Back in the summer I went on a trip to Italy with a couple of friends and we arranged to hire a car. I had arranged the booking before the trip, so I was listed as the primary driver with all the documents in my name, and one of my male friends down as the secondary driver. When we picked up the car, nobody would speak directly to me, pointing all questions to my male friend. On more than one occasion he was offered a form to sign, only to have to tell them they actually wanted my signature as it was my name on the form, much to their surprise. If this wasn’t bad enough, when we returned the car exactly the same thing happened, even though I was the one who drove the car back into the garage and handed the keys back in. It was like I was invisible to them, because surely women shouldn’t be put in charge of cars, right?
