Gender, Politeness and Respect

This past Wednesday in my Psychology lecture, my female lecturer realized that a male student had been on his laptop in class browsing through Facebook. My lecturer asked the young man to please close the laptop and he asked why?

She stated that it was distracting her, and that she has stated numerous times that she doesn't want any phones, laptops, etc. in use during her lecture, unless it is related to the course.
The young man became offensive and asked "how is it distracting you?" Completely oblivious to what my lecturer just said. She then said "you know if I was a male lecturer, you wouldn't be asking me these questions, you would just close the laptop"

She asked him to leave the room and he refused. So my lecturer decided to pause the class until he left. It was a standoff, she wasn't teaching; he wasn't moving. After a while, she asked someone to go to the faculty office to contact someone who could help. Within minutes, the Deputy Dean (male) showed up.
He went to my lecturer and she explained what had happened, and both of them made their way over to the student.

ALL THE DEPUTY DEAN DID WAS RAISE HIS FINGER AND SIGNAL TO HIM TO "COME HERE" AND SHOUTED "EXCUSE ME SAH, COME HERE A LIKKLE"

That's all! He complied!

My lecturer then stated, "that's exactly what I was saying"

It dawned on me, that it is very true.

I decided to look through my notes for my organisational communication course to see if there was anything in relation to this issue, lo and behold! there is!

This happening proves the article on Politeness and Gender right! My lecturer, without raising her voice, politely asked the young man to close the laptop, and when he did not comply, she again, politely asked him to leave, and he didn't. However, as soon as the Deputy Dean, who is a male, came and did a little finger signal and bellowed to the young man, he complied!
So even though a woman can be in a position of authority, many times, she is not treated with the same respect as that given to males; even when her voice isn't raised. People tend to respond to shouting, especially from a male authority figure, and tend to take them more seriously than females.

I mean, various students asked the young man to leave! and he just sat there. Mind you, many of the students were females of course, but a male in particular spoke out, and he did not budge!
So this can even question the view of the article, because the male in the lecture that asked the young man to leave, was much older than him.

Personally, I think at that point, he would have left, but it was a point where it was evident that his ego was kicking in, he didn't want to seem like a wuss!