Young dependent male children in women's only spaces?

No lucurio - lass. Just trying to say some stuff is worth getting femenist banner out for - some stuff is just common sense and just needs people to be reponsible and level headed. Lots of things to smash the patriarchy over.

On the other hand denying a woman access to a refuge because she is accompanied by her teenage sons is indefensible.

If that is to me my son is long past 8. I wouldn't have taken him into the female changing room at age 8 and I doubt he would have wanted to go

Nah - honestly ? If your son at 8 or what ever probably reasonable age (notoriously H&S conscious), your local facility states is too old for the womens changing rooms -then use the family rooms ir ask fir a compromise - if your son has SN then campaign or hell even just ask to be accomadated. As a pretty full on femenist - this is about in most cases being sensible and reasonable not the patriarchy or blame - just thinking about others and using reasonable judgment. And I have SN kids - if we are going somewhere new - in a truly radical way - I ring ahead and ask what the arrangements are. Never had a negative response to be honest and we swim and do alot of sports.

tilder I don't particularly think the presence of a 7 or 8 year old accompanied by his mother is an invasion of women's safe space- but on the other hand I don't particularly think there is any need for him to be there.

But I'm getting increasingly angry on this thread to see that the entire edifice of male entitlement is being blamed on women - mothers - for being worried about keeping their children safe from male violence. And people are doing this in the name of feminism. It's about as sodding unfeminist as you can get in my books.

A very, very good point Lurcio

CoteDAzur it's the same for young girls too surely? Wrap a towel round them and whip off the costume. Why should just young boys not have proper changing rooms. I know many dads who will not take their daughters into male changing rooms. I have taken both of my boys into women's changing rooms but I have always put them into a cubicle mainly to give women and girls and my son some privacy.

It's not an issue for me personally because as I say all my local pools are sensibly designed. But I'm getting increasingly angry on this thread to see that the entire edifice of male entitlement is being blamed on women - mothers - for being worried about keeping their children safe from male violence. And people are doing this in the name of feminism. It's about as sodding unfeminist as you can get in my books.

DrSeussRevived yes, sorry I agree an informal poll is illustrative - I actually prefaced with admitting it was me who pointed out that UK primary kids tend to get changed together until age 9 or 10 because I then somewhat contradicted myself by saying that at our school they have separate changing facilities available from age 6 :o due to the fact they have the community sports facilities (also used by adults after the school day) as part of the school campus... we are overseas anyway...

A quick google produced this article in the BMJ which states that in a study of primary schools in Sheffield:

"Twenty per cent of schools did not offer children any segregated changing facilities. Approximately 80% (82/102)) offered separate changing facilities for year 6, 62% (63/102) for year 5, 26% (27/102) for year 4, and approximately 13% (13/102) for year 3. Where separate changing was offered, only 12% (10/82) of schools had changing rooms. In 67% of schools (55/82) children were given the option of changing in the school toilets, 40% (33/82) were offered the option of changing in an empty classroom, and 11% (9/82) used the cloakroom as a changing area. Other options offered to children included the staff room, the quiet area of the classroom, and the school corridor. One school offered separate changing facilities consisting of the other children standing around individuals to provide a screen"

The article is suggesting separate changing facilities might be more appropriate because more children are starting puberty earlier, but does suggest that up to year 4 most children are getting changed together for PE, and a lot still are in year 5...

"you can't go swimming for, say, two years or three years, or however, while you feel your son is too young to go into a men's changing room unaccompanied"

Surely anyone in this situation would just wrap a towel around their son's waist around the pool while he whips out his shorts and puts on his underwear. It's a complete non-issue for boys imho.

I do not put my wishes above those of other people. As I have said repeatedly, before this thread I hadn't even thought about it. We were just getting changed as a family.

I now realise that my son's presence may not be viewed as appropriate. That's fine. So I will make alternative arrangements. I am allowed though to be a little uncomfortable about the alternatives available for us. My son has value and worth too.

No I won't be starting a campaign for unisex changing. I think our local pool needs to look at cleanliness first. There is also no space for additional provision.

I am also not invested enough to do it.

There is silencing of women on both sides going on in this thread. There are people vociferously defending women and girls' rights not to get changed in front of older male children (which is fair enough - as an eight year old I would have been mortified to get changed in front of my male class mates) but at the same time silencing women who have children, either shy, or with special needs, and minimising the real, if rare risk of sexual abuse and rape. I really don't think telling mothers "you can't go swimming for, say, two years or three years, or however, while you feel your son is too young to go into a men's changing room unaccompanied, but over the age of seven" is a solution - we spend a lot of time saying that, say, rape prevention literature shouldn't make women feel like they must modify their behaviour and accept no-go areas, yet here are a group of women saying mothers of sons should accept no-go areas - they can't take their sons swimming for several years.

How about we do't fall for the divide-and-conquer shit, and campaign instead for unisex "changing villages" with lockable cubicles? Or the system at my nearest pool of women's, men's and family sections?

I can only think of one local pool - and it's a small, privately run open air pool - which has genuinely communal changing rooms with no option to use a cubicle either in sex separated facilities, or within a communal village.

I do think there should be some flexibility on the rigid age 8 cut off - just as I think its right that kids are allowed to swim unaccompanied from age 8 only if they are able to swim ... not all kids are created equal, not all can cope with things at the same ages (SN or no SN or might have SN but haven't yet got a diagnosis, or is anxiety a SN, or what about a dispraxic 9 year old who is just too disorganised and clumsy to manage alone yet, but will be able to by age 10...)

I think the OP's title wording is worth looking back at - where the child is dependant and young their mother should be allowed to be with them, where she has no suitable male to take them into male changing areas/ toilets.

There is an obsession with the fairly random age of 8 - I agree my 8 year old boy is able to use the male changing / toilets unaccompanied. I agree with people saying there are some situations where I would not be willing to let him go into a male toilet (when my older son was 7 - but looked at least 9 - we got caught in a city center later on NYE than we meant to, and I took him into the ladies at the train station as I wasn't happy with him going into the mens as there were crowds of drunken people ... mostly young men... about. I didn't think he would be assaulted, but I thought he would be a lot more traumatised by walking through groups of drunk men than any woman would be by seeing a quiet young boy with his mum in the queue for a cubicle in the ladies. Sometimes it is the lesser of two evils).

Not all 8 year olds can swim - the fact mine can doesn't make me incapable of understanding that there are 8 year olds who can't, even ones whose parents may have paid for lessons for them, even NT ones. The same is true of getting changed alone - its not only about a fear of predators, its also the fact not every 8 year old is capable, even some without visible - or even diagnosed SN.

Telling a woman to stay home if her 8 year old son cannot navigate the men's changing room is anti woman or at best penalising a sub category of women. Nobody would ever tell a man he can't take his 8 year old daughter who is not capable of changing and organising herself without help swimming because men might not want her to walk to a cubicle in the men's changing room.

Of course there is a point at which the mother of a boy who still needs help needs to be able to access disabled changing - but people just need to give their heads a waggle if they are getting upset over a mother who needs to accompany a boy who might be 9, and they tell them-self in their outrage could even be 10 (or just a tall 7 year old...)

My reason for being unlikely to come back is right here in the above posts.

It's the sense of proportion. My son is 9. His siblings are 4 and 7. We were innocently getting changed as a family.

No intention of impinging on anyone. No intention of making anyone uncomfortable. No intention of making anyone 'put up and shut up'.

Am just getting on with my life, doing stuff as a family. So I hadn't really caught up with them getting older. I guess I just don't really need all the extra baggage that's being hung on whether or not a 9 year old boy should get changed with his family or on his own. For an example of the baggage see the comments about trans above.

"I pointed out that at UK primaries kids mostly get changed in the classroom, all together until age 9 or 10."

Mmm but an informal poll is also illustrative. Have you done supply work?

Tilder, my point was simply to show that we all have to balance out wishes against others in society as your comment about not wanting the needs of others to override yours was kinda odd!

You said yourself you hadn't thought about the feelings of girls of your son's age before, so glad it was eye opening.

It's 7 at our pool. I know this because a bonkers woman was kicking off because a mother dared to bring her 2 yo son into the women's changing room so they checked.

If some parents feel that the men's changing rooms are not safe for their sons then they need to campaign for more unisex/family changing rooms, not bring their 8+ sons into the women's. Same with transwomen. And I would support their campaign.

I pointed out that at UK primaries kids mostly get changed in the classroom, all together until age 9 or 10.

But our school actually has a proper sports hall used by the community out of hours (including adult sports clubs) so it has boys and girls changing rooms, and the kids can get changed separately from the start in theory. They do usually do that, but then when they did a school play, performed in the sports hall, they separated the changing rooms differently to have costumes in the right places and girls and boys got changed in both rooms...

Swimming unsupervised is from 8yrs old and able to swim 25 meters - non swimmers under 12 have to be accompanied.

Swimming changing room we go to in winter is unisex, all cubicles - however the one we go to in summer has cold concrete single sex changing rooms available but hardly anyone uses them, most people just get changed on the grass (the place is like a park with 4 big outdoor pools), and some people sun bathe topless...

I just asked DS (9) if the boys and girls get changed separately for PE at school. He said they do and I asked him why he thought that was. He replied "because boys don't want to look at naked girls".

He's been changing in the male changing rooms at the pool by himself since he was eight. Nobody without SN could be more away with the fairies and easily distracted than him but he still manages takes bloody ages

Boys without additional or special needs should not be in the female changing rooms over the age of eight IMO. If you're not comfortable with them being in the men's changing rooms then campaign for family ones, or campaign for male changing rooms to be safe for boys, but don't insist that women and girls put up and shut up.

I think this is getting dragged massively out of proportion - having an 8 year old boy with his mum walk to a cubicle in the ladies changing room will teach girls that their feelings don't matter? Are there actually any girls bothered by this? My 10.5 year old actively chooses to pack a swimming bag with her 8 year old brother meaning she changes with him (and me, and her 5 year old brother) ... both older children could take an individual cubicle, they don't want to... (in separate male/ female changing situations the 8 year old goes into the mens fine, but my 10 year old girl is certainly not ashamed of getting changed for swimming or bothered about small boys being about... then again she has been brought up in Germany where people do seem to make far less of a drama about this, and children do seem to be less frequently segregated by gender...)

"I also now have an insight as regards the feminism section on mn. I say this as a feminist. Am not sure if I will come back again." Can you say why not?

Well, firstly I think there is a huge difference between a mother with three young children getting changed as a family and a man climbing through the window.

This thread has been an eye opener on many levels.

I will have a chat with my son and he will start using the men's. No I'm not comfortable with that on many levels. My preference would be adequate provision of unisex family changing until he is secondary age. That's not going to happen so we will make do.

I also now have an insight as regards the feminism section on mn. I say this as a feminist. Am not sure if I will come back again.

School is Yr5
Swimming unsupervised is from 8yrs old
Swimming changing room is unisex

School - yr 4 (aged 8-9) change separately.

Can swim alone at 8.

Not sure re changing room age, I'll see if it's online.

It's 8 at our pool. For swimming alone and changing rooms.

Can't remember about school.