Ever felt your money wasn`t good enough when you walk in a shop? Or been completely patronised, ignored or at worst treated like the only customer in the shop because of your sex? If you’re a woman then yes, let’s see if your experiences match mine.
I was in an upmarket pub/restaurant a while ago with Suzi and her partner, Lovely Admin, who is in fact, a dude. We ordered a lovely meal and were served by a waiter, who was sporting a recently received black eye. Incidentally, I mention the black eye because I thought to myself , if one of the waitresses had turned up with a black eye, would she have still been ‘allowed’ to work and to walk around and tell the tale of heroics associated with obtaining said black eye? Would the reaction of the party of men lapping up this tale of a partner in distress, and the other partner obligingly stepping in to resolve the matter, and, receiving ‘a good kicking ‘ for their trouble, have been the same if the waiting staff was female. Would they have assumed that a woman could of got into the same kind of scrap and not been the victim? No, I didn’t think so either.
Anyway, overpriced but delicious food was served, and we argued about the bill as per usual. Suzi slipped off to the loo and I requested the bill from the waiter. The waiter presented Lovely Admin with the bill – he then explained that I was paying (well that’s what student loans are for sometimes!)- and the waiter looked a little embarrassed and then presented me with the bill.
I went to P.C World with the express mission to buy a laptop, I was clued up enough to know exactly what I wanted because I hate to shop, I like to go in, make a purchase and get out. The laptop section was at the rear of the shop, and there was desk close by that seemed to be the ‘consulting desk’ . Two suited men who had name tags on were discussing some important postmortem comparison notes from the night before, so I decide to just have a look over at the laptops to ’show’ that I may wish to purchase one. Big mistake. I saw that several customers, mostly men had decided to use the same tactic as myself, except for some reason their use of the tactic had worked and said salesmen completely ignored me when I said ‘Hi ,could you help me?’ (apparently men don’t have to say that in shops).
After being ignored for a good ten minutes I decided to go over to one of the salesmen (who wasn’t with a customer) and say “I want to buy a laptop ,this model in fact’”. I didn’t even get mid sentence as the salesman said ‘I’m just with a customer’ . “What what the hell am I ?” I said . Obviously some kind of penniless ghost given the lack of service .
I went into an electronics shop (the geeky computer hobby kind of shop) to get a refund on an item that I’d mistakenly bought. The (by now) inevitable wait to be recognized as a paying customer was remarkably quick as I’d learned that standing at the sales counter just wasn’t going to work, so I looked for the manager. I explained to the manager that I wanted a refund, I needed the next model up and explained (as it was a geeky tech shop) exactly what I did need and what I planned to do with it. The transformation in service was instantaneous; the manger summoned one of the sales staff to get the stuff I needed, transaction done big smiles all around.
Like I said you’ve probably had these kinds of experiences . I could put the first example down to be dressed like a scruffy student, but we were all dressed like scruffy students.
I could put the second experience down to being short with a chameleon like ability to blend into the background, except that, even with wishing to having the chameleon like superpower at times, I don’t.
I could put the third experience down to being an informed consumer who the staff was happy to interact with, except that I had to take steps before I could prove I was a ‘worthy’ customer.
All three experiences were, in my opinion, down to gender socialised roles. Men always pay and women don’t know anything about computers . I don’t get that sort of treatment on-line , I know there, that I’m an anonymous consumer and the only time the website requests my gender is to market the ‘pink’ products in their store, so I avoid it .The only trouble is (call me old fashioned) I actually like to go to the shop, have a good look at the product and compare before I buy. Why should I have to be conscious of my gender when going into a shop and receive inconsistent degrees of service ?