Culture Clash

Submitted by: Tanya

Work should be a perv-free zone. But yet that doesn't stop randoms from approaching me with the, "Hey sexy, where are you from? India? Sri Lanka?..etc..?" This happens a lot.

1) I don't appreciate being hit on at work in front of my customers. It puts me in an awkward situation and I never know how to react.

2) Why does it matter where I'm from? Why does every sleezeball ask me that? Why am I being further eroticised based on my race? I get that all women are harassed to begin with, but it's so demeaning that my being a visible minority is a further driving force in their harassment.

Anyway I tried to change the subject and asked him if I could help him find anything in the store, but he said, "I'm just looking," [at me, evidently] So great, according to this guy I'm no higher than the things I'm trying to sell at my store: I'm just a thing to be looked at. I'm so angry and humiliated that I didn't just tell this guy to fuck off.