blatant sexism

[Becky]

I hear your frustration. I get this a lot too, at both jobs no less. But that, to a degree, is life in a male-dominated field. A silent dirty look from a confident woman tends to shut down a lot of it. My experience has been that very little of it is intended to be harrassing, it's mostly 13 year old brains in 40 year old bodies, and therefore doesn't get dignified with a reaction.

As for the shop scenario, my answer to "Do you ride?" is usually, "Of course!!" I get "what kind of bike do you have?" a lot too, almost as if they expect me to have a Huffy or such. "Which one?" is the standard answer and leaves the customer sputtering usually. (Hey, there's 3 of them- it's a legit clarifier )

I've had customers hit on me more times than I can count, tell me that I had a nice smile/face/legs/etc. I had a guy question my sexual orientation once. DH was working that day as well, and was not amused! If I'm in the shop, they'll ask to speak to a mechanic, and then sputter when I say, "yeah, that's me." (I'm technically sales, but can wrench well enough to get the basics done and certainly tell you what part you need. I leave the heavy duty stuff to our head wrench who's been doing this 20 years and is the nicest guy.) I could go on and on....

I don't know if this helps any, but know that you're not alone in this. Hang in there!