In the summer of 1990, I graduated from academe’s cloisters and entered the mammonish world of sales. Frankly, it was a McJob as I had no idea what career to pursue. It meant I had to move to a market town quite a distance from my home town and which bordered some remote spaces where hikers can disappear if they are not sufficiently catechised in keeping safe. I was also a qualified search and rescue operative and so made myself available at the weekends to join searches as a ground-pounder. On occasion, I would get the call and out I would go (unless the search conditions were deemed too dangerous) with my colleagues to perform grid pattern searches, sometimes accompanied by a canine team and occasionally a helicopter if the search was proving fruitless. I did this for four years before being lured back to London by the unexpected offer of a lucrative post. My working weeks were long and so the search and rescue sideline ended.
It is therefore with interest that I read of an article in Scottish Mountaineer magazine by Dr Richard Tiplady (no, not an aptronym!) in which he advises male walkers how to speak to and behave towards their female counterparts. He cautions male walkers never to address women as sweetheart or darling. They should not assume that women cannot use maps and they should only offer advice to a woman if asked, and then never in a condescending tone. Another big no-no is asking which route a woman is taking. If a male walker overtakes a lone female hiker, he is permitted a brief hello and then must continue his journey. This advice Tiplady compiled after talking with a female friend who had invited women walkers to post their horror stories of male conduct on the Scottish Women’s Walking Group Facebook page.
Frankly, I agree with most of this advice. Being patronised is vexing and being made to feel threatened in the middle of nowhere, whether by design or not, is terrifying. But I cannot agree that policing only men’s language and conduct is acceptable and that the use of terms such as sweetheart and darling is always offensive.
It is clear that in the matter of how men and women treat each other within the Anglosphere, the focus is always on men’s conduct. It is men alone who can be ‘toxic’, never women. If a man is ambitious and confident, he is deemed macho and a simian seventies throwback, but if a woman is the same, she is a feminist hero to be lauded and applauded, feted and festooned.
Take as exhibit A the decision of Australia’s Victoria State to appoint Tim Richardson as the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change. His task is to reduce violence against women and children by improving men’s attitudes. But it does not seem to have occurred to Victoria’s politicians that abusive women ought to have their conduct improved also, for there is no equivalent minister for feral females.
If you think, and I am sure you do not, that domestic violence is exclusively a male felony, look up Phil Mitchell. He works with domestically abused men and boys and can be found here. Be careful though: the examples he shares from the media of female perps are alarming.
Women use the appellations sweetheart and darling too. If I have ever been denoted in this way, it is usually by middle-aged, motherly-types working on tills. I cannot say that I mind. There is never a patronising overtone or sexual undertone to their salutations. Instead, these words bear an empathetic warmth. These words are also examples of phatic speech: the sort that eases communication between those who do not know each other. Some men might use them because of a ‘patriarchal’ attitude, but men call women sweetheart and darling for innocent reasons too.
Rather than the puritanical unsubtlety of banning these words, people who seek such censorship ought to recall that the dialogic strategy of inferring the speaker’s motivation for using a word is available to them as it has been since the human species first held conference. If the motivation appears to be patronising or predatory, the receiver, as linguists say, is entitled to ask the speaker not to use that word or to cease the dialogue. To postulate that a word can only mean one thing and then prohibit it totally is an injustice to communication’s nuances and an insult to common sense.
There is one further matter that requires attention. Hikers sharing information with other hikers is vital for safety in challenging landscapes. Imagine that lone female walker X, who is a beginner, is walking up Mount Snowdon in flip flops. (No, I am not kidding; people have done this). Lone male walker Y, who is a clued-up local, is walking down Snowdon and spots X ascending towards him. Does he risk appearing patronising by advising X that her footwear is insanely inappropriate for the terrain and climate, and puts her at risk of slipping and twisting her ankle? Does he even dare say more than hello as this might make him appear to be a creep or worse? What if he ends up shamed on her Facebook page as the ‘Mutant Male Monster up the Mountain’? Morally, however, he is obliged to say something. But some days, and you know those days, the aggro is not worth it and you just…walk…on…by…
So, perhaps the oracular Dr Tiplady, who likes to proscribe and prescribe men’s lexis, might care also to proffer a solution to Y’s dilemma.
Peter Harris is the author of two books, The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong (2019) and Do You Believe It? A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith (2020).
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In short, the current mantra is men = bad, women/children = good.
Best not to fry your brain wondering if Trans is a get out clause or at exactly what time does a boy child requiring protection from bad men, suddenly becomes a bad man himself?
And incidentally, choosing not to speak as a compromise to avoid chastisement or condemnation isn’t an option as silence is no doubt also a micro aggression?
There are nuances within nuances. If someone tells me I am a ‘receiver’, as lingisticians do, may I feel offended or patronised to be likened to a passive bit of signal-receiving apparatus? And am I then entitled to ask the speaker not to use that word or to cease the dialogue? Don’t those linguisticians (and Peter Harris) owe me an apology?
No apology is forthcoming as the word receiver within linguistics in no sense implies passivity.
and that the use of terms such as sweetheart and darling is always offensive….
In Yorkshire we call everyone ‘Luv’ (Even the blokes!)