I try very hard not to be harder on women, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps even a step up. But I cannot and will not sacrifice my standards of, say, what a good linguistics professor should be in order to serve the cause of more women getting hired. Of course, most ling profs are women or gay men anyway, which is a whole nother issue. I don't have a "bootstraps approach." I think that large-scale social change needs to happen, but what's going to happen in my life, or my friends' lives is going to depend a lot on what actions they take and not on any large-scale changes.

As for your deduction about insulting women, I think it's total bullshit. I think if anyone is not self-reliant, then it is okay to criticize them, depending on the context (and generally, you would want something productive to come of it, but then, sometimes being harsh with people is productive, and it's hard to predict these things, and people will never have ideal interactions). I don't think most people are self-reliant, and I certainly don't go around constantly telling them that. That would be stupid and pointless.

So, the first premise is no good--I don't think that if someone is not self-reliant, then insulting them is okay. I also don't think that not respecting someone means that you think insulting them is okay. And I think criticism is generally more productive than insults, and generally you should aim to have productive interactions. And this is probably where I tend more toward the feminine in my arguing style, because I really don't like treating arguments as competitions of egos, which is not in service of getting at the truth.

As for the second premise, it seems trivially true to me. You might as well say "most Christians are not self-reliant" or "most poor people are not self-reliant" or just about anybody. Anyway, the first part is more than enough to make the conclusion invalid.