A mobile phone technician lied to me that my phone has been fully fixed by a repair at his shop. I discovered it was still in the original (broken) state before I even left the premises. When I challenged him on this, albeit politely, I was told repeatedly to ‘stop talking’ and that I ‘wouldn’t understand’ even if he did explain what was still wrong with the mobile phone.
I’ve just finished my Masters degree so I have a fairly good chance of understanding whatever might have been wrong if he’d bothered to tell me. When I left he sniggered to himself and called me ‘darling’ in rude manner, saying that he’d fended off ‘much bigger fish’ than me during his time.
Now I’m not sure what this means, but I think the subtext was that he was belittling me because I am a female and I raised a dispute that he didn’t think was important or valid.
I contemplating bringing into the shop my very large and tall ex boyfriend to see if this would change the tone of the discussion at all. I then sighed as I realised that this is 2019 and we shouldn’t have to rely on these tactics anymore and asking him to do that would reinforce his idea that women need men (that’s why he’s an ex!). We should just have the opportunity to be heard in public space.
I looked online to see how I can report the sexist behaviour of the technician but it seems so normal that there isn’t an agency who can take this seriously.