Calling female work colleagues ‘love’, ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie’ ruled demeaning

Calling a female work colleague ‘love’ is demeaning, a tribunal has ruled.

Judges ruled that calling female colleagues ‘babes’ or sweetie is condescending. It could be seen as talking down to them like they are children.

Mike Hartley, a funeral home manager, was dismissed after being accused of making inappropriate comments to women at work.

Hartley claimed he was sexually discriminated against as he used the words’sweet’, “love” and “honey” to describe female colleagues. However, he also used pet names for men such as mate or pal.

However, a Manchester tribunal found that it was inappropriate to compare the names. Men were not affected by the names they were given while women were affected by their monikers.

Employment judge Pauline Feeney said: “Calling someone ‘mate’ or ‘lad’ is not a ‘pet’ name in our opinion. It is a nickname. They are not demeaning.

“However ‘chick’, ‘babes’, ‘bobs’, ‘honey’, ‘hun’ and ‘sweetie’ are all demeaning and infantilising ways of referring to women.”

Colleague Rachel Anderton complained Mr Hartley – client liaison and HR manager for Blackpool-based funeral director D Hollowell & Sons Limited – had made ‘insulting’ and ‘very inappropriate’ comments.

When he wanted to know the uniform size, Hartley asked her for ‘vital statistics’. He also called her various pet names like ‘honey’ and babe’ many times.

The panel was told that he used to walk in the office saying “honey, it’s home”, and called her “good girl” and stated that she was “curvy at all the right points”.

He once called her ‘Rachieboobies’ – though later claimed it was a ‘Freudian slip’ and he had meant to say ‘Rachibobs’.

He was fired after she complained.

During an investigatory interview, he apologized for his actions and said that he was just trying to be ‘warm and welcoming’.

Another colleague described Mr Hartley as a ‘lad’s lad’ who ‘liked banter’ – which he himself agreed with.

He was fired for gross misconduct – a decision upheld at an appeal hearing which found he had a ‘lack of respect for younger women’.

Mr Hartley then took his claims of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal claiming he was a victim of #MeToo culture.

The panel found Hartley was unfairly dismissed because his conduct probe had not been properly conducted.

The panel ruled in favor of Hartley’s firing, rejected his claim for sexual discrimination and declined to pay him any compensation.

Judge Feeney stated that Mr Hartley’s comments were “totally unacceptable” and that Miss Anderson was the victim of ‘plainly sexual harassment.

“We have no doubt that had a female made similar or more accurately equivalent comments to a male of the same nature, or to a female within a sexual context as was the case here, that they also would have been dismissed,” she added.

Controversy over the use of pet names – sometimes regional – emerged in 2006 when Newcastle City Council managers told staff to think carefully before calling women `pet’ or `hinny’ in case it was considered sexist.

In 2012, news came that bus drivers in Brighton were told not to call passengers ‘babe’, ‘love’ or ‘darling’.

Tony Thorne, then-editor of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, argued such terms could simply be terms of endearment and part of a region’s linguistic heritage.

“He said that only urban sophisticates, usually younger than 40 years old, find them disgusting.

“It is the ‘language hygienists’ who choose to see them as discrimination.

“It’s folky – it’s part of a national tradition, an act of affection that is shared by strangers.

“I know people who don’t live in Britain any more and when they come back they say how much they like to hear terms of affection, such as the Essex `babes’.”

He acknowledged women had a right to complain if they did not like such terms being directed at them.

Kate Fox, a social anthropologist and author of Watching The English, said if offence was taken it was best dealt with immediately and with humour.

“It’s funny to be called a ‘babe or love’, even if it doesn’t suit you. I would say something like “Thanks Stud muffin ‘,”” to her at the time.

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