I was overhearing a group of retail workers the other day when one of them made this observation. They can call a man "Sir" as a default greeting, mark of respect, no matter what age. You can half-jokingly call a child sir and he won't take offense. You can call an old man sir, and he might thank you for the knighthood. You can call a broken down old homeless man begging for change sir, and see his back straighten as he remembers the human dignity he still maintains. Men can address each other with respect with just one simple word.

You can't do the same with women. "Don't call me 'miss', that's patronizing!" "Don't call me ma'am! That's short for 'madam'! I don't run a whore house!" "Did you just misgender me? Call me 'Xyr'!!" And on and on. So I spent some time looking at batteries and just listening. And while men can be and are addressed as Sir, unless a woman is older and clearly female presenting, they don't use any such honorifics at all. Women have made it impossible to address them with respect, even though there are so many more words we can use to do so in their case. Any one of them can be misconstrued by someone with a chip on their shoulder, and it happens often enough to make the whole exercise pointless.