Sweetheart, Sweetie, Honey, Love, Darling and other slurs

[luna_manar]

I'm a tier II repair tech in Network Operations for a telecommunications company. I sometimes come across service tickets that make me laugh, but this one took the cake today:

Call Center Technical Mr. [redacted] called and said that whenever he calls someone it shows a womans name. He said that every time he calls someone instead of his name

Comments

[misspale]

That condescending, sardonic, pretentious tone of voice that makes it very clear that someone is backing down because it's socially in poor taste to overtly make fun of someone's gender, but that's the only reason they're not laughing at you--they still look down on you, and think it's funny that you're mad at being insulted.

that paragraph sums it up pretty well for me. Luckily I live in a country where those terms of endearment aren't used, men and women are called simply by their names.

[rustlemybustle]

Imagine! He'd say "please don't call me 'honey.' I have a name," and the responses would go something like: "Whoa, hey, someone's being assertive, huh? OK then, Tiger, put your claws away. I didn't mean anything by it, don't freak out." That condescending, sardonic, pretentious tone of voice that makes it very clear that someone is backing down because it's socially in poor taste to overtly make fun of someone's gender, but that's the only reason they're not laughing at you--they still look down on you, and think it's funny that you're mad at being insulted.

- That's worded perfectly.

[trista_zevkia]

Down here where I live, women call other women that. If you don't, you're pretty much not feminine and not worthy of holding down an office job. Polite isn't enough, here, they want you to be honey and darling to every random stranger that passes through the office.

[corridor7f]

Ah, ya beat me to it.

I was going to add that while it's patronizing to women, it can be done by men and women to other women.

I have to say, I'm not a fan of it from either as as woman. If I know the woman well, at work, sometimes it's okay.. but it's mostly done in a show of power or clout to make me seem less than them and / younger and more inexperienced.

Not a fan of it.

[kuenzi]

I agree completely

[kuenzi]

Also: when I worked retail customers were awful. I've just read a lot of the comments after mine and I'm happy to see that a lot of people haven't endured anything like this! I was in high school when I worked retail and it felt like ALL THE FREAKING TIME that older men would be condescending with pet names. It always made me so uncomfortable.

[roxymartini]

If that businessman is a woman, it's okay to call her Love or Sweetie at every opportunity you get, whereas if someone is a manOk, granted I'm not really in the business world, but is this really true? I've had several jobs including a government job, a job at a law firm and a couple of jobs in CS industry and I've never been called any term of endearment at any of those jobs. Nor did I get the feeling that anyone would feel okay about addressing anyone else by one

[flye]

I work for an internet provider with a reputation for customer service. I get 'love', 'sweetie' etc a fair bit, because a lot of customers call us expecting a good experience and they are friendly right off the bat. I also have a distinctly feminine and young-sounding voice, which I suspect contributes to the use of terms of endearment. I don't mind it unless it's someone being patronising. Letting them feel a rapport with us builds trust.

I have, however, had a male colleague call me by these terms. I felt that was inappropriate (more his tone of voice than anything) and mentioned it to him after we got off the phone. He brushed me off, but enough other people complained that there was disciplinary action taken.

[roxymartini]

Oh, I see... from the customers. Well, I agree with you that it's weird and inappropriate for your colleague to be calling you stuff like that, especially after you've told him it makes you uncomfortable. Good to hear that the higher ups did something about it!

[flye]

Yeah, I think it's definitely weird for colleagues to be doing it. Customers can get away with it most of the time because it's best not to antagonise them, haha.

[tatjna]

I work in a professional job in the education sector of the building industry. I write the qualifications that builders do to get their ticket, basically. To do this I have to consult with industry representatives who are generally managers of building companies or retired builders - for the most part, men over 40.

Every group has one of those people who try to use pet names. The last one decided he wanted to refer to me as 'Petal' in a room full or architects. Talkative architects who lapsed into awkward silence and looked anywhere but at me when I looked directly at him and said "Neil, my name is Wendy. Please use it." But he stopped, and in two years of working with these guys I haven't had to suffer a pet name again.

Weirdly, there's one guy (about 68 years old) I work with sometimes who I don't mind doing it. His daughter is older than me and apparently I remind him of her and for some reason that makes it ok. Go figure.

[roxymartini]

That's so awkward...

Strangely enough, a bunch of male grad students in my department (math) decided they wanted to call me Wendy. Which isn't my name. And it kinda stuck. I dunno if that counts as sexism though. Some people still only know me as Wendy because of that.

[tatjna]

I have deliberately avoided dating men called Peter because of my name.

It's also kind of weird when someone called Peter introduces himself. I say "Hi I'm Wendy" and .. yeah, awkward. ;-)