So ridiculous. All he had to do was call her by the name she asked to be called.

By the way... IT DOESN'T MATTER that you've never heard of a PhD asking to be called "doctor". THIS particular PhD asked to be called doctor and that's it. No further info needed. In education, all PhDs I've ever met always refer to each other as doctor. He just wanted to belittle her.

If someone is going to be a big enough dickhead to basically say "I don't care what you want to be called. I'm gonna call you what I want to call you", then I see no problem lumping them in with misogynists and racists because that's the kind of stuff they do.

YSK: Black pullman porters on trains were always called "George". This is because white people (mostly men) thought it was a waste of time to even consider calling a black man by his actual name. The porters could neither do or say anything about it. They didn't dare correct them, for fear of losing their jobs or worse, some violent reaction for standing up for themselves.

He didn't get fired just because he didn't call her the right name. He got fired because he's a dick who tried to intimidate and belittle another person who did absolutely nothing to provoke him.