I want to start this by telling a story. This actually happened, and it happened to me.

I worked at a tool store while I was in high school, and it was just an average night, people were in and out as usual. And then he came in. The guy that had to come in for the night to actually to be an average night at work. The one that would hit on me, check me out and make me extremely uncomfortable.

I greeted him as he came in, and he got this awkward smile on his face before stopping and saying, “Well, they must pay the big bucks here to get such a pretty little thing like you to stand behind that counter.” I nodded my head silently and went back to stuffing my ads. As he walked each aisle, he always took the time to look at the registers each time he came back up front. My back was to him, and yet I could feel his eyes beating into me each and every time.

He approached the register with his free item that we were promoting, and as I typed in his name into the register I saw him look me up and down. This wasn’t unusual, but it wasn’t exactly flattering either. After a while, I came to expect this at least once a night, on a bad night it was seven. I asked for his phone number and he said, “I’ll only give it to you if you promise to call only after midnight and talk dirty when you do.”

What allows this behavior to continue? Why do we allow people to continue to say these things and get away with it? The point I want to make in this article is that women, of all ages, are not objects, but that we are people too.

Sadly, I have to say that I let this behavior go on for two and a half years of my life. And my response to the man that night was, “I’m 17.” And it shut him down. Thankfully, for most of that time, I was able to use the “I’m a minor” thing to my advantage. I was jailbait, but until they knew that they didn’t stop. And once I hit 18, and got a tattoo on my left forearm, they came, and they came hard.

At the age of 19 I can say that I have been proposed to seven times by complete strangers, and the reasons are awful. One guy said, “You’re just too cute to let go of.” Another, “If you can lift that box you can lift the biggest thing on me.” And yet another reason and this one was probably my favorite, “You’re cute, you’re strong, and well, I’d honestly love to see you without pants on.”

These things weren’t unusual for me to hear. And if I am honest with myself, I started writing off any compliment I was given, especially ones that included my looks. And the more it happened, the more I wrote it off. But I asked myself in the middle of my senior year of high school, why in the hell do we allow our retail workers to be treated that way?

I’m not saying that it just happens to women because I know it happens to men too. I’ve watched it happen. I’ve been the customer behind the awkward interaction and find myself apologizing for the person in front of me. Because our retail workers, they don’t get paid enough to deal with what they have to deal with. They shouldn’t have to take the, what may seem as “harmless flirting”, and then sit there and act like part of it doesn’t hurt. Because it takes a toll on our self-esteem, and we start to seriously doubt ourselves.

But I have found that it comes to women in more than just the retail world. It comes everywhere we go. From walking down the street, and getting whistles from passing cars, to shopping for a headpiece microphone for our local church.

I was standing in a store, this time, the customer. I was looking for a headpiece microphone for a belt pack for the church I intern in and attend. I had found something that would work and had asked if there was any way we could lower the price, as we had already spent $300. I was told that there might be a coupon somewhere, and so I took to my phone to find it. I had only been looking for maybe a minute, and the guy behind the counter said to me, “I can’t drop the price, but if you can wait until 9 I can take you out to dinner.”

I had been on the road all day. Driven from one end of the state to the other and back, driven two more hours to get to where I was at, and I was exhausted. I looked at him, chuckled a little, and put my phone away. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been on the road all day, and still have a two-hour drive back home. I’ll take the headpiece.” I checked out , walked out of the store, got in my car, and took a deep breath. Did that really just happen?

As I have gotten older it’s gotten harder to find that button to shut down the flirts. I don’t want them. I’ve gotten to the point where if you compliment me I’m going to blow you off. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, I’m going to tell you no. That you’re wrong. And this is exactly part of the reason.

I ask you, as people, to try and be more conscious of what you say. If you wouldn’t want someone to say it to your sister, mother, niece, or your daughter, please keep it to yourself. Especially as a woman, the things you say really set in. The amount of self-respect I see some girls have come directly from their experiences that they have had while working in retail.

The next time you want to make a cashier’s day, who doesn’t have a smile on her face, try a simple joke. Because more than likely, you aren’t the first person to say something about her looks, her hair, or how nice her ass looks in those pants.