system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The reason men ask women “are you on your period” is because a lot of women have used their period as an excuse to act differently with people.

I’ve recently learned that asking women if they’re on their period is sexist, I’m more than happy to change my ways but I’m sure I’m not the only man who’s been told to excuse a woman for her behaviour because she’s on her period, which I understood because I’ve heard how bad the experience can be for a lot of women. For that reason, up until recently, I’ve asked women if they’re on their period after they’ve been unnecessarily rude to me to have that sense of empathy for them.

 if it’s rude to ask women this question, does that mean being on your period is no excuse to act differently in front of people? I’ve only ever asked this question to prevent myself from being offended by someone who is already going through a lot so I don’t understand how it’s constructive to bash people who do ask so long as it’s within a reasonable context.
gpt
You seem to have missed part of the reason why it's considered rude. Now, obviously the privacy thing is a very big element, but there's also another part.

You're dealing with a situation where a woman is expressing frustration to you, hence why they are rude. And for better or worse, you are looking for a way to dismiss those emotions as irrelevant so that you can ignore them.

This has a fairly long history. Consider the word hysteria. The very name for this expression for irrational emotions is derived from the greek word for Uterus, because in the past "woman has emotions with which a man disagrees" was literally a diagnosable condition.

So, while you may think that what you're doing is inquiring if you should be sympathetic, what you're actually come across as doing is dismissing whatever emotion someone else might feel because they're just a woman.

Imagine that someone proposes an idea to you that you think is stupid. So, you, knowing that alcohol makes you say stupid stuff, ask if they're drunk. You can hopefully see how a number of people would be offended if your first assumption is that they're drunk, whenever they say something you disagree with.

In that same vein, asking about periods implies that you think that whenever a woman expresses frustration, annoyance or other emotions that emerge as rudeness, that they must have an irrational reason for that. That a woman's emotion is most likely invalid, and just a biological fluctuation.