ON Sunday night, Facebook was full of people commenting on the story that was to be Monday’s front page.

The headline, ‘Wolf-whistling builders face investigation after woman complains about lecherous men’, sums up the story, but anyone who read beyond the headline would see that Poppy Smart had not simply been whistled at once, she’d been shouted at and approached on several occasions.

Poppy believes that women shouldn’t have to be subjected to whistles or sexual passes when walking down the street.

Although I agree with her, I knew not everyone would.

Some people were telling her to ‘get over it’, or ‘accept it as a compliment’.

Or, as one person pointed out, if women ‘stray away from the kitchen sink they get what they deserve’.

Women and men were saying that women who don’t enjoy comments from random men were just ‘uptight’.

A woman is not ‘uptight’ if she doesn’t take people commenting on her appearance or physique as flattery.

How do they know what each individual woman has experienced in her lifetime? Some may just brush off the attention, while others may be intimidated and frightened by strangers approaching them to comment on their looks.

When I would walk home from school — in uniform — I would often get beeped at, whistled at and called at. The callers would have been more than aware of my age and of the ages of the girls I was walking with. From the age of 13 I started walking to town on my own of a weekend. Walking past a garage, the workers would down tools to stop and stare or get in my face to make comments about my body or ask if I was single, which was intimidating and made me feel somewhat ashamed of the pretty dress I was wearing.

Who wants to be going about their business to suddenly be made the subject of unwanted attention?

There’s a difference between someone paying a compliment quietly, telling another person they like what they’re wearing or that they look nice, to someone shouting it out across the street for all to hear, and laugh at.

I find it depressing how many people think it’s normal behaviour, but ‘shut up and put up’ seems to be the order of the day.