What To Do When You’re Called Sweetheart

7 Essential Skills For Any Type of Communication To Get What You Want		What To Do When Asked to Get Coffee

Hi everyone! I’m here today to talk about tips to prevent sexual assault, sexual harassment, and any unwanted or uninvited contact. So, tip today, that I’m going to be talking about is, what do you do when you are called a “sweetheart”?

I’m Susan Harrow, media and communications coach for the past 28 years. I have been training people in all walks of life for nonverbal and verbal communications. And I’m also a black belt in Aikido Japanese martial arts and have created a course called, “True Shield,” verbal self-defense for girls and it can be found at PRsecrets.com. Some of these tips come from that course which I am licensing to schools and organizations so tip today is, what do you do when you’re called “sweetheart”?

I know this is super common and you don’t want it. You know it’s something because sometimes people mean nothing by it. And sometimes, it’s best to let it go right?

If and you can kind of tell and it’s up to you how you want to handle this. If you do not want to be called sweetheart, the first thing that you can do is address it directly.

My name is Susan, please call me by my name. Very simple.

The second thing that you can do is you can say, (thinking) what was that I can say, a variation of that, just, which is, I PREFER that you call me Susan. So that’s another way to gently introduce it.

The third thing that you can do is, ignore it. It’s not your name! My name is not sweetheart. I do not respond. Oh! Sweetheart? (Whistle sound) went over my head. Sweetheart? (Whistle sound) went over my head. I don’t know, I do not know who you are talking about. Because my name’s not sweetheart. So you don’t even respond. Blinders, blinders, blinders, you know? Somebody calls you sweetheart, it’s not your name. You don’t turn around, end of story.

So those are three different ways you can handle being called, sweetheart. And, I’m Susan Harrow, as I said, and a creator of the course, “True Shield”, verbal self-defense for girls.

Now, I would love your participation. What I’m doing is, yes we are we are a part, most of us are a part of the hashtag me too (#metoo). I have created a hashtag called not me (#notme) where we are speaking up and out, about times when we’ve prevented any kind of sexual advance or assault, whatever that is. Or whatever you spoke up for yourself or others? Where someone else maybe not had a voice?

So, I would love to hear via video, or audio, or you know, or written? A time when you know a situation, action, result where that happened so we can share this on creating a whole repository of these responses so we as women can have them.

Love your participation. Please send them on to me and I’ll share them with others. And or if you want to be anonymous, that’s fine too. And, because here’s the thing. What’s happening in the culture today is that the culture, the laws, and the policies are not protecting us as women.

So, this is what I’m doing, is my part, to get us protected before any of these so, until the laws and policies can catch up. So, I’d love your participation in this. And if you like, please subscribe and I’m going to be doing lots more tips in the future and I would lOVE lOVE lOVE LOVE to hear from you. Bye-bye!