She conducted a study to prove her point, sending teams of shoppers and observers unannounced to 11 Manhattan liquor stores between August and November. The shoppers included a middle-aged white female, an Asian-American female, a black female and a white male. Each shopper was instructed to get advice on a wine to go with trout.
"The white male got the best service, the white woman indifference or condescending service; the Asian-American woman was either ignored or given patronizing service and worst of all was the service received by the African-American woman," a summary of the findings said.
"I was either ignored or treated with disdain," the African-American shopper said in the report. "My overall impression was that of very condescending service. The salesmen didn't know or care if I had a clue about wine."
She said most salesmen assumed she wanted an inexpensive wine, showing her bottles under US$10 even though they did not ask her price range. On at least one occasion, she was followed around the store by a security guard.
"If the Gap treated women the way wine shops do they would have three people left to shop there," Rossman said of the clothing store chain.
Wanda Dobrich, a psychologist and partner of D&D Industrial Consultants of Montclair, New Jersey, which conducts gender bias training for employers, said while men in service positions sometimes are demeaning to women on purpose, often they simply do not understand their behavior is insulting.
For example, they might not realize that there is anything wrong with seating a woman in the back of a restaurant. "We are seen very differently in a space where men traditionally make decisions ... men don't know how to relate to us," she said.
Women also may have difficulty speaking up to ask for a different table or complain about service, Dobrich said, explaining that women are often socially conditioned to be more polite and are concerned about seeming to be rude or "bitchy."
"What do you do when you are treated, but treated lesser?" she asked. "How much assertiveness is too much? Women need to simply state what they want."
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