Would your colleagues treat you differently if you were a man?

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A Walk in Her Shoes

The thought has surely occurred to most of us at one time or another. But an incident reported in The Huffington Post reveals the realities of this fear.

A Philadelphia man got a "rude" and "dismissive" responsive from a client via email when that client assumed he was a woman, not a man.

Turns out Martin Schneider's email signature was accidentally sent under co-worker Nicole Hallberg's name. So as an experiment, the two switched signatures and came to a shocking-for-him, not-so-shocking for her revelation: Hallberg's workweek was far easier than normal, while Schneider's was abysmal. "I had one of the easiest weeks of my professional life," Hallberg said.

Not true for the guy. "I was in hell," Schneider said. "Everything I asked or suggested was questioned. Clients...were condescending."

How would you handle this situation? And do you ever feel that it's your reality? What's the most effective way to push back? Sound off here.

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