Ideas please to get a response from John Lewis to my complaint.

Please can the women who insist on ‘my Nigel’ coming into the fitting room to give them feedback on what they’re trying on assist by asking them to wait outside. Other women don’t want them there. And if you let one man in, it’s harder to keep the rest out.

I also had the dubious pleasure of overhearing a couple having sex in the changing room next to mine in John Lewis. A man and woman - he had a deep voice!!

I’m 47 and don’t remember that happening at all. I must just go to smaller stores. I’m not criticizing the OP btw. It had just occurred to me I hadn’t (or couldn’t remember) coming across single sex changing rooms

Only in recent years. Before gender ideology to hold, all shops with enough room had Women’s and Men’s changing rooms, often with a member of staff gatekeeping. Even where changing rooms were not labelled, their location defined who was allowed in. Eg changing rooms in thelingerie department were obviously onIy for women, and the gatekeeper would redirect any men to the changing rooms in menswear, and vice-versa.

Do they have any customer events/evenings where you could ask the question? A fashion event perhaps?

As they are a partnership, you do not have an AGM where you could make the point.

Depends on the size of the store, what they sell.
It's quite unusual to provide mixed sex changing rooms for bra fittings. Many women (like myself) needed a specialist fitting after breast surgery.
I would never have done that if I thought random men were in adjacent changing rooms. It was uncomfortable enough facing up to another woman while knowing that strangers could over hear our conversation. But I know that it was likely that most women would empathise .

That's why is such a slap in the face when organisations like JL demonstrate that something that they know - that women prefer bra fittings in privacy from unknown men - is dismissed in favour of exposing women to uncomfortable experiences and enabling predatory men.
It showcases their contempt for women

Aren’t all clothes shops changing rooms unisex? I can’t remember being in a shop where they had separate ones

A lot of the point of going to John Lewis is for the shopping experience.

That has been quite degraded since they stock less and less and a lot is very middle of the road. If their key customers - women with families are disrespected and made to feel uncomfortable, they will not have all that much going for them.

If they are so absurd as to really want that one man in their changing rooms, including bra fitting rooms, let them have him and keep him while women stay away.

Maybe you could try writing to this man, Jason Tarry:
https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/our-company/team

I am not sure how you find the address.

To be honest I do think you are being taken seriously. I unfortunately needed to use JL’s complaints and escalated complaints a few times in the last couple of years over order issues/repairs.

For JL, they usually respond within 2-48 hours in my experience. That is still the case when they’ve needed to reach out to a store.

The fact your response has taken longer suggests it’s more complex to them, they are probably seeking legal advice etc. As their baseline for business as usual complaints and escalations are much swifter.

No, it is now legal to provide (biological) women only changing rooms, but they don't have to they can just provide unisex ones.

I think the supreme court ruling made single sex changing rooms legal, not that stores had to provide them. It was so that stores could legally exclude non-biological 'women' from those changing rooms if they provided them. A suggestion was that they provide women only and mixed to cater for everyone but they don't have to.

I would send a registered letter to the head office explaining your original complaint and dissatisfaction with how it has been handled. If you get no response then, yes use social media to expose their shoddy service as frequently as you can be bothered to, same if you get a response that doesn’t really address your complaint. But if you get a response that is limited to the bare bones of their legal obligation, I think you would be wasting your time to pursue it.

In time, when shops start feeling the cost of all the returns that result in customers refusing to try garments on in mixed changing rooms, we might start getting our privacy back.

Good question.

You really have to wonder why the bleeding obvious gets disregarded, by so many people, for so much of the time.

I always want to ask these policy makers at John Lewis, M & S etc what is it they find so exciting about insisting that women and girls must have bra fittings in changing rooms next to random men?

They must have discussions about it? So what happens when someone points out that few women or girls would want a bra fitting with random men listening?

Of course, I am working on the assumption that they must have some senior staff aware of sexual VAWG. Do they just dismiss it? Or what?

It's not illegal for shops to provide only mixed-sex fitting rooms as long as they aren't indirectly discriminating against someone in relation to their sex.

As most males don't have breasts that require a bra, the majority of people who attend a bra-fitting appointment will be female. It is (easily) arguable that it is inappropriate for women to only have curtains between themselves and men when having a bra fitted. The conversation itself will be a turn-on to some men and curtains don't provide the same guarantee of privacy as enclosed rooms. So the provision of only mixed-sex rooms could presumably (easily) meet the threshold for an indirect sex discrimination claim.

JL is right that it could be unsafe for a staff member to be alone in an enclosed room with a partially dressed member of the public for this reason. So single room unisex spaces aren't the answer here either.

OP, if you're not getting anywhere with the complaints escalation process, it may well be worth writing to the CEO and pointing out that they leave themselves open to an indirect sex discrimination claim as well as losing customers like you.

Stores like John Lewis are absolutely going to have to wise up.

And yes, OP, I would make a big fuss on social media, with updates as a PP suggested. But bear in mind, you will draw a lot of flack.

It's the work of a moment to put changing rooms back to men and women, with a third one labelled gender neutral.

Spineless idiots.

It could easily be illegal.

The Supreme Court judgement has shown that if you do not provide female only facilities where necessary, you could be guilty of indirect discrimination.

So it's all very conditional and whether it's women who are being disadvantaged. And in terms of a bra service, yes they are.

A 12-year-old girl going for her first bra fitting should not be standing in a cubicle with a door or a curtain, next to a man, while she's discussing her breasts.

No woman should.

But it only takes a second's worth of imagination to realise why.

Stores cannot get round the ruling by leaving out the word 'women' from their changing rooms if they discriminate against women, whether they're naming them or not.

i'm editing to add that if you're not anonymous, you need to be very careful, OP. This is the sort of thing that is really coming for stores like John Lewis, and it could escalate quickly.

I think you will find that the Supreme Court ruling last year deemed it illegal. Nothing random about it, only that implementing the law is being ignored.

Fgs shops providing unisex changing rooms is not illegal. It's not helping the OP to make up random laws, is it?

I would combine approaches - write a letter, but also start a social media post about what happened and do an update each day as to whether they have responded and email them referencing the letter and including a link to the SM post. Anything you can do to publicise the SM post and het more views will help. Good luck, no woman wants to be half-naked behind a flimsy, I’ll-fitting curtain with unknown men immediately outside

Have they got a formal complaint procedure? If so follow that.

A retailer can choose to provide unisex changing rooms. Men behave illegally and disgustingly in such spaces (yeah, yeah, NAMALT, but it’s not women voyeuring and jacking off in unisex changing rooms). As a result women self-exclude from unisex change rooms. Some are excluded regardless of personal choice, due to other PCs such as religious faith. Until there have been enough court cases, and enough retailers financially penalised for sex-discrimination by excluding women through not providing changing rooms for them, retailers will go for cheap woke points.

Write (an actual letter) to the CEO about JL policy on this. Don't be fobbed off by them saying they are awaiting guidance or referring it to a particular store. What they are doing is illegal and the company needs to clarify its position as to the law.

Posts like these make me wonder whether the poster has any clue about women’s lives. (No, I’m not going to go into the details of what happens during a bra fitting, and why floor to ceiling/locking separate rooms are not the issue here.)