LETTER: Women should be respected

Editor,

I am concerned that women aren’t demanding the respect they deserve. Today, one of my teachers asked the class a financial question and one guy in the back fired out, “Don’t tell your wife how much money you have!” When he said this, I was offended, but the reaction around me surprised me: women were actually laughing. They thought he was funny! Encouraged by this, he then adds, “Or at least your first wife,” which of course got another set of giggles. I looked around aghast. I was surprised that those women around me thought so little of themselves as to support his immature sense of humor. To me, this guy isn’t worth talking to. Sure, some may say that he was just joking, but people give away a lot of their personality when they speak.

Women need to demand respect from the men in their lives, and they need to treat themselves with dignity, too. I believe that disrespect in a relationship is a form of abuse. I only hope that women realize this when they talk to men who believe it’s okay to debase women. We don’t have to take that kind of treatment, and men don’t either if they are the ones being disrespected. If we want respect we must treat ourselves, and each other, with dignity. Nobody needs to put up with rude remarks spoken by a disrespectful person.

Jeri Lynn Fisher