[justaguyhere]

I had similar experience. We had a middle aged woman at work (we were all fresh college kids at the time). Nobody took her seriously ever - she talked weird, dressed weird (tennis shoes to work etc) and the girls in my team especially weren't kind to her.

Everything changed soon after she joined our team. She had never seen Java code before, but she was able to guess what we were doing wrong and likely where, and she was often correct. That is when I learned common sense and imagination are more important than just plain knowledge (and fancy degrees).

This is true for men too - but different set of parameters, height being one of them.

Good looks can make one's life much easier