While our society is becoming more inclusive in many different ways, being a woman in a male-dominated field is still no walk in the park. Take the automotive industry, for example, a typically male-driven domain. Time and again, women are still forced to combat harmful stereotypes, deal with sexist comments in the workplace, and second-guess their knowledge daily. It’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting. And it definitely takes a toll on their confidence.

The challenge becomes even greater when the existing prejudices from male (and female!) customers lead to perceiving women workers as technically incompetent. Something that stands at the center of a recent story shared on the ‘Malicious Compliance’ subreddit. As Redditor WoolliesMudcake detailed in his post, it all started when a customer asked his female coworker to “get one of the boys” to help him.

“She tried explaining to him that she is more than competent to help him but he insisted that a man needs to help him,” the user wrote. But instead of politely yielding to his unreasonable request, the employee decided to have some fun. Read on to find out how the story escalated, and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below.

After this woman encountered a customer who refused to let her help with his automotive issue, she turned to her male coworkers for help

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

But instead of agreeing to his request, they dealt with the client in the best possible way

Image credits: WoolliesMudcake

Image credits: Oxana Melis (not the actual photo)

It’s 2022, and somehow sexism is still a thing. From the deluge of comments this ‘Malicious Compliance’ story has received, one thing is clear — dealing with misogynistic customers, clients, and even coworkers is far more common than you’d think. In fact, Pew Research Center found that about four-in-ten working women (42%) in the United States — twice as likely as men — said they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender.

While one of the biggest gender gaps regards income, the respondents also mentioned a range of personal experiences of encountering stubborn biases that affect their lives and careers. Women are roughly four times as likely as men to report being treated as incompetent. Moreover, 15% said they receive less support from senior leaders, and one in ten has been passed over for the most paramount assignments. Just because of their gender.

From mansplaining to overtly misogynistic comments, women still face workplace challenges that men simply don’t need to chew over. Of course, these issues are especially magnified in male-dominated industries. But when it comes to some of the most frustrating aspects women face every day, few things are as annoying as women being taken less seriously than their male counterparts.

Mary Ann Sieghart, the author of The Authority Gap, told Forbes that society teaches us from a young age about the gender norms that create roles and expectations of how men and women should behave.

“The authority gap is a measure of how much more seriously we take men than we take women,” she explained. “We tend to assume that a man knows what he’s talking about until he proves otherwise. Whereas for women it’s all too often the other way round, and as a result, women tend to be underestimated more. They tend to be interrupted, more talked over. They have to prove their competence more and we often feel uncomfortable when they’re in positions of authority.”

Unfortunately, when women display stereotypically masculine traits to be taken more seriously, it tends to backfire. Researchers from George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania found that analytically-talented, single professional women face barriers even early in their careers. The reason behind this is that they are often stereotyped as lacking leadership abilities and are often seen as too “masculine” for leadership — the same traits that benefit single men.

“Women are in this real double bind. If they’re not confident enough, they’re not going to be respected. They’re not going to be taken seriously, but if they are confident enough, they’re often going to be disliked and it’s terribly hard for women to navigate this very narrow path between the two,” Sieghart said.

Bored Panda would love to hear your opinion on this matter down below. What do you think of the staff’s response to the rude customer? Have you ever experienced a similar situation yourself? Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments!

After reading the story, the readers applauded the staff and chimed in with similar experiences

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