Male is to Female as Esquire is to ??????: A heroic tale of a man making an effort

I really do want to be an accepting and understanding male. But no matter how hard I try, I always seem to screw it up. Many a time I've found myself on the receiving end of a shocked stare after having made an inadvertent statement that offended the opposite sex. I don't think I'm quite as bad as say Napoleon Dynamite who offered the compliment, "You're not fat you know... you could be drinking 2%". On the other hand, I don't know if Mrs. Beard has ever let me live down my slip when asked what I would be doing when my wife went out. I still think that it is just fine (and in no way chauvinistic) to refer to watching my own child as “tending”.

The other day, I made an attempt at paying a compliment to my female co-worker (whom I share an office with) by adding the title “esquire” at the end of her name when I addressed her. Holy cow was that a mistake. I’ve always thought the term “esquire” was pretty cool. I mean come on, “BILL – S – PRESTON – ESQUIRE”. How cool is that? Doctors get the title “Doctor”, University Profs, “Professor”, why not Lawyers “Esquire”.

My co-worker was shocked that I would support the ancient and pretentious practice of using esquire to refer to lawyers. How it just supports the old-boys-club mentality that the law is for men. Her explanation was so animated that eventually other lawyers were in our office offering their point of view on the subject. Somebody postulated that perhaps there was a female equivalent to esquire, and so, in an effort emulate my favorite google searcher and pistachio eating brother, I ran a quick search to see if there was in fact a female equivalent.

NOW WE’RE TO THE PART WHERE I SCREWED UP, YET AGAIN!!!

I let out a little chuckle and reported my search results, “well it says here that the female equivalent of esquire is ‘Goodwife’ or ‘Goody’ for short”.

Needless to say, many of the attorneys present that day still refer to my co-worker as Goody. I’m just confused as to how all of this became my fault?

Don’t worry, I’m not in big trouble or anything like that. Luckily for me, my co-worker is one of the nicest, goodhumored people I’ve met.

The question remains however: What’s a man to do? Can’t a guy catch a break?