MAYBE he didn't mean it the way it came across or maybe he did, even if inadvertently. But the optics were all wrong when commentator and former New Zealand seamer Danny Morrison recently referred to ace cricketer Mithali Raj as 'my dear' while talking to her during a post-match interview as part of the Women's T20 Challenge that ended yesterday. There were some journalists on social media who construed the phrase as being condescending. One of them, cricket columnist Isabelle Westbury, wrote, "Don't call international sportswomen 'my dear' in interviews. You wouldn't say it to a man." That's a fair point, feels Mumbai-based life coach Farzana Suri. She explains, "It's tantamount to a passive-aggressive approach, where you are treating the other person like a child who doesn't know much."

But it's not just Morrison or 'my dear'. There are certain phrases that all men should steer clear of while interacting with women in a professional milieu, since these only further an innate patriarchal tendency that — sometimes unwittingly — creeps into workplace discourse. One of these is 'you guys'. "I hear it happening a lot in business circles, where people tend to use it carte blanche for everyone in a room. Why not use something like 'team' or 'you folks' instead?" Suri asks, adding that calling a female senior 'bossy' can also reveal a gender bias since that adjective is rarely used for a man, just like terms including 'honey' or 'sweetheart' aren't either.

Mithali Raj