By Sharanya Gopinathan

An accident at work led a man and a woman to confirm, in their own way, what many of us have suspected for ages.

The two, Martin Schneider and Nicole Pieri, used to share an inbox. Martin Schneider noticed that the responses he was getting from clients were consistently rude and unhelpful, which is when he realised that his email signature had been switched with Nicole’s. He posted on Twitter about the experience, and how it was a huge eye-opener for him.

So one day I’m emailing a client back-and-forth about his resume and he is just being IMPOSSIBLE. Rude, dismissive, ignoring my questions.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

Once he noticed, this happened:

It was Nicole he was being rude to, not me. So out of curiosity I said “Hey this is Martin, I’m taking over this project for Nicole.”

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENT. Positive reception, thanking me for suggestions, responds promptly, saying “great questions!” Became a model client.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

The two decided to conduct a sort of social experiment, where they exchanged email signatures for two weeks.

I was in hell. Everything I asked or suggested was questioned. Clients I could do in my sleep were condescending. One asked if I was single.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

Nicole had the most productive week of her career.
I realized the reason she took longer is bc she had to convince clients to respect her.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

Nicole had the most productive week of her career.
I realized the reason she took longer is bc she had to convince clients to respect her.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

I wasn’t any better at the job than she was, I just had this invisible advantage.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

Here’s the real fucked-up thing: For me, this was shocking. For her, she was USED to it. She just figured it was part of her job.

— Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) March 9, 2017

Yeah, pretty much. This was an interesting casual social experiment (and the thread led to several interesting discussion on privilege, sexism and race), but it didn’t come as a huge shocker to most women. Studies have shown that there are biases in hiring even in supposedly neutral fields like science and academia, and the various arenas and kinds of sexism that women face in the workplace are almost too numerous to list out. Several female authors, including J.K. Rowling, choose to publish their work under gender neutral pen names because of the knowledge that their books are less likely to be read if they’re published with a female-sounding name.

Check out Nicole’s telling of the story here. She says of the experience with working with sexist bosses, “I never did figure out why [I received such harsh treatment from my boss]. Instead, I quit and started my own business writing blog posts and web copy as a freelancer. In an office of one, I can finally put my walls down.”