Why can't I run down the street free of suggestion?

Today I was running home from the library. A worker in a construction hole had to watch me run towards him and then turned his body and head to look at me in the other direction. (Too bad he wasn't an owl.) I stopped and say in a really pleasant voice, "Why do you have to stop what you are doing and look at me? Really, it's not a compliment. I just want to run. I don't want to be stared at."

"Oh, you're doing a good thing."

A good thing? Why don't you go to the nearest gym and give a round of applause to everyone there.

"I'm sure you are not doing this to the men."

The whole interaction went over his head and I ran home, annoyed that I cannot just run down the street free of suggestion.

In the words of Fugazi,
Why can't i walk down a street free of suggestion?
Is my body the only trait in the eye's of men?
I've got some skin
You want to look in
There lays no reward in what you discover
You spent yourself watching me suffer
Suffer you words, suffer your eyes, suffer your hands
Suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man
I've got some skin
You want to look in
She does nothing to deserve it
He only wants to observe it
We sit back like they taught us
We keep quiet like they taught us
He just wants to prove it
She does nothing to remove it
We don't want anyone to mind us
So we play the roles that they assigned us
She does nothing to conceal it
He touches her 'cause he wants to feel it
We blame her for being there
But we are all guilty