Helen Mirren calling out condescending language exposes deeper need for workplace language reform

Well-known British actress Helen Mirren, and director husband, Taylor Hackford, have been married for 28 years. Coming up to their third decade of marriage, the two octogenarians are intelligent professionals who care for each other in their marriage. The sticking point for Mirren however, is in the response she experiences when showing her husband basic affection in public.

She describes, “If my husband and I are holding hands, someone might say: ‘Oh, look. How sweet.’ “ To which Mirren has blunt words, “It’s like, excuse my language: ‘F*ck off.’ There’s something very condescending about some people’s attitudes and I think they think they are being kind and generous. But they’re not. They’re being insulting.”

Studies around the world have looked into the power dynamics humans use in personal and private settings. Countless books, courses and seminars have cropped up surrounding the need to overcome dominant and toxic traits in leadership, and navigating controlling co-workers. Yet, when it comes to the treatment of seniors in public and private life, Mirren’s comments highlight an all-together more subtle and perhaps equally as insidious dynamic, condescension.

It is critical that leaders across aged care are aware of the insidious damage that condescending and gender-sensitive communication has in the workplace. The European Institute for Gender Equality has extensively studied the use of the “diminutive affixes” to trivialise the experience of women particularly, but also seniors. As Mirren has attested the basic affection shown between her and her husband in public has been frequently commented on as, “how sweet.” Sweet being a diminutive term has the power to reduce the heavily awarded, skilled and professional actor to an infantalised ‘child’.

The healthcare and aged care sectors are no strangers to patronising and condescending language. Multiple studies across the U.K, Europe and Africa have closely studied the use of diminutive and infantilising language, and the impact on dignity, self-worth and performance in the workplace, and private lives. The language used in aged care centres between executives, with front-line staff, and to residents, has the potential to significantly disrupt quality of care, by intentional and negligent language use. To elevate the dignity of residents, a core underpinning factor of the incoming Aged Care Act, and to ensure a professional environment of excellence, provider leadership must ensure training and enforcement of professional language.

A coalition of doctors in the U.K. studied the experiences of adult women receiving obstetric medical care. After extensive research with participants, the researchers stated, “The discussions drawn on for this paper illustrate the continuing normalisation of language in healthcare settings that works to disempower female patients.” Particularly tricky to acknowledge, address and solve, the researchers noted, “we see that the slipperiness of identifying and addressing misogynistic language in obstetric care is embedded in the broader acculturation of women to accepting sub-par treatment and infantilising language in society more broadly.”

Critically, following the publishing of the academic paper, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) updated their guidance on intrapartum care, instituting directives for NHS staff in the approach and treatment of all women, “with kindness, dignity and respect.”

It is the ‘grey’ areas of language that have come to the fore as requiring intent willingness to learn, develop and dynamically manage from senior leadership in healthcare. Academics from the University of Liverpool studied the subtle nature of patronising and paternalistic language and the damage to quality patient care. They, and other studies, found that sexist and infantalising language is oftentimes more subtle and, as in the case of Mirren, intended to be positive, such as calling an octogenarian’s display of affection, “sweet.” Yet it is in the response of seniors, residents, patients, that must be acknowledged and pivoted towards, in executive policy management of care.

A participant in the study from Lancaster and Manchester University put it starkly, “My doctor just called me a good girl and I died a bit inside.”

There is clear and compelling research to significantly encourage provider leadership to assess, acknowledge and codify language parameters within the professional setting of aged care between professionals, and the language expectation towards residents, to reinforce a core component of “rights-based” and “dignity”-filled care.