I saw the importance of gender and the way that people will automatically put a person they meet into a sex category today while at the auto body shop with my boyfriend.
His car had needed a jump start, so we took it to the shop to get the battery tested. After it had been tested, the mechanic confirmed that he had a bad battery and that he would need a new one. We followed him inside and he began asking us questions about what kind of car my boyfriend had so that he could give him the correct type of battery. I noticed that even when I was answering some of the questions he asked, he always addressed my boyfriend and didn't turn to me for any of the questions he had about the car. After he had located the correct battery, he told us that he couldn't install it for liability reasons, so he may need to call a "buddy" to help him put it in. The mechanic automatically assumed that I wouldn't be able to help him, and that he would need to call a male friend. This was a stereotypical assumption of typical feminine and masculine traits. Since I was a female, the mechanic assumed that I didn't know about cars, since this is an attribute of the male sex category.
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