Soapbox

What’s in a Name?

I am not your girl friend.
I am not your child.
I don't even know your name, although I did you the courtesy of telling you mine. Yet you don't even use it: instead, you close our conversation, a brief informational exchange between two complete strangers, with the presumed intimacy of calling me "Sweetheart."

I'm not sweet on you, and you're not in my heart. We've never even met! Ah, but you weren't flirting with me when you said that, were you? No, you simply meant it as…a… pleasantry. And you seem like a pleasant guy. You  certainly meant no offense, probably aren't even aware of what you've done, you. I bet that all your life you've heard men- your father, your doctor, your boss- speak to adult women this way: "Honey" "Kiddo" "Girl", infantalizing capable, mature women, reducing them to cherished children as if that is somehow flattery.

So I'm just letting you know: it's not. It's not cute. It's not a compliment to pretend a regard that we both know you cannot feel, or to speak as if  I'm so young and innocent that you just adore and want to protect me on sight. 
It's actually an assertion of dominance, an indirect verbal cue to me that you are the leader here- the one in charge. By calling me, an older woman whom you have never met "sweetheart" you deftly smashed our brief relationship as equals- probably without thinking about it. Six questions into our conversation and you put me in my place.

Imagine a woman walking up to a male police officer and saying "Hey there honey- can I park here without a permit?" You'd think her pretty rude and presumptious. But go ahead- tell me I"m wrong. Tell me I"m imagining it.

No no, of course you didn't mean anything demeaning by it. I believe you. That's why I'm telling you: it is demeaning. It's a quiet, subtle power play, the kind some people throw around every day without thinking. "Don't worry your sweet, fuzzy, (senile?) little head honey, Daddy's here."
Well I have a Daddy, thanks. And he raised me to be a capable, independent woman.

You don't have to call me "ma'am". You don't have to call me by my name. But you don't even know me. So, unless you're courting me, or adopting me- do me a favor:

don't call me "sweetheart".