Is “Sassy” Gendered and Derogatory?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Emily.

Hey, Emily. Where are you calling us from?

I’m calling from Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Oh, nice. That’s on my list of places to go when I do a Southwest road trip.

That’s exciting.

Yes, I recommend it.

Emily, what can we do for you today?

I’m a graduate student.

I recently asked a professor of mine to write a letter of recommendation for me, and he agreed to do so, and I was very honored and pleased.

And then he went ahead and sent it to me, which was even more of an honor that I got to read it.

And so I was reading through it and feeling very flattered until I got to this one sentence that really kind of stopped me.

And it was, he said, yes, she is sassy.

Sassy.

I was sassy, yes.

It kind of gave me pause, and I wondered why it was that it wasn’t sitting well with me.

Because what it came across to me sort of as a veiled criticism of sorts, and then I thought about it some more, and it occurred to me that all of my classmates are men, and it occurred to me that I would be the only one in the class who he would say that of.

It occurred to me that it was a very gendered term.

Yeah. So he’s saying all these wonderful things about you and your creativity and all of that.

And then he says, yes, she is sassy.

I should be fair. It was in the context of he was sort of like praising my smarts and what he called like my suspicion of received wisdom.

So he was it was in the context of saying very glowing things.

But it just felt to me like there was something sort of speaking around and beyond him, sort of like this double standard that he was reinforcing through the use of that word, which I felt was just not appropriate to the context of a letter of recommendation, certainly.

Boy, that is so interesting.

I wanted to call and ask your advice, first of all, about the word sassy and sass, and also sort of like how to handle a situation like this.

What a great question. Can I ask you to extrapolate a little bit on what you think the veiled criticism was?

Well, first of all, I know that sass sort of implies rudeness and impudence.

And so the criticism seems to me that on the one hand, it’s a word that refers to being like witty, intelligent, quick, bright, but then it has it sort of undercuts it with the fact of like a comment about speaking out of turn.

Or that’s what I thought you meant that is exactly how I would have taken that that comment had I read the letter about a woman that I knew and somebody said that she’s sassy.

I would have thought, oh, what they’re saying is she has a mind of her own. Is that what you’re saying?

She has opinions and she shares them, voices them. Is this it?

Yeah, it seems like an outdated or sort of tone deaf thing to say, so I wonder if the receiver will think, you know, maybe that wasn’t meant in this way or I’m just not sure if it sort of discredits the letter in a way.

Yeah, that’s a good question because you don’t know the mind of the recipient and they might not know that your professor meant it with good intentions.

And so they might take the worst possible reading rather than the best possible reading.

Yeah.

Right. And it sort of says more about him than about you, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah. Unfortunately.

I would agree with what you’re saying here, and certainly if you Google around about the word sassy, you’ll find many, many women who agree that sassy is a kind of loaded term in many contexts, certainly in a professional environment.

What would he have called a male colleague, a male fellow student?

Would he have just said he was assertive?

Right, yeah.

Yeah, I guess maybe assertive.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

I think that what he was getting across was just this sort of, he was trying to communicate intelligence, but then I don’t understand why then there had to be an aspect or an element of, you know, like knowing one’s place in that, because that doesn’t come into play when you’re talking about a man.

So are you hesitant to use the letter now?

Yeah, I am. I mean, so this is someone who I’ve worked with for a couple of years now.

He’s a good reference.

I would like to ask again.

But then I suspect that the first letter that he wrote, he might use the letter, he might just send a similar letter again.

And I don’t know how to address that with him if I should or if I should just go elsewhere for my letters.

Wow, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we’re definitely in your camp.

And it just sounds like he has so much respect for you that maybe this really is about him and his own language.

I think it’s worth a conversation.

Yeah, maybe he just didn’t know.

I mean, certainly things come out of my mouth where a second later I’m like, oh, wow, that’s sexist. I shouldn’t say that.

Yeah, he is older. That’s also part of it.

Maybe if you say to him, his next words will be, oh, wow, you’re right. I didn’t even think.

And that might solve itself really easily.

Yeah, yeah.

Emily, thank you for sharing this story and this situation with us.

We really appreciate it.

And we would love to hear your follow-up.

If you do talk to him or decide not to, send us an email and let us know how it turned out, all right?

Okay, for sure.

Thanks for your advice, guys.

I love your show.

It’s a great question.

Thank you so much.

Take care, Emily.

Good luck with the job hunt.

You’re welcome.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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