Hey Ladies!
Do you hear a cowbell or a buzzer? I love the Beastie Boys, too, but I'm gonna help you hear the buzzer.
This is the first in a series of planned posts about polite-seeming words that can have an unintended negative impact in the workplace, especially as it relates to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)*. Not only do folks often not intend to cause harm when using these terms, they’re often so infused with what I’ll call “politeness” that the intention is to do the opposite: to convey respect, positivity, and (for some like “Caucasian,” which we’ll talk about in one of those upcoming posts, or “females”) a sort of pseudo-scientific neutrality. (FWIW, I’ve also written about how the intent to convey sympathy does the same.)
First, let me say, I know: a hyper-focus on language, especially as it constantly evolves, can feel exhausting. We’re all bound to misstep sometimes. And I’ll be the first to remind you that cleaning up language does very little to change systems of power that create unfair advantages for some at the expense and degradation of others. But language still matters, and less-than-thoughtful language can still cause unintended harm, so let’s go ahead and use it to talk about some of those sticky words in the workplace. Today’s word? Ladies**.
“Good morning, ladies,” a man might say to a group of women when he logs in to a meeting.
“Pardon me, ladies,” a man might say as he passes a group of femme-presenting people in line for coffee in the lobby.
“Ladies, you did a fabulous job,” a male supervisor might say to a group of women on his team who nailed their recent presentation.
All of these are workplace-appropriate interactions conveying kindness and respect. So why are they cringe? Well, for one, it can wrongly presume someone’s gender identity when used with people you don’t know, and operates on a “ladies and gentlemen” gender binary that is inherently exclusive not just to those outside of the binary, but historically to those without class, racial, and other privileges. So there’s that. But even more fundamentally, it’s also because bending over backward to convey respect too often undermines it.
To be sure, there are contexts when those honorifics may be socially or politically appropriate. But that’s not often what’s going on in workplaces where inclusion is widely practiced, where people know that they belong.
One way to test this is to imagine the inversion: if I were to log on to a meeting as the only woman and address the (people I know are) men in the meeting as gentlemen, it would either track as condescending or funny. When men do this to women in the workplace, it may feel condescending, but it lands as neither. No one tends to laugh about or challenge it. Instead, it’s just… uncomfortable.
Another way to test it is to imagine gender parity: Are men regularly calling each other “gentlemen” in the workplace? I suspect masculinity, like most forms of privilege, is still too fragile to sustain that without that same humor to buttress it. It would play as silly, unnecessary, and eventually uncomfortable.
So why are some men comfortable calling women “ladies”? I suspect it’s because they’re at least a little uncomfortable navigating gender dynamics in the workplace.
The reality is that in a world where gender still matters in shaping opportunities and experiences in the workplace, these regal words end up replicating imbalanced power in an effort to correct for it. If we’re really respected and equally valued, why all the extra flourish?
In the end, it feels a lot like calling Black people “articulate.” It betrays a gender politics that still has some work to do in truly seeing us as equally worthy of the respect that it rushes to convey, or to men’s comfort in sitting with the realities of those power differentials, even if they are not personally sexist. So, guys, dont do it. Talk to me like a peer and let me do my job; let us take up professional and public space. There are usually ways to avoid gendered (and misgendered) language; let’s push ourselves to use names and/or gender-neutral language instead.
There is always so much to consider with language, especially as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion. What did I miss? Where else do you see honorifics used in clumsy ways in the workplace or beyond? I’d love to unpack it all further in the comments. Hope to see you there.
*As always, the perspectives shared in this newsletter are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my current or any previous employers.
**It’s also important to note here that, as is the case for most imbalanced power systems, the point here is not to fret over what those who hold less power and are too often granted less dignity choose to call themselves. Some women embrace the term “ladies” and fondly call one another the same, enjoying “ladies’ lunches,” for example. The same is true for, uh, erm, less workplace-apporopriate terms, often reclaimed from those same systems of power. Let us.
This reminds me of a former colleague who would call me “kiddo.” That was fun.