M&S Colchester claim mixed changing is ‘completely safe’ for women.

@ICameISawIPlanked the average wage for an M&S manger is £42,300 a year. He should be trained to listen to women when they raise safety concerns.

Do you honestly think that if a transwoman had said he felt unsafe, the manager would have dismissed his concerns so rudely and then told him to leave the store?

Marks & Spencer Manager salaries: How much does a Marks & Spencer Manager make in the United Kingdom? | Indeed.com

It takes huge bravery for a woman to speak up about our rights. We all know that women have lost their jobs and their reputations for pointing out that transwomen don't belong in our spaces. There's no symmetry of risk at all.

And the manager is a big bloke who is clearly very condescending. He has no idea that women and girls are 9 times more likely to be assaulted in mixed sex spaces. He'll probably get a pay rise from the misogynists at M&S. To suggest that the woman sounds 'gleeful' is a bit desperate. I doubt any woman enjoys being falsely accused of abuse.

Unisex changing rooms put women at danger of sexual assault, data reveals | The Independent | The Independent

What she did was totally unfair on that bloke. He is a minimum wage (+ a bit probably) retail worker. The policies of M&S are not his fault.

If she has a problem she should write to her MP and the company, not join the league of people who think that retail staff are there as the whipping boy for all their frustrations.

There are many reasons why I only shop online now, and this is one of them.

Having worked in a large department store I would never buy anything directly from them. I've seen dogs wee and poo in areas, I had to appease men wanting to try on dresses and underwear (and if any woman objected, the company policy was that the complaining woman had to leave), and unclean, smelly and unhygienic people trying on beautiful clothes. I've seen people pick up £300 dresses off the floor and roll them up in a ball. No thanks!!

Men in changing rooms behave like they do in the toilet. After they have left the place is littered with their shit (tissues, dirt from shoes, any other crap they want to offload), they roll the clothes into a ball, leave all the hangers and clothes on the floor. After they have left we had to spray the place because it stank of pheromones and BO. As mentioned, if you wanted to try on any ladies wear or children's items, you had to use it too as there were no staff to open another one. In fact, if you look at changing rooms now in most shops, they are not staffed.

I window shop, then I buy online. It is easy to order and return at your own leisure.

I don't really even see why this was a problem or why that young man deserved to be doxxed and harassed. I think this whole episode has done immeasurable damage to the Gender Critical cause and its image in the public eye. It makes us look unhinged and spiteful. Already I see people saying this behaviour was fun for the woman who took the video and it's hard to disagree having watched it. She sounded like a gleeful bully not a person genuinely concerned for their safety. Is this really what we've come to?

I don't buy clothes or underwear in m and s since they started this misogynist nonsense. In fact i barely go near m and s any more, they don't deserve my money any more given how badly they treat women, the biggest group of their customers. Plus their clothes are frumpy and expensive, their underwear is not good quality any more and their food is ludicrously expensive, so it's an easy boycott. Interestingly though their toilets are always Men or Women. The only reason i ever go into their stores.

I guess I’m interpreting that differently to you. I just see it as they’re providing fitting rooms for both men and women - with no reference to how that’s structured. But agree that’s only my interpretation.

in reality though, if you arrive at the store and it’s just labelled fitting room, you’re well aware it’s not single sex and can make a judgement at that point whether you’re happy to use it.

In no way does the disappointment that someone might feel that it wasn’t as they’d expected, make it OK to take that out on someone probably making minimum wage, who has absolutely 0 control over the policies/store layout. Compare it to the opening times being advertised as 9-5 on the website but being told the store is closing at 4.30 when you get there. It wouldn’t be OK to start recording the staff and following them round the shop floor because they couldn’t keep the store open til 5 for you.

Ours has that and I would not expect men to be in there! It’s a women’s shop ffs. And those chairs in the middle are not for them to wait about on

Good grief that’s awful!

What is the law is that clothing stores mustn't advertise a space as if it were single sex and then actually operate it as mixed sex.

They do advise their changing rooms facilities as single sex on their storefinder page.

Spot on! For any sensible grown up this is a complete non-issue.

The customers of M&A must vote with their feet and shop elsewhere . They will get the message when their profits fall through the floor

As I understand it (not being a lawyer), the default position with sex equality legislation is that things should generally be for everyone, but that you can make single sex exceptions (by separating the sexes, or by providing for one sex but not the other) where that can be justified.

What exactly is justified about men getting a single sex changing room where a single sex changing room for women is not considered necessary, I can't quite see.

Clothes shops are not obliged to provide changing rooms at all and there is no law to say that changing rooms if provided in a clothing store must be single sex because no one has to use clothing store changing rooms. There are laws governing workplace changing rooms because no one should be forced to give up their autonomy over their own body or their dignity as part of earning a living. What is the law is that clothing stores mustn't advertise a space as if it were single sex and then actually operate it as mixed sex. However, marks and spencer's target market includes wanting to sell feminine style clothing to transwomen, especially bras, so they are at liberty to operate mixed sex changing rooms. Being able to shop at M&S isn't a human right, you can shop elsewhere. Or if you want their stuff you can buy it on credit, try it on at home (or in the ladies loo of whatever closest business offers actual single sex facilities) and return whatever doesn't fit/doesn't suit you

On their store finder, they are claiming that they have fittingrooms (men) and fittingrooms (women)

If they’ve taken women and men off the signs, how are they advertising them as single sex?

The problem is that in mixed sex facilities, it easier for men to film women and girls.

M&S are advertising their changing rooms as single sex, the staff are saying that they are mixed. How do we know that there are designed as mixed sex, not single sex? Talking 'women' and 'men' off the signs isnt enough.

Same sort of thing has happened in the New Look changing rooms too, when I’ve been there with my daughter. A doorway leading to a large room full of cubicles that encircle the walls, with a sofa in the middle. Two bloody men sat on the sofa.

It meant that DD didn’t want to come out and show me her swimsuit and was nervous to open the door and let me in.

Again, exasperated, I asked the staff why there were men sitting there. In end I asked the men to leave and wait outside, as they were making women and girls feel uncomfortable. I don’t care if they were there with wives/daughters/girlfriends, they could have waited outside the entrance. My DH would never have done similar.

I have been there too.
I have only ever used the upstairs changing room by the bras and I've never seen any men in there. It's just cubicles with lockable doors too.

I'm not sure about other changing rooms in the store. Is it the downstairs one that is mixed sex?

Who here has suggested they’d be OK with someone being filmed in a changing room?

i also feel for men and young lads who want their own single sex space too, for fear of being labelled as Pervy and who want to feel comfortable. And who want women to have their own spaces for safety and comfort!

I remember a family member telling me she was in the queue for an all gender toilet and this poor old boy was standing there apologising saying he has to use this toilet and he felt so bad and awkward!

My friend wanted to try on a swimsuit in M+S the other day, so we took the item up to the first floor changing rooms, as it was based right in the lingerie department (men’s clothing was on floor -1).

Two chairs just inside the changing area, both occupied by men. I said loudly, “Why the hell are there men in the lingerie changing rooms?”. Then my friend got some static from the attendant about why she’d brought the swimsuit upstairs to try on and I just told her that it was because we were hoping we’d find fewer men around on this floor while trying on swimwear.

Admittedly I have very little filter or patience as I get older, but I would never try stuff on alone in that shop. As it was, I stood guard outside my friend’s cubicle.

Here’s a link to a thread discussing them at the time and yes M&S refused to remove them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4511424-M-S-Reviews

I was particularly grossed out by some of the reviews on the bras for teenagers although they weren’t necessarily the worst, it’s just they were the reviews young teen girls were most likely to see when they are trying to decide on their first bras

Dealing with a customer situation clumsily would be an interaction between two people - the staff member & the customer.

having that interaction half filmed - we obviously didn’t hear what was said before she decided to film - and posted on the internet with the intent of humiliating and degrading him to the public…is the definition of publically humiliating him. He’s had his sexuality assumed and sneered at as well as a whole host of vile assumptions about his intentions towards other people.

The woman in question should have enough brains to know that this was totally fruitless, he cannot change the policy, cannot suddenly
provide her with another changing room and if she’s allowed out unsupervised should be able to work out how to contact head office without needing to be shown how - she could use the phone in her hand to google it if she’s unsure. She wasn’t in danger and wasn’t forced to change anywhere that made her uncomfortable, she was free to leave the store and take her custom somewhere that aligned with her beliefs, so the reaction to him was entirely unwarranted.

While I agree in principle yes, the reaction is wholly out of proportion. If I were to find an issue in a store like that, I might send an email not start an online lynch mob. This is not some noble quest for women’s rights, it’s the changing rooms in a M&S in Colchester. People need to get a grip.