A business owner has been forced to ban male clients after being bombarded with creepy messages.
Mindy Sidhu, 32, launched a digital marketing company called My Pretty Marketing in March 2021, and has since achieved so much success as an entrepreneur that she was able to quit her full-time job last month.
However, Mindy’s success was previously met with ‘sexist’ comments which left her feeling ‘violated and taken advantage of’, after some men sent inappropriate messages on Instagram and WhatsApp.
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The senior marketing director claimed that one of her male clients allegedly asked for photos of her feet and wanted to know her shoe size, while another client allegedly claimed he 'only works with pretty women'.
Meanwhile, others have asked her to go out for drinks outside of office hours, making her feel 'really uncomfortable'.
Mindy also claimed that last week another potential client claimed to only work with her in order to flirt with the businesswoman.
Hailing from Maidenhead, Berkshire, Mindy said: "This is sexist. I can't put my finger on it, they're treating me differently than they would a male.
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"I started my business a year-and-a-half ago. As you can imagine, I was so excited it was my first ever client,” she explained.
"I sent him a quote and out of the blue, he randomly messaged me to send him pictures of my feet and asked what shoe size I was.”
Recalling the incident, Mindy explained how she considered shutting down her business altogether.
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She said: "I was so shocked because this was my first ever client. I was put off, I was like 'is this what's going to happen now?'
"I was devastated when it first happened, I was going to quit my business.”
This proved to be the final straw, prompting her to post a 'business update' stating she will 'only work with female clients.
However, she later decided that she will 'select a handful of male clients', whom she's worked with previously with no problems or those who are couples.
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"I put a post up on social media and said it wasn't appropriate, that if people are going to do business with me then don't [do it].
"I had a few people who then carried on and I just used to ignore them.Or I carried on working with clients who I thought were being a bit inappropriate but would carry on and ignore their advances, hoping they'd stop.”
"This is all from men, I don't get this from women,” she clarified.
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"Those are the sort of advances I was looking past, then when the most recent incident happened I was like 'I can't do this anymore’. It was making me really uncomfortable to talk to these people.
"Men make up between 30 percent and 45 percent of my clientele. I'm going to be losing money but now I just don't think it's worth my mental state of mind,” she explained.
After posting about her ordeal, Mindy claims that other women entrepreneurs contacted her about experiencing the same thing.
"So many women go through this. It's easier to ignore it than raise it, but I want to raise it.
"After posting my decision on my social media to only take on female clients a lot of people reached out to me to express their concerns regarding this.
"Many say they were shocked, many say that they're not as shocked as they should be.
"I want to make it clear, I don't want to generalise. Not all men act this way and I will take on a handful of male clients in particular circumstances."
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Gabriella Ferlita