Manning up

After reading the article by Ruth Marcus about "manning up" and not being the problem in the election my eyes were opened up to how slang really affects the image of the politicians. The author of this article takes these sentences such as "man up," "get your man-pants on," and "man enough" very seriously and it is offensive to the female race. She even covered the fact that Sara Palin told politicians to "man up" when asking for capital to support Tea Party candidates. She also covered the word "whore" as an attack word used in a recording of Jerry Brown. Brown did not see a large issue with this when asked about it. Marcus offers some advice at the end of her article about not equating certain things with gender, such as toughness and weakness. Don't use sexist or raciest words, and "manning up" is not the issue, growing up is.
I personally agree with most of this article, most of it. I think the points at the end of it hit the nail on the head, but doesn't quite cover what she is arguing completely.  She spent the whole article arguing how offensive that was, only to finish without saying why. I can understand why though. My personal opinion on the phrase "man up" is that it is a term that is not taken literally by many people now, note I said many. I think it is like a lot of old sayings that have lost their meaning and we say them out of habit. I am sure that many people still take this literally, but when it is said it is not meant to be offensive most of the time, it is just said out of habit. Words like whore, or the n-word, are offensive words that need to be treated with caution.