Letters to the Editor
-
one alternative when you don't know their name...
hey, you with the head!
-
Who cares?
Despite reading all of that, I'm still not convinced anyone should care.
-
What if it had been Hillary calling that female reporter 'sweetie'?
I don't think it's wrong to care about Obama's loosely used term of endearment, but it is wrong to care too much about it. One comment does not a sexist make. His comment must be taken in the totality of his behavior - and no one who does this can fairly call Obama a sexist.
I have a friend, Mary, who always calls waitresses and waiters 'sweetie' and 'hon'. It's just an affectation she's picked up as she's gotten older, she means nothing by it except perhaps to be cheerfully acknowledging the serving person's relative youth. I wonder what the reaction would have been had Hillary been doing the sweetie-ing? Would there have been outcries of 'she's a sexist!'?? Or would she get a pass, like my friend Mary gets - would we accept from a woman what we won't from a man? I'm pretty sure the Hillary sweetie story wouldn't be getting the ink that the Obama sweetie story is.
-
Oh Please, Sweetie
I call everyone "Honey." I've been likened to the Karen Walker character on Will and Grace because of my prolific use of "honey."
I call men "honey". I call women "honey". I've called my assistant and intern "honey", and I've called the crotchety old-man president of the company I work for (where I am just some sad middle-managment-type) "honey".
Sometimes I teach classes and I call my students "honey" and I call my colleagues "honey" in the teacher's lounge. When I get my reciept at the grocery store I've caught myself telling the checkout person "thanks, honey."
Y'know what it all means? It means I'm bad at names, and I'm a bit familiar with people, which has served me well since I'm very austere and abrupt by email. Its how I express personality and personability while talking and communicating in a hurry.
If someone asked me to do something and I didn't have time to do it I would respond "Oh, honey, I can't get to that right now." Because I would want it understood that my reaction was not meant as a personal affront, but a genuine response.
Yeah. It's difficult for Barak Obama to get away with calling men "sweetie". I imagine it's difficult for men, in general, to have a quick and easy way of conveying that familiarity without resorting to such terms as "sport" or "bud."
I see "Buddy" a lot. Some folks opt for "Friend." Goodness, what would they be saying about Obama if he brushed off a reporter with "I'll get to your question in a minute, friend." What if he'd said it to a woman. I think that would've sounded very peculiar indeed.
Sadly, I'm sure he would've been chastened for that one too.
Or, y'know, I could choose to get my panties in a bunch coz OMG Obama called someone sweetie and now the whole world is gonna explode with shame and regret and backsliding for the whole of my gender because Obama has a habit of being personable. Um, hello. Duh. That's why he's so electable.
Or is that too hard for the unpleasant and uptight members of my gender to understand, honey?
-
A lot of something over nothing.
Rebecca, you need to chill some. If the words sweetie, hon, dear, and love referring to a stranger were all made to be "inappropiate", there wouldn't be a truckstop diner, Denny's or coffee shop in the country with a waitress not in trouble over saying it.
-
Oh, please...
If his name had been Tom or Alan, he would have called him "pal" or "buddy". And no articles would have been written.
Lets move on to something important, like say, oh the war,the economy...you know, stuff like that.
-
thanks rebecca
i think your comments and analysis are right on.
-
Well Argued...
...and thanks for that.
-
the funny thing ...
... is that some of the very same reporters who make a big deal out of this sort of thing will go on and talk about how much better HRC connects with the white working class, in part by using the same forms of address ("Hon", "sweetie", etc) that they condemn coming from Obama.
Now, there certainly is an asymmetry in the language: women often use these terms for both genders, while a man (at least a straight man) can't get away with using them on another man.
But this kind of thing is only a problem for Obama if he is foolish enough to listen, and tie himself into knots trying to avoid offense. Better to be authentic and to apologize to any specific people who might feel offended.
-
tldr
I'm not saying Rebecca isn't worth reading, and she seems suitably anti-hyperbolic, but this is very mountain/molehill.
-
You boy!!
Rebecca, you need to chill some. If the words sweetie, hon, dear, and love referring to a stranger were all made to be "inappropiate", there wouldn't be a truckstop diner, Denny's or coffee shop in the country with a waitress not in trouble over saying it.
There's as much difference between a server calling someone sweetie and a Presidetial Candidate doing so, as there would be between someone calling a grown black man boy or calling his nephew boy.
No, Obama did not mean it to be demeaning, but you simply do not refer to a women in a professional setting as sweetie. It's demeanding whether you mean for it to be or not.
I've have servers call me cutie, it's meaningless banter, if some higher up at work called me cutie, it would have a whole different meaning.
-
No
Calling her sweetie is dismissive and obnoxious, although I am willing to believe it was unintentional.
But as I sat in a restaraunt with 2 friends yesterday, and a waiter young enough to be any of our sons repeatedly addressed us as "girls" -- as in, "Everything OK here, girls?" "Ready to order, girls?" -- it struck me how rarely I have to hear that kind of thing anymore. Language policing seems annoying and petty, but it has been effective at wiping out a lot of these demeaning forms of address for women in the last few decades. Thus, the "girls" and the "sweetie" comments stand out a lot more and seem like a bigger deal.
I don't think it means he hates women or anything like that, but Obama needs to cut it out.