Feeling like I don’t want to use our local swimming pool

I just worry that we could get into the territory of 'women, stay at home if you don't like it'. Disabled people have been in that position for years, and nothing to do with whether they like the facilities provided or not.

Callous.

Why is it ok to trample over the rights of an even more disadvantaged group of people because you think that your rights aren't being met?

Why is it not ok for a person who feels clear distress at male bodied people parading around their penis in a changing room to use an obviously empty safe space, particularly if determined to leave said save space as soon as the need arises?

Is an empty room a value in itself and is it more valuable than the mental wellbeing of a woman?

There's statistically waaaay far more chance of the hypothetical disabled person needing the shower being real, then the hypothetical sexual assault. And you really have no idea whether the facilities were needed or not. In fact the OP probably wouldn't either as I'm guessing there was s door on them.

I find casual disregard for disabilities pathetic. But sadly not at all unusual either.

I just worry that we could get into the territory of 'women, stay at home if you don't like it'.
Disabled people have been in that position for years, and nothing to do with whether they like the facilities provided or not

So to prevent that let's make it so that all people with a disability stay at home instead?

No, I didn't actually say that I thought it was fine to use the disabled facilities. I was responding to the poster who said that since she had been to that swimming pool before, she should have known what the facilities were like and therefore should have avoided it.

Surely we can have facilities for people with disabilities and facilities in which women feel safe? (Ie no penis allowed).

And many places do don't they?

If the OP feels so strongly then why not ask the pool to provide women only changing rooms or sessions?

Still isn't right to use accessible changing room in the mean time.

Nobody is going to stay at home because they have to wait 2 minutes for the shower.

I just worry that we could get into the territory of 'women, stay at home if you don't like it'.

So to prevent that let's make it so that all people with a disability stay at home instead?

If you don't like the set up then you need to campaign to change it don't you? Disabled facilities were fought for by people with disabilities for the use of people with disabilities.

deepwater how do you know that no one needed to use that changing room?

Is it ok for someone to use the accessible toilet if no one else is waiting?

Why is it ok to trample over the rights of an even more disadvantaged group of people because you think that your rights aren't being met?

Surely we can have facilities for people with disabilities and facilities in which women feel safe? (Ie no penis allowed).

Telling women, who may well have suffererd sexual assault or male violence, to get a grip, is just awful.

I just worry that we could get into the territory of 'women, stay at home if you don't like it'.

Well, on this thread we are already firmly in that territory, aren't we?

I would not have been keen on this as a younger person but now I have kids I am just glad of the increased space and accessibility of these areas. It also means that lifeguards of both sexes create a train of kids after a lesson and can walk them into the showers to the parents which I think is better than loads of parents lurking around the pool with poorly covered outdoor shoes. Also, I do see a lot of people with various visible disabilities and who knows how many invisible conditions, and this system is best for them.

The toilets however are disgusting at all the local pools whenever you go, not even locks on all the doors and that would only take about thirty minutes to fix for gawds sake but that's another story!

Although I do agree that lack of facilities for disabled people is a huge problem.

Plus she knew what the facilities were like because she had been there previously with her family, so if you need a place free from penises why would you go somewhere that only has unisex facilities?

Maybe they're all like that though? The last time I was in a public pool that had separate male and female changing was in the 1980s when I was at primary school. There are none within travelling distance of me that have separate changing facilities.

I just worry that we could get into the territory of 'women, stay at home if you don't like it'.

Accessible changing rooms aren't meant for that though are they?

Plus she knew what the facilities were like because she had been there previously with her family, so if you need a place free from penises why would you go somewhere that only has unisex facilities?

This is the thinking that means that people park in blue badge spaces or let prams take up wheelchair spaces on buses. They think they are more justified, more deserving than the people that they were intended for.

What's done is done. I just hope that now the OP is fulky aware of the set up that she re considers and doesn't decide that, having got away with it once, that she'll do it from now on.

But probably it is my fault for posting in feminist chat.

It would probably be more appropriate to post my complaint in the disablism chat section... wait a minute that doesnt even exist. The SN section is full of people working out how they just get through the day (like "how do I change my SN child on the public loo floor?" Or "someone's in the disabled loo and we actually can't wait, which gender toilet do I as a woman take my teen SN son into without causing a riot, whilst respecting the other users and so I can wipe his bum in a bit of privacy?")

Different worlds.

There's no getting away from how vile it is to restrict access to a disabled shower when you have no need of it.

She did have need of a space without penises, though - and people who do not perpetuate male violence by ignoring it understand that - and there was no other.

There's no getting away from how vile it is to restrict access to a disabled shower when you have no need of it. Concern for women is all very well but but not when it perpetuates disablitist views.

There's no getting away from how vile it is to call a woman who doesn't wish to shower in view of the opposite sex 'insecure'. Your concern for disabled people would ring more true if you weren't simultaneously putting forward rankly misogynistic views.

it's a bit off using the accessible changing room though isn't it?

Ok, you don't like unisex changing rooms, so don't go to that pool, use one that has sex segregated changing rooms, shower at home, but not being comfortable with the facilities available doesn't give you permission to use the faciluties for people with a disability.

What if someone had needed to use it while the OP was in there?

I have never been to a pool where there have been communal showers or changing facilities and I'm 47! I'm a member of two different borough pools in London, both of which have men's, women's and family changing rooms.

I would absolutely hate showering in front of men. Hate it. And DH would hate it too - showering in front of women I mean - and girls! How is that appropriate?

How's that any different to what the OP has done by using the disabled facilities

You make no sense. There is a reason WHY OP felt forced to use the disabled facilities (without acutally wanting to). If you are unable to grasp why that is, it is luckily not my problem.

deepwatersolo
How's that any different to what the OP has done by using the disabled facilities

Green's logic of the master is as old as humanity. Silently accept putting someone into an impossible position, and then complain about the choices they make.

GreenEggs - I get the entirely reasonable point you are making about disabled access to disabled facilities, but you sound an awful lot like Rapey Riley hectoring potentially traumatised women to hurry up and get over their (legitimate) fears about mixed sex facilities.

I have a sense someone will be along with an apposite Bunbury quote shortly.