30 Women Share The Times They Were Completely Ignored In Favor Of Men, Despite Being Clients

At work, I was meeting a new vendor ('Pat') that was to be servicing one of the facility systems I oversee. Pat had already met the facilities engineer (also a man), who was introducing me to Pat. Instead of talking directly to me, Pat shook my hand, turned to my coworker, and asked him, 'And what does she do here?'
A few weeks later, Pat had the unpleasant opportunity to learn that I’m the one who calls him when his company falls through and doesn’t deliver. Needless to say, I was not overly polite about it when Pat failed to do his job.

I work on male-skewing TV shows, and a lot of my colleagues are male. I'm the showrunner, and I direct the shows. We hire local drone operators, so when we meet our drone team, I give them an overview of what we're looking for in the shot. Conservatively, 75% of the time, follow up questions will be directed to my male colleagues.
We hire local drone operators across the US and globally. No matter where we go, it happens. My colleagues are now in the habit of just staring back in response, letting it get real awkward, and then saying, 'Ask her.'

I'm not a woman but I witnessed this scenario. I've posted it on reddit before but here it is again

A little more than a decade ago I (male) was at a party with a few friends and a whole bunch of strangers. I got into a conversation with another guy about our work. He was a programmer and I was a physicist, and at some point we started talking about quantum computing. He asked me a whole bunch of questions to which I gave answers, but my subfield was not quantum information. Fortunately my friend came to the party with me, and she was also a physicist, and specifically a quantum computing specialist. As soon as I saw her cross my field of vision I waved her over thinking she'd both appreciate the conversation and be able to contribute a whole lot more than I could.

Y'all. Even after I introduce her as a fellow physicist and quantum computing expert, the guy kept asking me questions. And I kept being like, "I honestly have no clue, [friend], you're the expert, what's going on there." And like, I deflected three or four questions that way before I think he got the hint that maybe he's addressing the wrong person.

He changes his conversation strategy so that instead of asking me about QIS, he starts trying to show off, to her, what he knows about it. Like, in his brain this flipped from an opportunity to learn more about quantum computers to an opportunity to get laid showing off what little he knows about the subject. So he's mansplain-flirting quantum information science to a woman who had literally built and programmed what was, at the time, one of the world's only functioning multi-qubit quantum computers.

I wish I could say I watched her die a little inside, but apparently this was so common a kind of occurrence that she was inured to it, and just laughed and went to get another beer.

I once caught some hunters trespassing on my property. I wasn’t rude to them at all, I just waved from the other side of the field. The next day, they show up at my house. One gestures towards the police car in the driveway and asks to speak to my husband about hunting in our woods.
I was like, 'You can talk to him if you want, but that’s my cruiser, and this is my land, not his.' They still insisted on getting permission from my husband.

One time, I described my car problem to the desk guy at the auto shop as a 'clicking' when I turned the key and asked if they'd check the timing belt. He said I'd have to leave my car there, so my husband arrived 10 minutes later to pick me up. The mechanic came out and asked him what was going on with the car, never looking at me.
I finally asked if he'd checked the timing belts as I'd asked the guy at the desk to do. He had not. Gotta say, mad turned to cocky when it turned out to be the timing belt. This happens a lot with auto repair.

I ordered a grill from Lowe’s for curbside pickup and called my best friend with a truck (who is male) to drive. The Lowe’s dude took forever before coming outside MULTIPLE TIMES to let my friend know the grill is missing, give him status updates, and apologize.
The whole time, he's looking my friend in the face and ignoring me. Every single time, my friend says, 'Talk to her. I’m just the ride.' Women are allowed to make purchases. We like food, too. Friend earned major additional kudos that day for calling out the Lowe’s dude’s sexism.

We wanted to replace our roof and had found a company that was running a promotion. I called and scheduled for someone to come out for a quote. I was able to answer all of his questions, but he refused to give me a quote without my husband present (with some 'sign before we leave for best price' excuse). He was intent on driving back over the following day when my husband would be home.
I called their main office shortly after he left and told them that I wasn't interested in any high-pressure sales tactics, I just wanted a quote, and if they wouldn't give that to me, the one who would be paying for it, then to not bother coming back out. I didn't see them again. The three other roofing companies I contacted had no problem dealing solely with me.

We were buying a car for me. Because we were paying for it outright but financing the minimum amount, we had to sit in the salesman's office for an inordinately long time answering questions. The salesman — who was great in every other way — would ask my husband the questions. My husband pointed at me and said, 'I don't know, it's her car.' The salesman said, 'Of course, but we all know how it goes, right?' and kept asking him.
We both wanted to get the paperwork signed and get the hell out of there with the car, but we were also on the same wavelength wondering how far we could go with this. So, the salesman would ask my husband a question. My husband would blatantly turn to me and repeat the question. I would answer him, then he would turn back to the salesman and repeat exactly what I'd said. The dude never got the idea that maybe he could just ask me the questions.

We bought my husband a car later and put both of our names on the paperwork. When we had to sign, the finance guy saw that my last name was different and asked when we were getting married. He was confused when we said, 'Er, eight years ago?'

When my parents and I went to look at colleges, the admissions guy opened by shaking my dad's hand, constantly directed questions at my dad, and would look to him for confirmation whenever my mom said something.
My mom is defacto the money person of our family unit. She manages the family finances and investments, and she was way, way, way more qualified to comment on things like student loans or expected contribution. When we left that meeting, she was absolutely furious that she had to basically fight the admissions person to have a normal conversation.

When I was shopping for a car, the salesmen at every dealership kept talking to my husband instead of me — even though I was the one who contacted the dealerships and made sure to introduce myself first.
My husband got sick of it and started telling them, 'Don’t talk to me, it’s not my car. Talk to her.' I wound up buying from a saleswoman who treated us equally — until she pretty quickly figured out my husband was not involved whatsoever in the decision.