@Butrflynet,
I think I should relate the story about what made me think that the word jerk doesn't work for a woman.
I went to Wilson's Farm, Lexington, MA, perhaps in the fall of 1983 or spring of 1984. When I pulled into the parking lot, I was behind a car that pulled into a spot near the sale area on the right hand side. There was a car parked against the gate to the sale area (what I am calling the sale area consists of two buildings, one for food and the other for gardening supplies set in a campus that is used for the outdoor display of both food and plants) with its hazard lights on. I pulled into the vacant spot just slightly ahead of the now parking car to the left. In other words, slightly closer to the gate.
Now, I had assumed that the car parked at the gate . . . some 35 to 40 feet beyond the parking spot the car in front of me used . . . was waiting either for a large food order to be brought to her or for some sort of handicapped shopper. After all, the driver was NOT in a position to pull easily into the parking spot which the other driver claimed.
The driver at the gate got out of her car and angrily approached the driver of the car that "took" her intended place. She was very pregnant.
The woman at the gate came up to the pregnant woman, screaming, "Why did you take my spot? You saw I was waiting for it!"
The pregnant woman said, "I did not see you. I am sorry. But you are too far ahead of the spot to get into it."
The other driver screamed, "You jerk!"
At that point, I intervened, "I am sorry but I saw your car and there was nothing to indicate that you were about to back up that far into a spot. If you had been waiting for the spot, you should have positioned your car behind it. Besides, she is pregnant. You should have some courtesy for her."
She then called me a jerk. I told her women can not be labeled jerks and that she was making a fool of herself because no one could have read her mind. "Now, be an adult. Get in your car and circle around the lot again and find a parking place."
She steamed off and the pregnant woman thanked me.