Ignore or confront? WWYD

[CuddlyNemesis]

Walking home from the local shops (not far from a school), the last couple of times I've had to pass a building site. Men working on scaffolding were shouting the most disgusting comments to several young girls in school uniforms who were also walking past.

Bad enough that any female should have to put up with this sort of thing, but these girls looked no older than about 12 and were clearly very uncomfortable with it.

Not sure what to do... DH is a builder and he was horrified when I told him. Do I ignore it and just be grateful when they're gone, or should I complain to the site manager or someone else?

There should be a sign telling people who the building company is that's running the operation. There'll be a telephone number on it so you can phone Head Office and speak to the person in charge.

No do not ignore it.

Please.

Call now and report it.

I get so fed up of women having to be subjected to this crap daily.

There is some sort of 'respectful work environment' type thing some companies sign up for, I'm sure there is. We had a building site near us once and they were all very polite, no whistling, it was fine. I'm sure they had a sign up with a phone number. I will have a look.

Thank you for your replies. When I next go out to the shops (not today!) I'll take a good look and make a note of the company.

Was worried I might need to have a face-to-face with an 'unsympathetic' site manager!

Yes look for the considerate construction sign, and then whatever contact details there are use them. You could ask to speak to the site manager but you never know what response you might get so it depends how you feel about that.

That scheme has this under its code:

"Respectable and safe standards of dress should be maintained at all times. Lewd or derogatory behaviour and language should not be tolerated, under threat of severe disciplinary action. Pride in the management and appearance of sites and the surrounding environment is to be shown at all times. Operatives should be instructed in how properly to deal with the general public. "

yy alice that was it

in 18 months i had nothing but quiet courtesy from them - the site backed onto our garden so it was really close and they saw a lot of me

if the firm are signed up with them, you can complain there too

If you knew who the project is for, you could complain to them.

Good lord how incredible that it wasn't until stewie that anyone thought of this as a crime/police matter. I didn't either and wasn't going to post as I had nothing to add, until I saw that.

Why do most of us (including me) not recognise this as a crime? It's interesting isn't it. Shows how far we are conditioned to put up with this stuff and shrug it off.

I would phone the company and report it. Disgusting behaviour. Mind you, it hadn't occurred to me either to get the police involved but actually, Stewie might be onto something. That should shut them up!

MD - even better would be "paedophile builders harass children".

That would surprise them...