes it can be used to shame women for enjoying sex, but doesn't have to be taken that way. Maybe it's cultural but in London area it can be almost used as a badge of honour, as in "you dirty slut" in an admiring way when a girl tells her mates how she went off with a guy from the bar the night before.

ANYWAY in Jacqueline Wilson it is used in the historical way of meaning messy, which is the way your DD is likely to come across it in literature. And is likely to be very confused, that up tight victorians don't talk about sex but do describe people as sluts or sluttens.

I came across lots of unsavoury words in every day conversation at school - I didn't understand what most of them meant for years afterwards though.

Slag not being used as much is something most science teachers are pleased with, as you get far fewer giggles nowadays when you teacher about a blast furnace and the "slag" being left at the bottom.

I would complain about any teacher throwing any book away. Removing it from the shelves as too adult, but never throwing books away.

I have an old nursery rhyme book and one of the nursery rhymes contains the world slut. I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head. The line was something like "oh what a dirty slut to do ??? and lie in the mud"

I had this book as a child (as had my mum!) and had never noticed or worried about this word before. It was only recently when I had children and got the book out again that I was

Ah- it was See Saw Margery Daw: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_Saw_Margery_Daw

OP- I would not be angry, but discuss the different meanings of the word with your DD and encourage her to then take this knowledge into the class discussion.

I've cut a paste from Burn's link above.

See-saw, Margery Daw,
Sold her bed and lay on the straw;
Sold her bed and lay upon hay
And pisky came and carried her away.
For wasn't she a dirty slut
To sell her bed and lie in the dirt?
"Slut" may have carried no sexual connotations in this rhyme as its original meaning was simply "a slovenly woman". (Compare "Cinderslut", one of the older titles for "Cinderella", who was dirty in that she was covered in ashes from raking the cinders.)

You often find this type of in children's 'classics'. You just need to explain that the word hasn't always meant the bad word she knows. As others have said "gay" is one of those words. Enid Blyton used that word a lot simply to mean bright and cheerful. Certainly in Roald Dahl's revolting rhymes, Cinderella is called a slut, and older fairy tale books will use that word, simply because she is so dirty . Jacqueline Wilson, I'm presuming, has used it in the old-fashioned sense?
I personally wouldn't fret about it. Language is constantly changing. It's a good learning/talking point.

LittleHouseOnTheShelf Sat 21-May-16 08:29:19

"DD came across this in year 4. The teacher threw the book in the bin."

I am glad she did not teach my children. So instead of reading the book and trying to understand the context/sense of the word, or simply saying to the children "I think this is for an older age group", she shows them that any books that upset or offend you should be destroyed. Great lesson learnt there.

cory not really, she told DD that the book was for older children and not suitable for DD's age. DD loves books and wouldn't throw them out so I don't think any harm was done.

You've not been around a playground recently then, OP?