When I was a freshman in college, I had a communications class, and one of the lessons in the course still resonates with me. The funny thing is, I don't even remember the name of the class or the instructor, but I recall one of the specific discussions in the class fairly often.
He was talking about fighting, specifically between men. Often, charged up and angry young men veer towards calling each other a "bitch" or when challenging to a fight, lean into using derogatory anatomical terms. The question was not why men come into conflict, but to challenge us as to why the terminology was what it was. The inherit implication is that there is something shameful or cowardly about being a woman.
Since then, I have tried fervently to avoid using that loaded language. There isn't anything wrong with being female, and if you are a woman, but still an asshole, it's not because you are a woman. It was a good lesson to hear as a college freshman, and frankly, should be more intuitive than it is.
Finally, though, it seems to be getting through the heads of more people, and people that matter. That's why we saw the Me Too movement, and the reckoning that came with that. Some big news in entertainment lately revolved around Justin Timberlake. He never sexually assaulted anyone, or even harassed anyone, as far as I've heard, but women around him were used as props, even famous ones, like Britney Spears and Janet Jackson specifically.
The, again, inherit implication by Timberlake was that it was OK to use women, even to their detriment. Spears had a breakdown, and Jackson was literally exposed on the world's biggest stage. The media fell into the teenage, hotheaded male trope that it was shameful and cowardly to be a woman.
But Timberlake is now apologizing, and I hope it's because he has learned a lesson. It appears as though the entertainment media has come to grips with their errors of the past, recognizing how cruel they were to Spears and Jackson, and are driving a lot of their now more conciliatory coverage of the two.
It took way too long for the message to sink in, even for me, back in college. Take heart in the fact that it is a message that may eventually settle in. We all have wives, mothers, girlfriends, daughters or other women in our lives. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out that they should be afforded respect.
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