'Feminine' language in the workplace

[susannahmoodie]

This morning I was listening to a news article on the radio about care home staff who have been criticised for calling patients 'love' etc because it was patronising. Today I was in a meeting with my HT at school and he criticised staff for not addressing students 'professionally' and bemoaning he fact that he had heard staff call students 'darling', ''sweetie', 'honey' etc.

It struck me that most of the members of staff doing this will be female, and is his an example of typically female characteristics being viewed as weak and unprofessional.....same as showing emotions in the workplace perhaps?

I'm just thinking aloud but I was wondering. If someone could help me articulate my feelings on this.....

I'm not sure. In my workplace I wouldn't use that language to colleagues or students but I think nobody in HE would expect that. If you're dealing with young children the I can see how that language would be part of your vocabulary. Especially as, on a recent thread that buffy started about emotional work, a lot of women in education felt obligated to do more pastoral work.

With that in mind, could it be the case that men don't use that language because they opt out of pastoral care and it's female teachers who are comforting students with a grazed knee/boyfriend problems (whatever is age appropriate!). These pet names get used but female staff are then being seen as inappropriate?

I use the term 'Sunshine' a fair bit in the classroom. I don't think I use it for one particular bunch of kids.

I'll have to think about that.

Sunshine is always said with a faintly sarcastic air in my head, partial. "The board is in this direction, sunshine, not out of the window"

Do you use it as more of a friendly term like "mate" or "love"?

I'm elderly. I've never minded being addressed as "love' or anything like that if it is the local vernacular (it's "me duck" in my neck of the woods) but I think in the context of dealing with older people in potentially vulnerable situations e.g. a care home, hospital, I would find it problematic.

I had to go into hospital a while ago and the staff nurse asked me how I would like to be addressed. So Brownie points for that. I said I didn't mind whether it was Mrs Grimble or just my forename, as long as they didn't talk loudly and slowly at me and call me love. I think an endearment, coupled with the way elderly people are talked at loudly and slowly can seem patronising. It's easy IMO for carers to forget that the people they are infantilising may have held very senior professional posts (for example) and having grey hair and arthritis does not mean they don't deserve to be treated as you would have done 20/30 years before. Of course everyone should be treated with respect whatever they were in their younger days but I used the senior, professional thing just as an illustration that you don't become someone quite different because you are old. Not everyone gets dementia!

As a pensioner I am now very conscious of the way older people can be ghettoised in many ways e.g. expected not to understand computers or mobile phones by shop staff. It is fucking annoying and it's part of the same trope of infantilising older people.

Rant over

I do think people need to consider their audience. Elderly people and people with disabilities do get patronised a lot, and it can be really upsetting, I think. I remember my mum's dad being ill in hospital, and having someone ask him cheerfully 'do I call you [Mr Firstname]'. He replied 'no, it's [Mr Surname]' because in his generation it would have been odd to use a first name there and he didn't understand she was trying to be friendly. She decided he was confused and put it on his chart.

It is a real problem that intersects with gender, IMO.

That said, I call students 'love'. I also call colleagues that when I'm not paying attention (as in 'you alright love?'). I work in HE, like thatstoast. It is part of my normal spoken language and I don't adapt that when I'm not in a formal situation. If I am chatting after class or in the corridor, I'd expect to be casual.

So I do see both sides, but I think the bigger issue is, why is language of emotion (which is what this is) coded this way in the first place? It shouldn't be.

I call children mate, or love, or lovely...i think thats it, maybe darling

I would use all those words for a boy but very unlikely to use the word mate to a girl

I use the phrases if i dont know or remember their name...so its virtually all the time

It's very dependent on the setting imo. I haven't heard male teachers call students love etc, but tbh there are less men in teaching and I've met plenty of women in teaching who don't say it either.

I also know a lot of men in teaching who are terrified of allegations of child abuse - which is very sad - and I think that contributes.

In a business setting love, honey etc would be completely inappropriate when dealing with customers. So would mate. It's not an anti feminine thing, it's just a case of having to match the language you use to the setting.

I wonder if there's a class/regional variation too.

MIL would never call anyone love, and would rarely use that kind of name even for people who are family - she also speaks with a very posh accent (her mother sent her to elocution lessons).

I come from an area where it wouldn't be common, and my mum would never use love (aspiring middle class from the home counties), although my dad would use mate and other similar one (working class Londoner). Personally I would be more likely to use something attribute-like - like 'speedy' or 'little one' depending on how cheeky the child in question is being and how they'd take it! Calling little kids mate always seems a bit fake friendy.

Thinking about DS's school, it's the lower paid support staff that are more likely to be calling the kids love - rather than the head, who I just can't imagine ever using the word.

Blimey, this is another thread where I become aware that my experience of a bog standard comprehensive high school 20 years ago is radically old now. I don't remember a teacher ever calling students 'love' or 'darling' or 'honey', but there was a degree of informality about naming at times, with nicknames sometimes used.

There were also significant levels of sexual exploitation of students by teachers at the time: two members of staff are now in gaol for it and that was just the tip of the iceberg. It was in the walls of the place. But it was accepted as 'normal' at the time that female students would be physically, verbally, emotionally and sexually treated as 'available' to all males around them - pupils and teachers alike. Sexual assaults were extremely regular and routine. My first 'relationship' was with a young male teacher fresh out of teacher training college. I am fortunate in that I can honestly say that coming through it did me absolutely no lasting harm, but I know other ex-pupils who feel very differently.

I'm giving this as context because it would be hard for me to argue that it didn't inform my view that terms of endearment (and any other tendency to cross professional boundaries) are inappropriate in the classroom and that those boundaries are important to make sure that pretty vulnerable youngsters are properly protected. Saying that, I'm very aware, that schools and conventions of nomenclature have changed radically since my day and that my concerns might be a bit fuddy-duddy and old .

I should point out that I'm a lunchtime supervisor in an infants school

I can never remember all their names

I haven't heard male teachers call students love etc, but tbh there are less men in teaching and I've met plenty of women in teaching who don't say it either.

Generally though a male who calls a female "love" is considered to be boorish, and a male teacher who called a male student "love" would definitely raise some eyebrows & the student would get a hell of a ribbing from his peers....

I do think it's an age/background think too though.

I volunteer with kids & would never call one "love" (or an adult to be honest) but I'll call them "mate", "trouble", "you" etc if I can't remember their names (male or female).

But then I don't consider myself to be old enough to get away with using "love" even if I would use it...

Though in Sheffield, men call each other "love" like "mate". Without blinking. And in Bristol, you get the rather wonderful "me lover" used quite casually.

Ah! That's enlightening, good to hear...

a while ago and the staff nurse asked me how I would like to be addressed. So Brownie points for that. I said I didn't mind whether it was Mrs Grimble or just my forename

That's happened for years.

Patient's names written above the bed will be along the lines of

Miss Janet SMITH or Ms JANET Smith - the name in capitals tells you what the patient prefers. Sometimes it can be Mrs Janet Smith CAROLINE,

I think context is everything. If I was visiting my dad I would think nothing of saying 'Thanks love' to the driver as I got off a bus.

However when I was in a pub a few months ago I asked the barman why he had just addressed a male customer as 'Sir' and me as 'Darling'.