This is in India.

I'm traveling on Parveen Travels to Coimbatore from Chennai yesterday and I got to experience first what kind of sexism one can endure for being a dude, especially when a spendthrift agency is involved.

How some bus agencies work here is they pick you up from where you live and drop you at the main bus stand, which in my case was an hour away. They normally use vans to pick their passengers up but because of a maintenance issue, they picked a sedan.

I was not allowed on the sedan.

Why? Because there were three women in the car and one man older than me who happened to be married to one of the women.

Big deal. Just get a cab and make it follow the sedan, right?

Wrong.

The travel agent desperately tried to catch an auto rickshaw instead (Google that to see what it looks like), and when I asked why the women can't go on the auto instead (purely to attempt to explain the double standard)he said, "it's not a safety for them sir". Right in front of an auto driver he had stopped to pick me up. He refused to elaborate exactly why it "wasn't a safety" in a very congested and indubitably public route that thousands of vehicles travel through. Perhaps my masculine nose could tolerate the dusty tar better? Or was the auto driver right behind the agent a potential rapist?

The penny pinching agent then tried to tell me that there were probably no cabs nearby (after arriving in the sedan ten minutes late himself). I opened an Indian Uber clone app to prove him wrong and then he repeated, as he was for quite some time, "Sir please try to understand Sir". All I understood was that he was unwilling to shell out for a mistake that his company made, and combined that with a sexist expectation that I should sacrifice my seat on a sedan just because I have a penis, and settle for a bumpy one hour ride in an auto rickshaw squeezed by the luggage that shares my seat and desperately holding on to my phone hoping it doesn't fall out.

To the thousands of women who take autos in Chennai every single day, note this: it is not a safety for you. But if you're traveling with Parveen Travels, don't worry. You'll never have to see the inside of an auto. In fact, your driver will be a certified non-rapist.

Edit: added missing part.