There's been a furore this week (albeit a relatively minor one) about a woman in Brighton complaining to a bus company after one of its drivers had the temerity to call her "babe", which she found demeaning, along with "love" and "darling". Fair enough, right? Why is this news; why has it been discussed in the newspapers and on telly? It's just someone's opinion about something that happened to her on a bus.
I guess the reason why it's being discussed everywhere is because it's low-level enough to spark off a reaction from just about everybody, which is the fashion these days innit? But I'd imagine everyone, male or female, has been called things like "love" or "sweetheart" at some point. Men by late middle-aged ladies at supermarket checkouts; women by...well, bus drivers, apparently. Mostly harmless; for some people it's probably nothing more than a cheery social nicety. I was surprised when I read about the complaint, but to be honest that's only because you're hard-pressed getting a weak smile out of most of the bus drivers around here, let alone a potentially degrading term of endearment. I must go to Brighton more often. I like Brighton. And I don't really care what people call me; it's not the words I'm worried about so much as the intent behind them.
Though I must admit, the lines are blurred a bit when you get off the bus and enter the workplace. And as much as this shouldn't be a gender issue, it sort-of is. There's a sense of not being taken quite as seriously as you could be when your colleagues call you "love" or "darling" in the office, and while I'm not a man (!) I can't really see that this is something that would affect them much. I'm lucky enough to have worked in relaxed and informal offices mostly; in one particular male-dominated workplace I was rarely called by my name at all, just variants on "darling" and "sweetheart". One other manager consistently called me "Blossom". I didn't find it demeaning; I actually thought it was quite nice. But I did wonder if it was really right, being as I had a senior role in the company and everybody else on the management team were referred to by their actual names. They were all men. I don't know if I should have been offended or not, but I don't think I was, on the whole. It was just an observation.
I also wasn't offended when I went into all-male workshops to do presentations and found myself having to stand next to pictures of topless women in order to do them. Usually I'd just make a joke about it, get on with the presentation, then leave. I don't think I was any less respected for doing that. It was their workspace; not mine, and if I'd felt demeaned or as though I wasn't being listened to then I'd have said something about it. But the person who took my job after I left decided she was going to get rid of all the demeaning pictures in workspaces and stop the patronising "sweethearts", which made me feel a bit guilty and unsisterly, and as though I'd done something inherently wrong by leaving everything as it was and not being all that bothered by it. Was I right and she wrong, or the other way around?
And no, I don't know what all that really had to do with that woman on the Brighton bus being called "babe"...except I guess I've just proved the point of everybody having a reaction to certain low-level news snippets. If you've been reading this, then congrats - you've just read my own largely pointless reaction to this one. But now, sweetheart, I think you should go off and do something more productive.
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