Answer: It reflects his low opinion of the narrator's intelligence and social standing.
Explanation:
Kovalf was a committee-man. He had been one for two years and he couldn't take that out of his own head. This only shows how much the Russian society used to value their titles back then and this might actually be true today.
Kovalf could never forget that he was once a committee-man, therefore to boost his own importance, even to himself, he started calling himself "Major".
Depends within which role, if you talk about retail then this may mainly be because females could know more about fashion as-well as they are hired to attract more customers in (the nasty truth). How ever I believe this thought has changed there is an equal amount of both genders working within retail. If you talk about law, you may notice more males working within this industry as more males are graduated within this role... same goes to social workers there are more females because there is more females that have graduated within this role...
Hope this makes sense :)
