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Sweetie. Love. Honey. Darl. Babe. Horsebreath. Names we call our loved ones or even our pets create closeness and bonds, and a sense of connection and intimacy that excludes people not in our little circle of those we hold dear. They are part of every language system, and in English we can trace ‘darling’ back to 888AD, they’re everywhere. 

Endearments are used in everyday casual language, such as when men call each other ‘mate’ in every second sentence (or that’s how I hear it, they say it so much, it makes me wonder if it is an invitation or an instruction sometimes, to you know, mate?’). And we have an instinct when it’s used in a way that doesn’t sit well with us – as a power move to diminish you, or to not bother learning your name. 

I can’t count the number of times I’ve whispered ‘I’m not your ‘love’ in an interaction with someone who clearly doesn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, love me. Taylor Swift nailed it in her new album ‘Life of a Showgirl’ on the track ‘Honey’ where she sings ‘you can call me honey if you want to because i’m the one you want, … you give it different meaning ‘cause you mean it when you talk’. Exactly. It’s a permission/consent/equality thing, right? Though Travis can call me honey anytime. Totes Permiss. 

There is another dark side to this though. People use these terms to talk down to others or to diminish their status.

For people with disability, being addressed as ‘love/sweetie/darl’ is part of everyday ableism, and happens from strangers, service providers, and most bizarrely of all, from people who provide support to people with disability. I don’t have a disability that requires support, but I’ve worked in the disability sector for more than twenty years and I am still shocked about how ubiquitous this language is, especially from service providers. In every training manual for support workers across the country it is spelled out in policy and direction that you don’t use infantilising language, such as endearments, to people you provide support to, and yet it persists. 

Some people might see calling someone you work with often ‘love’ as a way to connect with the person you are supporting, but because it is so common, it’s not about connection and closeness. Using this language, which we understand to be used for people we love, creates a relationship of closeness and intimacy, when providing support is service delivery like any other. The person who calls a person with disabilities honey/love/sugar, instead of their name, is infantilising the person and asserting their power. 

A simple way to think about this is about the circumstances in which you would use this language? Do you address your doctor, your boss or the person at Centerlink by ‘sweetie’? Would you call Prime Minister Albanese ‘sugar’? Putin ‘darling heart’? Nope. Because we know it’s a transgression of the norm. And because we know that we call Putin ‘Horsebreath’ only in our most intimate conversations with him. He loves it. 

In the transaction between a person with disability and the worker providing supports, the person with a disability is their employer. So why do people with disabilities get called terms of endearment by their employees? Society sees people with disabilities as less than – childlike, not adult, cute. When a worker calls their employer ‘sweetie’ they are signally loud and clear that they do not hold them to the same level of esteem as they do their CEO. Research from Flinders University has identified this as ‘everyday harm’: 

‘Unlike intentional discrimination, microaggressions are everyday actions that might be unconscious, or unintentional acts of discrimination. Torino et al. (2019), building on Sue’s (2010) earlier work, explained microaggressions as acts of everyday exchange that send denigrating messages to certain people because of their group membership. They posit that microaggressions are not always intended or conscious, but rather illustrate a person’s world perspective, with the micro aggressor operating from a position of power or privilege in their everyday interactions.’

It’s different in nature to overt displays of discrimination. While disability workers might see their use of endearments as showing connection or affection, the cumulative impact of infantilising language is a barrier to connection and equality. When it is used on older people, ‘elderspeak’, it’s been shown to reduce an older person’s independence and increase depression and withdrawal. ‘Othering’ people by using infantalising language marks a boundary between the worker and who they provide support to, and ‘us’, the worker’ and a ‘them’ the ‘sweetie’ who is less than and in receipt of benevolence. Othering people with disability through speech is how abuse and neglect happen.   

That’s why Tenant Voice is launching our ‘No Sweetie’ campaign. The campaign will focus on providing anybody who experiences infantilising language with the tools to challenge anyone who uses this language, and who didn’t invite it like Taylor does with Travis. 

We’ve got printable signs for your home to remind workers it’s a ‘Sweetie Free Zone’, scorecards for citizen scientists to start quantifying the who/what/how of when ‘sweetie/love/honey’ happens and t-shirts to buy to start letting everyone that you and your body are a ‘Sweetie Free Zone’.

Find our campaign here: No Sweetie.