Essex Girls: For Profane and Opinionated Women Everywhere

by Sarah Perry

Essex Girls are disreputable, disrespectful and disobedient. They speak out of turn, too loudly and too often, in an accent irritating to the ruling classes. Their bodies are hyper-sexualised and irredeemably vulgar. They are given to intricate and voluble squabbling. They do not apologise for any of this. And why should they?

In this exhilarating feminist defence of the Essex girl, Sarah Perry re-examines her relationship with her much maligned home county. She summons its most unquiet spirits, from Protestant martyr Rose Allin to the indomitable Abolitionist Anne Knight, sitting them alongside Audre Lorde, Kim Kardashian and Harriet Martineau, and showing us that the Essex girl is not bound by geography. She is a type, representing a very particular kind of female agency, and a very particular kind of disdain: she contains a multitude of women, and it is time to celebrate them.

A defence and celebration of the Essex Girl by the best-selling author of The Essex Serpent.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, History, Essays, Philosophy, Biography Memoir, British Literature

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2020

About the author

Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979, and was raised as a Strict Baptist. Having studied English at Anglia Ruskin University she worked as a civil servant before studying for an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Creative Writing and the Gothic at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2004 she won the Spectator's Shiva Naipaul Award for travel writing.

In January 2013 she was Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone's Library. Here she completed the final draft of her first novel, After Me Comes the Flood , which was published by Serpent's Tail in June 2014 to international critical acclaim. It won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award 2014, and was longlisted for the 2014 Guardian First Book Award and nominated for the 2014 Folio Prize. In January and February 2016 Sarah was the UNESCO City of Literature Writer-in-Residence in Prague.

Her second novel, The Essex Serpent , was published by Serpent's Tail in May 2016. It was a number one bestseller in hardback, and was named Waterstones Book of the Year 2016. It was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2017, and was longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017, the Wellcome Book Prize, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and the New Angle Prize for Literature. It was broadcast on Radio 4 as a Book at Bedtime in April 2017, is being translated into eleven languages, and has been chosen for the Richard and Judy Summer Book Club 2017.

Sarah has spoken at a number of institutions including Gladstone's Library, the Centre of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, and the Anglo-American University in Prague, on subjects including theology, the history and status of friendship in literature, the Gothic, and Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Her essays have been published in the Guardian and the Spectator, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She reviews fiction for the Guardian and the Financial Times.

She currently lives in Norwich, where she is completing her third novel.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

reading vlog: https://youtu.be/Pdm_CAew1Mw

remind me of when kim kardashian was born in essex pls xxx

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Perry, an Essex girl herself, takes the pejorative term and turns it on its head. She sets the scene:
“Essex Girls are disreputable, disrespectful and disobedient.
They speak out of turn, too loudly and too often, in an accent irritating to the ruling classes.
Their bodies are hyper-sexualised and irredeemably vulgar.
They are given to intricate and voluble squabbling.
They do not apologise for any of this. And why should they?”
The misogynist scapegoating is noted and then Perry picks a number of women to illustrate her points. There is Rose Allin, a Protestant martyr part of the movement that insisted that the scriptures were for all the people, not just priests. Anne Knight was a Quaker and abolitionist, campaigning on after the initial abolition because slavery still existed in the Empire. She also wrote what is regarded as the first pamphlet on women’s suffrage. Emily Hobhouse was the woman who exposed the brutality of the British concentration camps that were set up for women and children during the Boer War (yes they were a British invention) and which killed many Boer women and children. Harriet Martineau was a writer and social activist and notably an atheist in a time when that was most unfashionable. The letters between her and Henry Atkinson which argued against conventional Christianity and the Genesis account of Creation was published eight years before Darwin.
This is a brief account, less than ninety pages and there is plenty of polemic. It shines a much needed light on women who are pretty much forgotten or little known and who were argumentative and awkward and campaigned for what they believed in. There are a few flaws but the whole is a reminder that some cultural tropes need to be overturned.

[Amanda B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this history of a few not particularly well known women who have ignored the instruction of men and followed their beliefs. My only criticism is I would of liked more!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. I was so excited when it started off talking about Chelmsford because I thought I’d never get to read a book about a place where I grew up, but that’s pretty much where the enjoyment stopped.

For a book about ‘Essex girls’ I feel like there is so much potential for research into the history and analysis into Essex culture but it just seems to skim through everything. The whole book is so anecdotal it’s hard to really relate to any of the historical figures she talks about because it’s all how they relate to her specific childhood.

A perfect example of this sort of opinionated exploration into what an ‘Essex girl’ is, is the fact that they say the stereotype is best embodied by Kim Kardashian. This is meant to be a book about powerful Essex women and the prime example she chooses is a celebrity who’s probably never even heard of Essex, when we have people like Gemma Collins, Helen Mirren, Rachel Riley who are actually from Essex that would’ve been great examples instead?

I think this book would’ve been a lot better if more research and thought had gone into it. If you’re not from Essex, or even Chelmsford, I don’t think this book is worth reading at all.

[Ksenia (vaenn) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Торік англійська письменниця Сара Перрі, авторка "Змія з Ессексу", видала розлогий есей, в якому спробувала (пере)осмислити культурно-соціальний феномен "Essex Girls" крізь, зокрема, фемоптику. "Дівчата з Ессексу" - це на наші гроші щось навроді "Приїхала зі свого /підставте назву не злиденного, але дуже немодного райцентру/ курва крашена і ну нашим мужикам голови крутить!".
То про що йдеться на цих майже ста сторіночках:
* трохи про те, як Перрі відрефлексовувала оцей комплекс "А, то ти з Ессексу..." (масні посмішки included)
* трохи про те, як постав стереотип, яких форм він набуває в реальності (включно зі згадкою про епічне дослідження статистики звертань до місцевих жіночих консультацій - "А, може, ті дівчата з Ессексу дійсно розпусніші?") - і як ними користуються ті жінки, хто готові своєю леопардово-стразиковою ессексинкою епатувати радісну публіку
* багато про видатну соціологиню й економістку 19 століття Гаррієт Мартіно - власне, весь есей виріс з тематичної лекції. Мартіно не з Ессексу, до речі, але, на думку авторки, суто ментально могла бути True Essex Girl
* трохи про оцю авторську концепцію вільних, шалених та впевнених в собі True Essex Girls (Перрі туди записала багато кого, починаючи з Кім Кардаш'ян)
* плюс три біографічні мініесейчика про власне історичних "дівчат з Ессексу" (за народженням чи місцем проживання), які свого часу шокували, бісили, чудували британців - і то не сексуальною розкутістю: протестантка Роуз Аллін, яка відмовилася переходити в католицтво за часів Марії Тюдор - з передбачуваними наслідками; аболіціоністка та суфражистка Енн Найт, яка в носі мала всіх, хто не погоджувався з її уявленням про правильний світ; правозахисниця Емілі Гобгауз, котра під час Другої бурської війни доклала всіх зусиль, аби світ дізнався про нелюдські умови в концтаборах для бурських жінок та дітей - враховуючи, що саме тоді британська пропаганда відпрацьовувала механізми дегуманізації ворога, що потім прислужилися під час Першої світової... "підла зрадниця" - це далеко не найгірше, що чула Гобгауз на свою адресу

Цікаве читання вийшло. Часом трохи занудне, часом концепція ледь тримається на живій нитці, що постійно намагається уповзти в кущі, але воно таке, знаєте, підбадьорливе. Ну, бо розповідає про емпавермент незручних для суспільства жінок, які в суспільства питають: "Так, ми незручні, і шо?".

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My hometown of Romford is a bit of a nuance because despite being in a London Borough, your address is always "Romford, Essex".

I never really noticed the 'Essex Girl' label at school. It wasn't until I got to university and into the workplace that the comments and label really started.

"Where are you from?"..."Romford, in Essex"....cue knowing look, slight smirk, a few comments about my accent and, I daresay, some assumptions being made about my ability from the outset. Standard.

"The Essex Girl is not bound by geography, but is a type, metonymous for a particular kind of female agency, and a very particular kind of disdain: she contains a multitude of women".

This book looks at the 'Essex Girl' as a type of person - those people you underestimate, even write off. Those who stand up, unashamedly for who they are and what they believe, unconcerned by public perception (or perceived to be unconcerned by it!). The author explores some of those strong, real life women from history who have had their legacy dampened because they were ahead of their time in their thinking, or because the society thought them too vulgar. Some of the historic protagonists are from Essex and I loved learning a little about their stories. I also loved the concept of the ghosts from the past, this strong band of women forming through time who represent everything that is strong and brave.

At little over 90 pages, this is an excellent, thought provoking quick read. Not just for those of us from Essex, the tales of strength will resonate with everyone.

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[Alanna Myles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand the main points that Perry was trying to make, and agree, the stereotype of the Essex girl and conforming to any aspect of this stereotype can be argued as radical. But, I think that I would have enjoyed the book more if she had focused only on women from Essex to demonstrate her point or even just women who fit the stereotype of an Essex girl, as she argues Kim Kardashian does. Using examples of feminist and radical women who do not fit the stereotype of an Essex girl whilst also not being from Essex seems redundant, these are just feminist women and not "Essex girls". Doing this also strips the women of their own personal identities and heritage, when there are a multitude of women from Essex or who conform to the stereotype of an Essex girl who demonstrate the points she is trying to make.

[Annikky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, but a bit all over the place.

[Jo-Anne Cartwright · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is going to be a 2 phase review as I want to re-read to see if I missed the point and nuance of this.

On its first read a 1* is all I can manage - many of the women discussed are not from Essex at all, and the focus seems to be on an Essex Girl attitude which the author feels at attach to Hollywood A listers. I feel there are enough real great Essex girls that this should not have been more than a conclusion as to how others demonstrate the Essex Girl attitude and style.

But I will re-read and see if I feel the same

[Alice Wolfenden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish this book was longer and went into more detail. Got me thinking about the upcoming dissertation…

[Paola Gómez Reyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mi roman empire son este tipo de historias. “To the memory of the ‘unknown women’ who had been burned or hanged: it said, ‘we will not be silent’.”

Vivan las Essex girlies, “vulgar”, “feckless and indolent woman”, “sexually threatening”, “unashamed”, algún día voy a atreverme a ser tan cool como ustedes.

[Chloe Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

not enough essex girls

[Mrs]

Interesting.
Short- based on a speech she gave in Norwich in 2018, a little about her home county and her relationship with it, and several women who have stood up for the rights of others, and largely been forgotten- honorary Essex girl status.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the premise of the book, that 'Essex Girls' are "what it means to be disreputable, disrespectful, disobedient; to speak out of turn, and too loudly, and too often...'. The idea that to stand aside and look at the concept of an Essex girl in a derogatory way indicates a "profound and pernicious degree of misogyny and snobbery" really resonated with me. It was also great to learn about some brilliant women in history who have made important contributions to society that I never knew about. However I thought the book itself felt like a rambling and unstructured essay which not nearly as enjoyable to read as Perry's other work. The book is also a very concise read and I think there is much more that could be said on the subject.

[Rebecca Sandiford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perry explores how “she’s such an Essex Girl” is so much more than a derogatory slur. It’s a damning inditement of misogyny against women and sexist pressure to comply, relevant to women all over the globe not only from Essex.

Notably lacking in content about women actually from Essex for a book titled ‘Essex girls’. I would have liked to hear more about the great women of Essex, as I’m sure there are many. Nonetheless, it was an interesting and thoughtful read.

[Natalie]

I really wanted to like this book being an opinionated Essex girl myself but it was just all over the place. As soon as I started enjoying the writing, I felt like the author switched gears and started rambling about something vague. There was no narrative structure to the writing at all. Very hard work to get into.

[thehalcyondaysofsummer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opening lines: ‘Early one evening some months ago, I returned by bus to the town where I was born, and alighting in Chelmsford at a stop on Wood Street I found myself attended by Essex ghosts.’

[LuLú · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carino ma non molto solido, avrei apprezzato più approfondimento e anche, dall’altro lato, più spunti di riflessione.

[Chiara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sfacciate. In difesa delle ragazze dell'Essex e di tutte le donne sfrontate e sovversive del mondo
di Sarah Perry (Traduttrice Chiara Brovelli) - Ed. Neri Pozza - 57 pagine - versione ebook

Ho aderito "di pancia" ad una "sfida letteraria" che ogni domenica propone una lettura breve, sicchè mi sono ritrovata a leggere queste poche pagine in questa giornata, uscendo dalla mia zona di confort come lettrice - e si sa, fa sempre bene uscire dai margini ...

"Nell'immaginario collettivo una ragazza dell'Essex è una donna pigra e incapace, irrimediabilmente volgare, sessualmente minacciosa, un affronto alla moralità e una minaccia ai valori della sobrietà, dell'industriosità e dell'obbedienza proprie dell'upper class; è, insomma, il ricettacolo delle ansie sociali delle classi dominanti".

L'autrice in queste poche pagine, che prendono le mosse da una sua conferenza su Harriet Martineau, trasforma questa espressione dispregiativa - con cui fece i conti ai tempi della scuole - in una campagna a favore, dimostrando, attraverso la storia di alcune donne, come sia motivo di orgoglio, e non di imbarazzo o di vergogna, essere una ragazza dell'Essex.

Conosciamo così Rose Allin, martire protestante, l'abolizionista Anne Knight, la filosofa e poetessa nera Audre Lorde, la scrittrice Harriet Martineau, l'attivista Emily Hobhouse e anche un accenno a Kim Kardashian: sono loro a dare significato all’essere libere.

Abbiamo un debito nei confronti delle donne venute prima di noi e questo breve libro è un ringraziamento ai loro energici sforzi.
Una breve e veloce carrellata sulle loro vite, che merita una lettura e una riflessione sull'essere donna oggi, con una serie di diritti garantiti, ma molti altri ancora da conquistare. Dovremmo trarre ispirazione da queste incredibili figure, ringraziando tutte quelle giovani donne che hanno contribuito a formare la percezione attuale del femminismo.

Una lettura scorrevole, seguita da una riflessione profonda.

[Nephelibata · Rating 5 out of 5]

C'era un periodo in cui entravo in libreria e Il serpente dell'Essex mi tentava, ammaliandomi con quel suo titolo così insolito e la copertina ipnotica. Oggi, a distanza di anni, grazie al consiglio della bibliotecaria mi ritrovo tra le mani questa piccola perla, e mi ricordo del serpente. Non l'avevo acquistato - ormai non rammento neanche più il motivo - ma sono felice di aver incontrato per la prima volta Perry con questo testo, che stupisce per la vivacità dei contenuti e l'intelligenza della scrittura, soprattutto se si considera la sua breve durata. E credo che la forza di questo testo risieda proprio nella capacità dell'autrice di condensare quello che a tutti gli effetti si presenta come un brillante inno alle "ragazze dell'Essex" in poche ma dirompenti pagine. Non conoscevo la realtà delle "ragazze dell'Essex", né la storia della gogna perbenista a cui sono fin da sempre esposte; così come non conoscevo nessuna delle donne che l'autrice cita e chiama a raccolta in questo memoriale. E dopo la lettura delle Sfacciate capisco ancora meglio che non c'è da stupirsi se l'unico approccio che ci viene insegnato a dimostrare nei confronti delle donne che - per qualunque motivo - decidano di emergere, oscilli tra l'ignoranza e il disprezzo. Ho apprezzato moltissimo lo sguardo aperto e lucido di Perry che si riflette senz'altro nella scelta delle storie che ci offre: martiri, scrittrici, abolizioniste e attiviste, e perfino celebrità come Kim Kardashian.
Lo spirito di ogni donna ribelle evocato dall'autrice contribuisce a delineare il ritratto della "ragazza dell'Essex", che non si può definire a partire da una collocazione territoriale, bensì si incarna in tutte quelle figure femminili irritanti e irritabili, scomode, anticonformiste e fieramente volgari.
Perry è stata una deliziosa, consigliatissima, scoperta. La dimostrazione vivente che le donne che hanno cercato di affermare la propria voce - come tiene a sottolineare la stessa autrice - ci sono sempre state: non erano poche, non erano rare o eccezionalmente capaci; c'erano, ci sono, e sono orgogliosamente sfacciate.

[Tess Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I am the youngest of five daughters, and if we were not all born in Essex we were certainly raised there, and so I consulted my sisters.
Had they, too, found the idea of the Essex girl trailing them - a shadow clicking in her white high heels - down the corridors of school and into their places of work? The oldest two of my sisters disavowed this abso-lutely: it had simply never come up. The third sister thought perhaps it had been said once or twice; the fourth, who is closest to me in age, had shared my sensation that I was followed about by a being I didn't recognise but could never shake off.’ Conversations between women in my family recently have shown this similar sentiment- older women don’t identify with the stereotypes and unfairness that they exist within even though they veritably suffered through these things the longest. Meanwhile the youngest have been aware of it longer and thus have heard the ‘shadow clicking’ behind them their whole life, whether they wanted to or not.
Seperate thought is that this novel completely enriches the female characters from Perry’s three other masterpiece novels, and I’m so excited to reread them with this essay in mind.

[Caroline Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was part of a set I received as a gift for my birthday. It's not a book I would have normally picked up but it gave me a lot of food for thought.

The premise of the book is challenging the myth of the Essex Girl - and the first image that comes to mind when you talk of Essex girls is a party girl in white stilettos. On that basis, I was the ideal reader.

This book did challenge the myth of the Essex girl and taught me about women I hadn't heard of before. It also made me think about how we can be tarred by the place they live. I'm not an Essex girl but I have encountered some comments about the type of person who comes from where I live (all untrue). It is an interesting book that challenges the myth of the Essex girl but also reminds us of that women standing up to the patriarchy, doing extraordinary things, isn't a recent development.

[Aga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perry tells us who the Essex Girls are by bringing ‘her Essex Ghosts’ to the surface. She chose Essex women from different historical periods and wrote: “ They have made it possible for me to understand that the Essex girl is not and identity to be despised and disavowed, but to be admired and imitated - regardless m, in fact, of birthplace or gender; that those who resist the obligation to ‘keep the varnish of the reputation fresh’ may well go on to resist all the obligations imposed on them”. I think I know what Perry wanted to do but given the catchy title and references to the current celebrities here and there, the book just presented some characters but failed to wow me. I think I was expecting something else. I will leave it at that.

[Fleur Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

very fast paced, if a bit flowery writing. it was a nice little book to read on my lunch break while i sit in a store in essex

[Juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Jade Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and interesting, though not what I imagined it to be.

[Madara · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75/5
Quality of writing: 3
Plot development: -
Pace: 3
Characters: -
Enjoyability: 3
Ease of reading: 2

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible short little read; dense, rich, packed full of history who really give the spirit of the Essex Girls their name to be unapologetically them.

[Christopher Sharpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disrespectful. Disobedient. Delightful.

[Enya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather counter-intuitively, at least half of the women Perry writes about in this little book aren't actually from Essex. She treats the "Essex girl" more as a state of mind than a geographically bound stereotype. I'm cool with that, but I'm not sure that some of these women were Essex girls in spirit even if I allow that people anywhere can be Essex girls. I can totally see Kim Kardashian being an Essex girl, but Emily Hobhouse or Harriet Martineau? Not so much. I guess she's going for a historical angle. It's a very intellectualised interpretation, I could think of very different "Essex girls" that aren't from Essex, like Kim Woodburn, Katie Price, Cardi B or Paris Hilton.

But that's just my thoughts, it doesn't substract from my enjoyment of this book. I thought it was very eloquent and succinctly written.