I'm going to add my own "Oh, Phil" here.phil wrote:{snip}While you are sizing him up he is also sizing you up and if you seem to be the type who will be running out every half hour to help him make decisions he may quote a bit higher thinking that he will have a lot of interference that may slow him down.
Phil, you know that I respect you a lot. You also know that we have similar wandering mindsets. You also know from our PMs that I am not a traditionalist in many senses, however, we have been there and done that. We have even tried the back off and the defers and what have you until we're blue in the face, and it never gives us the result we wanted. I know in your mind, you weren't speaking of those suggestions with our gender in mind, but when we of that gender have it hammered into us even in this day and age that women are supposed to do those sorts of things around men regardless of our human temperament, it's like rubbing salt in a wound. I know you would have made the same suggestion had a male asked--it's just one of those damn things you can't dance around and be honest about.
Some of your counters are on point and absolutely valid. However, every time you wander into the "pretty" bits, that's where you lose us. Just because someone is good looking--regardless of gender, I do not let them get away with murder, nor do I assume they are an idiot. Are there folks who do as you describe? Yes. Unfortunately, when that happens, we have to steer them back to sensibility. I have actually said to one person who was doing such..."Pretend I am a man. Now answer me again." He was a bit flustered, but thankfully he saw my point and things went smoothly after that.
As another female who has been through what Willa has, it really is hard to help men understand because I know from experience that it seems we are either too touchy about it, or too forward in our approaches. I have still failed to come up with a relative experience that men could face to cause that spark of "Oh! I get what's bugging you."
For me, I am so blunt when I talk to tradesfolk that I have insulted some. The good ones (and I don't mean the divas), will work through misunderstandings when they occur, and the bad ones never do. Even if they aren't gender biased, and it's about feeling that I'm trying to intellect challenge them, the good ones still can still come to an understanding even when we don't agree.
A related story, to give you an idea of the types of sting we can face...a small theatre I worked stagecraft for hire was looking for a new tech manager. I applied. The nearing elderly aged gay man who ran the theatre pulled me aside and explained that although he would like to hire me, he couldn't because the men would never respect me and it would cause too many problems. Yes, some gay men have that odd hatred for all things women. He was not one of them. There was no malice behind his explanation, but there also was not a steady resignation of reality either. He was just telling me how it was in his mind. Did he have a point? Yes. When I later was the lighting designer for a Nutcracker performance there, the same men I had worked side by side with (and after as well) tried to pull a slow down on me. I had a devil of a time fighting through that. Yes, it was a fight. I hadn't even asked for anything above what I knew they should be doing--and my plots (drafts of the design) were crystal clear. Yet I also believe that had he hired me as the tech manager, I would have done the same--but I'll never know. Oh, and for what it's worth...the guy he did hire was a moron, even if he was a nice guy. The guys walked all over him after he was hired.