What is Respect Women?

Respect Women is an object labeling image macro series where a picture is ironically captioned so that some disrespectful or chaotic element is labeled 'respect women'.

Where did Respect Women come from?

The catchphrase started with an August 26, 2016 tweet by comedian Brandon Wardell that declared 'respecting women hours,' riffing on the 'real nigga hours' meme.

What does Respect Women mean?

It's an ironic phrase used to mock performative feminism, pairing loud claims of respect with images or actions that plainly show the opposite.

How do you use Respect Women?

People typically take an image of something extreme or absurd and label one part 'respect women,' or drop 'RWMD' ('respect women my dude') as a caption or reply.

Is Respect Women still popular?

The peak was spring 2017 across Twitter, Facebook meme pages and r/MemeEconomy, and the object labeling format is still recognized as a classic ironic template from that era.

Respect Women

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Published September 25, 2026

Respect Women is an object labeling image macro series where pictures get ironically captioned with jokes about how the subject shows their supposed 'respect' for women. It started with a 2016 Brandon Wardell tweet declaring 'respecting women hours' and grew into one of the go-to ironic templates of 2017 meme Twitter and Facebook meme pages.

object labeling ironic memes sarcasm memes 2017 memes gender discourse memes

Overview

Respect Women works as an object labeling joke where the picture shows something obviously disrespectful or absurd, and one of the elements gets slapped with a 'respect women' label so the image reads as sarcastic overkill1. The gag is that the poster is loudly performing feminism while the picture depicts the opposite, which is why the format found a home with the 2017 wave of ironic Twitter and Facebook meme pages2.

Common variants include the 'respect women juice' setup, where a character chugs or wields something extreme in the name of respect, and 'RWMD' shorthand ('respect women my dude') used as a caption or reply2. The joke almost always leans on juxtaposing wholesome language with an unhinged or violent visual, which is what keeps the format recognizable across Spongebob edits, wrestling photos, dog videos and grenade cartoons2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter (catchphrase) / Facebook and Twitter (image macro spread)

Creator

Brandon Wardell

Date

2016

The catchphrase traces to August 26, 2016, when comedian Brandon Wardell tweeted a short video captioned 'it's. tru. gd. mf. respecting. women. hours,' riffing on the 'real nigga hours' meme template that was popular on Twitter that summer1. Wardell coined the phrase, but he did not create the object labeling image macro format that followed, which is why the meme's image macro identity emerged only months later through unrelated posters2.

Catalyst tweet: August 26, 2016 (Wardell's 'respecting women hours' video)1. Earliest known image macro use of the phrase in the wider Respect Women format: January 8, 2017, when the acronym 'RWMD' started circulating on Twitter2.

How It Spread

The catchphrase circulated on Twitter through late 2016, but the image macro version took shape in early 2017. On January 8, 2017, Twitter user @rudy_mustang posted a list of parody teen slang codes that included 'RWMD' for 'respect women my dude,' which pushed the phrase into the shorthand vocabulary of ironic Twitter2. About a month later, on February 7, 2017, the SPLASH CLUB 7 Facebook page posted a screenshot of a phone notification set to remind the user to 'respect women' at 4:20, translating the joke into image form2.

April 2017 is when the format properly hit. On April 1, Twitter user @Rasengawn posted a photoshop of Spongebob Squarepants holding a to-do list with 'respect women' filled in for every time slot, and within a month the tweet had gathered around 1,700 likes and 870 retweets2. On April 25, the @RespectfulMemes account posted a picture of wrestler Steve Austin drinking multiple beers at once labeled 'respect women juice,' which locked in the 'respect women [object]' labeling convention2.

The format kept rolling into May. On May 2, the Eric's Creamy Memes Facebook page posted an image of a man spraying water labeled 'respect' at a dog labeled 'women,' which pulled more than 4,900 reactions, 2,500 shares and 550 comments in its first 72 hours2. The next day, Redditor Low_Rezz submitted a photo of a soldier tossing a hand grenade labeled 'respect women' to r/MemeEconomy, moving the format from Twitter and Facebook meme pages into Reddit's meme trading community2.

Timeline

2016-08-26

Brandon Wardell tweets a video declaring 'respecting women hours,' coining the catchphrase[1].

2017-01-08

Twitter user @rudy_mustang posts parody teen codes including 'RWMD' for 'respect women my dude'[2].

2017-02-07

SPLASH CLUB 7's Facebook page shares a phone notification screenshot set to 'respect women' at 4:20[2].

2017-04-01

@Rasengawn tweets the Spongebob to-do list photoshop with 'respect women' filling every time slot[2].

2017-04-25

@RespectfulMemes posts the Steve Austin 'respect women juice' image, cementing the object labeling variant[2].

2017-05-02

Eric's Creamy Memes posts the dog spray photo, pulling roughly 4,900 reactions in 72 hours[2].

2017-05-03

Redditor Low_Rezz submits the 'respect women' grenade image to r/MemeEconomy[2].

How to Use This Meme

Typical Respect Women posts start with an image where something aggressive, chaotic or dumb is happening, then a label like 'respect women' is placed on the wrong element so the picture reads as ironic overcompensation. Common conventions include labeling weapons, drinks or attacking animals as 'respect women', or filling a schedule or to-do list entirely with 'respect women' entries2.