Living in a man's world

If you've been following up, you know I live with 3 other people. Ralph and Cristina from CIPE, and Ryan, the director for the design center, aka my boss.
Ralph is the chief of party for CIPE, and he is "the main boss".
CIPE( a US NGO) chose ATA to implement the design center for the Afghan Women's Business Federation.
Soo....today, an executive from the CIPE Washington office arrived.
Ralph made an itenerary for the time Gene(the executive's name) would be here.
So I took a look at her itinerary, and saw he had written down dinner for today with(and I quote) "Ryan Taylor, design center director and his assistant, Cristina".
Double ouch.
Assistant, ouch. Cristina__________(no last name). double ouch.
I've been living with them for crying out loud!
He doesn't even know what my position is, or my last name, and just assumes I am the assistant.
I'm in Afghanistan. I absolutely have no expecations from Afghan men to treat me with equality and/or respect.
But from an expat colleague? That's a different tale.
I can't even begin to tell you how big a pet peeve of mine this kind of mistake is.
The funny thing is I was making pancakes for all of us. Amidst stirring pancake batter I found out. Cristina was in the living room so I told her to come over and have some pancakes with me. Then I called Ryan to come over and have some too. Ryan arrived with Ralph.
So, me being a toro fuego( firey bull) immediately told Ralph, "I have a bone to pick with you!!!" And he looked very surprised and asked, "What?"
So I told him. He turned beet red.
But he never apologized. He said it was his mistake, and then tried to fix it making it worse, saying he was in a hurry, then saying that for him the word assistant meant so many great things, all kinds of crap, basically putting both feet in his mouth, to the point Ryan had to step in and tell him to stop, it wasn't going anywhere.
Then he almost told Cristina, consultant to CIPE and deputy director if she were to stay in Kabul, that she was an assistant too. Well, began to say assis...and then changed it.
A man's world indeed. A man's world from the 1920's. In all fairness Ralph is 70 years old. Still(I can hear Karla saying) he should know better.
All of us are doing equally important work, and bust our butts off working, have a good education, have international experience and here we, the women are the assistants. Cristina and I speak 8 languages between the 2, Ralph 1. I don't say this to be proud or demeaning, but I do say this to show how she and I, 65 years old between the 2 have not wasted our time, but have taken our work seriously and tried to inmerse in every way possible, including learning the language wherever we live. She learned Dari and I am in the process of learning. Most expats never bother to learn more than hello and thank you.
Cristina said that we are either assistants, secretaries or wives if seen working abroad. I guess that was not my experience in Vietnam. No such assumptions were ever made.
That's probably why I am here anyway, to continue learning what all the issues are for women to development and reach equality in this world.
I have vented enough, before the root of bitterness grows in me, I need to move down the line of forgiveness. Poor Ralph, I hope he learns something from this funny/not so funny faux pas.