LL, it must be human nature.....
The attached photo is part of an ad campaign from a technical dive equipment manufacturer. It has resulted in quite some controversy, as I have heard women divers being quite upset with the ad, with them suggesting that it was some oil boobed half-naked bimbo. The guys seemed to be quite fine with it.
Turns out she is not only a diver, a rebreather diver, but a rebreather instructor, so it was women who weren't taking her seriously. The ad campaign has worked perfect for the woman who owns the dive equipment manufacturer, and it must have amused her that it was primarily other women who didn't take the model seriously.
We have women here who are highly educated and trained in diving...we just had a new woman member sign up the other day who is GUE trained and she was writing about some tech diving stuff that made me want to say; "Yeah, what she said!"
I am going to guess that the few people don't take women too seriously don't do so out of outright malice anymore then if you saw a 300 lb guy who told you he was a manicurist you wouldn't suspect such.
The few times guys have treated me like a ditz I just asked them if they favor Haldean algorithms or variable permeability bubble models for deco and regardless of their answer, reply with "but what about soft tissue compartments"....turn a potential negative situation into mischief that is fun and worthy of a good story and laugh for all.