I believe it's real because I had a similar experience a few years ago while apartment shopping.
This woman property manager showed me a place that I was enthusiastic about based on location and cost. However when I saw the inside I saw that the paint wasn't all the same colour, the carpets were bad, etc and I lost interest. She invested some effort showing me the place so I felt a bit bad, but I told her that I wouldn't be submitting an application for the apartment.
She got angry with me. Her voice went up in the decibel scale. She said that's not how things work, that I don't get to reject the property. She said the way it works is that I submit an application to rent, and then she gets to decide if I'm good enough to be a tenant.
So yes, I think it's a status symbol for some women, insecure women, to reject men in any way possible. It gives them a feeling of power and validates them in an area where they may not actually be validated in other areas of life. In the context of this thread, the woman may have some more desirable friends who are rejecting them all the time, and wants to believe that she is like them so her subconscious drives her to try and force the fantasy.
She is clearly somebody who lacks self-awareness, as she insults a man on his baldness and his income, but takes offense when somebody brings up her weight in response. She doesn't represent all women, but maybe some fraction of insecure women.