The Grim Reality of Sexual Harassment for Shop Workers

It first happened while I was on a closing shift, almost two weeks to the day since I started the job. The shop was small, and I was one in an all-woman team of six. This particular shift, there were only two of us in – I was sweeping up, she was back-of-house. I’d been there since eight-o’clock that morning, and I could feel the bags under my eyes forming bags under their eyes. There were no other customers in store, but I often preferred the quieter moments as the day began to wind down. I didn’t think I’d ever have to question my safety in a space like our little shop. 

An older man walked in, looking pleased to see me. As per my training, I tunefully said “hiya!” and greeted him with a smile. “Did you need any help at all, or are you just browsing?”

He wandered over to me, not appearing to take in anything I was saying. His eyes slowly scanned me, as he asked me where the bikinis were. I told him we didn’t have them in stock yet, given it was only April. He said he liked buying bikinis for women, then wondered aloud whether I might like a bikini from him. When I asked him why (big mistake), he told me he’d like to rip it off me. He leaned forward and mimed this fantasy with his right hand before walking straight out, roaring with laughter.

Sadly, serious sexual harassment and constant objectification became every-day obstacles I had to quickly get over. I’d committed the crime of existing as a woman in the minimum-wage working world, and I had to suffer the consequences. 

In 2019, law firm Foot Anstey conducted a survey which revealed that more than one in ten retail workers have experienced sexual harassment within the UK. This is backed by trade union USDAW (Union of Shop, Distribution and Allied Workers) who say that seven out of ten woman-identifying members have experienced it within their working lives. In the US, retail and service have the highest rates of sexual harassment within any other industry, overtaking less public-facing sectors such as agriculture, educational services and wholesale trade. 

Ava, 24m was only a teenager when she experienced a string of serious sexual harassment incidents in her role as a beauty consultant for a high street store. She asked to remain anonymous as she did not want to jeopardise her former colleagues still working at the store.

“I was approached by him after he made my colleague feel uncomfortable,” she says of one customer. “He followed me to the back of the store, telling me I was beautiful. He raised his voice in order to intimidate me. He kept making inappropriate comments about my body, telling me he wanted to own me.”

After persistently asking her to go on a date with him, the man was thrown out – only to return two weeks later.

“He was screaming at me, demanding to know why I said no the first time,” she says. “I felt incredibly vulnerable.”

USDAW says that one in two female-identifying members have experienced unsolicited comments of a sexual nature within the last 12 months. “There is a workplace culture where women are regarded as public property and where comments on women’s bodies are commonplace,” a spokesperson says. “Women are expected to put up with it.” 

Ava struggled with her mental health for some time after the incidents. “I had no idea what this man was capable of, particularly when he came in the second time,” she says. “For months afterwards, I struggled with anxiety whenever I was on shift. I was just on edge all the time.” 

While teenagers are widely impacted by workplace sexual harassment, USDAW informed me that women aged 25-39 are the highest-targeted age group in retail and service. Mia, 25, was working in a well-known supermarket when she found herself on the receiving end of systematic sexual harassment. Mia asked for her identity to be withheld as she did not want to be targeted further by her harasser.

“It probably wasn’t very obvious to most of my colleagues,” she told me. “He was a regular customer I would sometimes chat to at the checkout, just making small talk.”

Despite becoming more familiar with the customer over the next few months, Mia began to feel uncomfortable in his presence. 

“It progressed to him becoming quite pushy and wanting to take me out,” she said. “It got even worse when he realised we’d often get the same train in and out of town. So I felt constantly on edge outside of the workplace as well.”

As well as this, Mia had to endure a culture of “locker room banter” behind the scenes. 

“There were occasions where I felt uncomfortable with the chat that would happen between my male colleagues,” she said. “Once, when I was kneeling over to clean, one of them told me I must be used to spending time on my knees.”

According to USDAW, “many women never report harassment because it isn’t taken seriously at work, so they feel they’ll be told to laugh it off”. 

I spoke to several other women in retail who also wish to remain anonymous. Each of them feared their experiences weren’t significant enough to mention, due to the casual and apparently inoffensive nature of workplace banter. As USDAW puts it: “Women feel undervalued, demoralised and isolated due to the drip-drip effect of being exposed to so-called banter day in, day out.” 

The harassment took a toll on Mia’s emotional state. “Working in retail is extremely draining as it is,” she says. “I just feel like the sexual harassment added another element to the equation. I often feared for my safety when these situations arose.” 

Two-thirds of USDAW’s female-identifying members have refrained from reporting sexual harassment in the workplace. She was one of them. 

“I did feel like I could potentially get into trouble for establishing boundaries with these men. Or, at the very least, making them aware that I was uncomfortable,” she says. “The emphasis was always on the customer’s happiness, rather than the job satisfaction of the staff.”

It appears all-too clear that “the customer is always right” has become an outdated, toxic mantra. USDAW’s official stance on the matter is that “in many shops and stores, [this] attitude still prevails. This approach is of little help to shopworkers regularly exposed to sexual harassment at work”.

Neither myself, Mia or Ava were members of a retailers’ union. We continued to work in our subsequent stores until the pressure became too much to handle, unaware that measures could be put in place to stop sexual harassment in its tracks. 

What could have helped, besides signing up for a union? Ava believes extra training for all staff is the way to go. “We need to be further trained in things like spotting when a customer feels uncomfortable,” she told me. “As well as diffusing situations as they’re happening in a way that makes us feel protected.”

Mia advocates for customer accountability, stating that “we need to step away from the idea that the consumer’s needs are more important than the worker’s basic human rights.”

In USDAW’s sexual harassment action plan, they recommend that “better management training and support” is the most effective way to address the under-reporting of sexual harassment in the workplace. 

“A distinguishing characteristic of harassment is the reluctance of those who experience it or witness it to come forward,” they said. “An absence of complaints does not necessarily mean an absence of harassment.”

@hgvandepeer