This story is about how women still feel mistreated by their mechanics.
The comments make me sick. Like I said in my last post, the comments at cbc are genuinely ill-making at the best of times. This was not the best of times.
There are people saying men get ripped off too (and? that means that women can't feel mistreated?), people saying women have it no worse than men (and? that means women can't feel mistreated?), people saying women have it better than men because men can't join Curves (!), etc.
Listen, it's simple. Women aren't stupid. We know when we're getting ripped off, and we're getting ripped off regularly. We also get talked down to, talked over, and talked around. The foreman at Canadian Tire quoted me a higher price than he quoted my husband. He called me "dear" and "honey". And he interrupted me several times. It happens. We're not imagining it. We're not saying, "Oh, look what victims we are". Someone else commissioned the study, and we told 'em how we feel, and suddenly, we're being victims, at least according to another one of those commenters.
And you know, it's not just the automotive industry. I get shitty service at Future Shop - the sales people talk to him, unless it's for appliances. Notable exception, Gizmo's Computers on Goldstream, in Langford. Awesome service there. Never once have they talked down to me.
Let me relate the time I had to get the water heater fixed. What a putz, the guy who came to fix it. Apparently, as a woman, I am completely incompetent. "Next time, tell your husband to flip the breaker, take the panel off and press the reset button, it might buy you a day or two". I said, "I can do that myself". He just looked at me pityingly and said something like, "Okay, well let your husband know". *sigh* And this after I showed him the breaker box and told him that the first thing I did was check to see that it hadn't blown. And he had a hairy asscrack too. I always expect more of younger guys, and this one was only about 30 or so.
It's all over the place. I swear, one day, I'm opening a computer tech place (like Gizmo's), and calling it ChickTech. :)
