Being mistaken for a man

[Vroomfondleswaistcoat]

It happened AGAIN last night and it's now not funny any more.

I work in retail, customer facing, and last night a customer said to the small child with her 'go and give the things to the man' (me). This is now the fifth time in the last year or so that this has happened, with various customers, usually someone talking to a child, a couple of times men who've called me 'mate' then said 'sorry, thought you were a bloke'.

I have very short grey hair and I'm not pretty. I look like my Dad, can't help that. Our uniforms are unflattering, but even so I would have thought it was obvious that I have a 36DD bust and quite a small waist. I sound like a woman. At first it was funny, but now I'm starting to get snappy about it and I worry that next time I might go full force 'I AM A WOMAN!' and strip off my shirt to prove it.

No, I won't. Probably. But what do I do? I can't wear make up (allergies) and refuse to grow my hair. Do I now have to accept that, at over 60, I might as well be a man?

I was mortified recently to call a retail worker "sir."

She had extremely short grey hair, high-vis baggy jacket, cargo trousers & heavy leather boots, plus a cap shading her face. I was wearing sunglasses.

Fortunately she was gracious about it.

I did this in a public toilet. Advising a man he was in the wrong loo. He was definitely a she even if her hair was short! I felt really embarrassed! Luckily she took it well!!!

I'm really sorry, especially that you're getting some stupid replies. One of my closest friends looks similar to how you describe and she's now too afraid to use public toilets after being told off for being in the ladies' three times.

Well, people make mistakes.
Last week we were in France and while buying some stuff from a market stall
I called the slender, delicate-looking (but short haired) stallholder Madame. He was quite offended and snapped back 'Monsieur'.
Of course I apologised immediately and felt awful. But it was my mistake, I didn't look carefully enough. At second glance, he was clearly a young man.
People do make genuine mistakes. And usually feel bad about it.

My son has very long, curly hair and often gets mistaken for a girl. Other than his hair, he looks and sounds nothing like a girl. He has a very deep voice. People are ignorant. They see someone with long or short hair and assume their gender. It's not you, it's them.

To me this is yet another reason why we need to ditch gender stereotypes.

People are assuming that no makeup and short hair = man. Because that’s what the stereotype says. It’s not your looks, they’re probably not even looking at your face (they’re clearly not looking at your figure!) it’s just a snap assumption.

Same way that we assume babies dressed in pink and blue are girls and boys - nothing to do with how the baby itself looks.

If stereotypes didn’t exist, if we truly recognised that both men and women can look and dress however they want (within rules of uniform, public decency etc) then this wouldn’t happen.

I am depressed by all the suggestions that you add some lipstick or jewellery to signal that you are in fact a woman.

Please do think of this as a consequence of stereotypes and narrow minded people rather than your looks.