Shortly after I wrote my last post, my major professor came storming into the lab to talk about the email I sent to him. I respectfully requested a written response three times. He kept telling me he didn't understand why I wanted a written response, why couldn't we just talk about things. He finally sat down at the desk next to mine and started mis-quoting something I had written in the letter. When I told him that he was mis-quoting, he made me pull up the email that I had sent him. Unfortunately, I did this. Once the letter was on the computer screen in front of both of us, he made me defend line by line everything that I had written. He told me that when he read the letter, he immediately thought "This is good news! You don't have a problem. We can go back to our original masters plan for you." It occurred to me when I was defending what I had written that he lacks the ability to critically read anything not related to science. He drew out the word "punishment" as if he was offended and tried to tell me that he doesn't punish his students. I could not get him to understand that by reassigning the presentation to me that he was punishing me for performance in a class (that he doesn't teach) and that by reassigning this presentation to me and not my labmates as well, he was, in fact, treating me differently from the boys. I guess if I had really wanted to get my point across, I should have chosen my diction better. I also told him that I thought his comment about the boys walking on eggshells around me was unfounded. To this he said "well then, I retract that statement". You can't retract a statement like that. You put it out there. You have made me doubt myself as a scientist and my ability to work with other scientists. I didn't say any of that. He went on to ask me if I felt like I could learn from him and if I had confidence in his ability to mentor me. At this point, if I said no to either of these questions, I would have to switch labs and effectively lose the last year of my masters research. So I told him that I could learn from him and I do have confidence in his abilities as a scientist. Not a lie, not a complete truth. At any rate, after defending every line of what I wrote, he told me that we would continue working as if the conversation on Monday never happened and that I would be presenting several different topics this summer.
So I have lost an enormous amount of respect for major professor in the last few days. Not as a scientist but a loss of respect for him as a man.
He left for the day at 4:30 in the afternoon. At 5:30, I received this email:

Hi Femalephysicist

As we discussed this morning, I am relieved that there is no real issue
and you are doing stress management. I am glad that you have confidence
in my ability to mentor and direct you and I'm glad that we were able to
clear up the misunderstandings.

We are both looking forward to a productive summer.

Major Professor Boss Man

So now, I work. I work to make myself a better scientist. When I have completed my masters, I will contemplate whether or not I want to switch labs. For now, I will continue working here.