AIBU - women are totally U to not want boys in the women's changing room

I do sort of get the point you are trying to make about whose rights trump whose. However I do think I’ve a right to take my son swimming and I can only use the facilities available. I’m Not suggesting that the men’s changing room is a terrible place but just as I won’t let my five year old wander off round the shops alone I’m not sending him into the men’s alone. It’s all very well suggesting I campaign for better family changing but our leisure centre hasn’t had any investment in the last 15 years so unlikely to reconfigure the changing rooms because I’m hypothetically concerned about my child looking at a naked women and commenting when he’s never actually done this before

Depends what you mean by boy. There's no way my under 8 year olds will be changing on their own in the men's changing room if I take them swimming without their dad. Quite apart from anything else the youngest is too young to do his own clothes and the 6yo would get distracted and possibly a bit worried about being on his own. A young boy is not going to ogle you. Nor would a young girl getting changed with her dad.

That's why I don't feel particularly concerned about self ID, I think pervs will be pervs whatever the rules, and if we'd historically been a unisex society where women weren't hidden away, perhaps we'd see less instances of voyeuristic sex crimes anyway.
This argument that predators will prey on us so it doesn't matter if we make it as convenient as possible for them, and if men could masturbate while they watch us undress there would be less voyeuristic sex crimes because it would not be illegal, is irrational nonsense.
As an example, please consider legal prostitution. Everywhere it has been legalized human trafficking and sex crimes have skyrocketed. Would you like to argue those are all countries full of prudes, also.

Both our local swimming pools have unisex changing facilities. There are only individual changing rooms, a couple of family changing rooms. This solves all the problems of parents taking their young children in of any age.

Sorry for the confusion then! I was getting you mixed up due to the similar start to the names.

@AngryAttackKittens Ah sorry, I'm actually not @slothface - hadn't seen her post about flatmates. Just saw the word sloth and assumed your post was meant for me. Yes I also don't like the idea that having boundaries is "prudish"

I meant you post about flatmates, Sloth. Most women are less casual about that than you are, and I think this is a clear case of majority wins (though you are of course free to continue not being bothered).

I don't think it really matters why most women are uncomfortable if they are. My personal feeling is that up to the age of about 5 or 6 I'm not bothered, but if the majority or even a substantial minority is then into the cubicles the boys should go. The suggestion that the women for whom the room is primarily intended should be the ones to make adjustments is absurd.

(Ideally all changing facilities would have family rooms big enough to actually fit a family, but that's not always the case, and I've jammed into a small cubicle with family when I had to.)

The real issue that this thread is getting at though is just that, the idea that in any case where there's a clash between what women want and what anyone else wants it's women who should budge up and shut up. That's why it's on the Feminist board.

Angry I think I agree with you about everything really. Also that if there's a cubicle the boy should use it. That's fair. I think the OP is being ridiculous by taking exception to small boys being in changing rooms with their mothers full stop. This is the kind of nonsense that will absolutely lose the public argument re: self ID. It's a totally different thing and honestly a non-issue and to start focusing on this sort of thing is just silly

And 8 isn't pushing it. Jesus. Have you seen an 8 year old boy recently? 8 is a perfectly reasonable cut off. It has to cut off somewhere

@AngryAttackKittens I certainly don't want random men in the changing rooms! I agree with the general feeling here on self ID i think. But the poster is afraid little boys are making fun of her body and that's absurd, I'm afraid.

Slothface - Nice for you that you feel comfy in a state of undress around random men. Most women don't. There are more of them than there are of you, so they win in terms of what the general rules should be.

In terms of mothers who have to take their male children with them into some changing rooms - if there are cubicles then the little boy should use one. Why would you even suggest that the female majority should exile themselves to cubicles if available when the far easier solution of the little boy using one instead is available?

(With kids under say 5 I personally don't care, but 8 is pushing it, and we have to remember the little girls who're also in the room who may feel uncomfortable around boys their own age.)

OP if you are seriously complaining about boys under 8 being in the women's changing room in case they make comments about your body then yes you are beyond unreasonable! I'm actually astounded!

Surely you can see that banning boys under 8 from women's changing rooms would make it pretty much impossible for women to take their young sons swimming alone? What you want is anti-feminist as it would limit women's movements. You're only thinking of your own ridiculously fragile feelings. I seriously doubt children of either sex are queuing up to comment on your body anyway.

Sorry for the detail. I posted to the wrong thread twice. Probably extra weird as my post was distantly related to the topic. Apologies once again!

We do have changing rooms. But they are usually within a room with communal changing. And I don't want cocks in the communal changing area.

But under eight year old cocks are ok because they're not really cocks in any significant way.

HTH.

Why can't we have private changing rooms? For one person, two people, or a family? Having been to boarding school and grown up in the 1970s I do not get the prurience and salaciousness that currently surrounds sexual activity and or gender politics. Grow the f* up people!

I'm sorry I've said this elsewhere, but 'why are you so against unisex, it's an outdated attitude to the healthy human body' sounds to me exactly like 'don't be so prudish get your tits out'

To be fair the person I was talking to hadn't meant what she said in the way that I thought she meant it

But don't call us prudes. Some of us have even had sex.

Well that was weird.

What do you think he they are to you then?
Its fair and reasonable to not what to undress around adult males, actually its fair and reasonable not to undress around child males but then that is your responsability not to, not his to stop existing in a place he is allowed to be in.
Why would a 4 year old boy make you any more uncomfortable than a 4 year old girl? Whats different between my 4 year old ds and 3 year old dd?

So your problem isnt actually with young male children at all?
Its any person who may look at you or make comment, why make a thread vivilifing little boys and not just children with no filter?
My kids never had made comments I was just pointing I out little boys are not the problem or a threat to you.

This would apply to women's refuges too - it's about the woman, who in the role of mother to small children is at her most vulnerable to abuse at a partner's hands.

Would you ban a mother of a young male child from bringing her child to a women's refuge? Many women would remain trapped in abusive or violent relationships if the only choice was to leave their small children or put them into care in order to leave.

Women and young children have always been grouped together for a reason - they are the most vulnerable, and women would often be unable to access necessary basic facilities if they could not take their small children.

This has been done before, but it is women fighting women to say that those who cannot access facilities without their children in tow should fuck off. There is a mindset among some people that mothers in the role of mother should be all that society socialises women to be (quiet, apologetic, take up as little space as possible) and take their place firmly at the bottom of all possible piles and the end of all possible lines.

I had a conversation with a woman who felt her want to walk about the changing room naked to apply moisturizer in front of the mirror in the communal area, then return to the only cubicle which she had her clothes in to continue to dress, trumped my need to get myself and my children (then 6, 4, and 1 - the eldest a girl, then two preschool boys) dry and dressed.

She didn't need the cubicle and the whole changing room, but felt I should change in the disabled toilets with my 3 kids because she wanted to use the cubicle and walk around the communal area without the boys potentially seeing her.

I rolled my eyes at her, her wants in that case did not trump mine.

Biology and socialisation and years of patriarchy mean women often have sole charge of very small children. If children are allowed in the facility, then mother's have to be allowed to take their very small children into changing rooms and toilets.

When the children are capable of using facilities alone it is a different issue, but taking a very small child of either sex with you isn't about protecting them from adults of their own sex, but about the fact that while children are under about 5 or 6 and unable to navigate facilities alone, their mothers would be largely trapped at home in many cases otherwise.

I have 2 dd's under 4 and an almost 8 year old ds. If I took them swimming on my own there is no way I would let my ds go into the men's changing rooms on his own while I went in with the girls. He is not a risk to anyone in the woman's changing rooms - he's far more concerned with getting in the pool than staring at anyone else in there! However I have no idea who is in the men's changing rooms with him and who could be looking at HIM getting changed.

My 3 year old dd is just as likely if not more likely to stare and make inappropriate remarks than my 4 year old ds, both would be 100% innocent. Is she not welcome either?
If your uncomfortable then you go into the cubicles, a boy under 8 and you have equal rights to be there.
Its not mine and my 4 year olds problem, its yours so you need to sort it out.