Are Chavs demons?

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

For people who have never lived or visited the United Kingdom, it is difficult to understand this reality as there isn’t anything like it in other countries. Due to my experience in Northern Ireland, I am familiar with this reality but even for me it is hard to figure this out.
A Chav is someone that is characterized due to its appearance, its way of acting in front of people and its origin. Normally, Chavs come from working class families. A Chav boy wears counterfeited brand tracksuits and roll his trouser legs up to show his ankles or pulls his socks up over his trouser legs. They wearcounterfeited Burberry caps and gold jewelry. A Chav girl wears tight clothing, large gold earrings, a lot of make-up and fake blond hair that is either straight as an ironing board or is tied up very tightly. As it is possible to see, they are very flashy and it is easy to identify a Chav. Usually, a Chav is always involved in fights and has a criminal background. Chavs are also related to people who leave school at a very early age, do not care about education and just think about getting out and getting drunk. Finally, they are known as being unemployed and getting funds from the government.  To sum up, Chavs are known as “being too loud, too flash, too drunk, too vulgar and, most inexcusable of all, too disrespectful towards their betters”.
As time goes by, Chavs are being more and more discriminated in the U.K. Maybe it is their fault but no one can be put apart because of their appearance or beliefs.

This issue raises a lot of questions in the U.K: why is this happening? Is it because of education? Is it their parents’ fault? How can this be stopped? How will the next generations be if this goes on? Despite all these questions, the one million dollars question is: how and when did this start?
In my opinion, this started because of unequal opportunities, especially in education. However, in order to make this social class better, there is the need to encourage education, give free higher education and provide more job opportunities. I think the most important thing that the government can do is to give equal opportunities.

Without the privilege of a wealthy family and higher education, people from working-class will use this “Chav mask” to cover up their weaknesses and show how strong they can be. I believe this chav thing is to show that they can be happy as other social classes and to make a statement as well, saying silently “We are here. We are like you. We deserve the same things you have. We deserve to have the right to express ourselves just the way we are and if you don’t like it, it is your problem”. Let´s forget about the looks and appreciate what people really are and how they are good on what they do.

 

Laura Silva

3rd year LpRI