Mark's and Spencer's food

[Cccsss011]

Always loved treating myself to bits in Mark's and Spencer's food but I've been in today got afew meal deals eg 2 x large pizzas and 3 sides for ten pounds great and yes I'm never going to buy my weekly shop in there but some stuff is actually really good price and it's such lovely quality food!

For those who think this isn't important, a study had been undertaken at Target stores which implemented a 'gender inclusive' policy. Here's the conclusion:

We believe this study to be the first available longitudinal analysis related to gender-inclusion policies and harms. Relying on media-reported sexual incidents in Target stores, we databased and analyzed 220 sexual incidents. All the perpetrators were men, the vast majority of incidents had female victims (94.5%), and 34% victimized children. A total of 99.1% of the incidents had women or children as victims, with adult same-sex violence being almost negligible. We found a significant rise in sexual incidents across the timeframe, although some of this is probably due to more media reports being available for recent dates. More particular to our investigation, we found a very significant increase in upskirt and peeping tom incidents comparing the period just prior to the policy announcement to the period following. Using the three-season forced-category measure, probably the most conservative measure, there were 2.3x the amount of upskirt incidents post-policy and 2.9x the amount of peeping tom incidents. The Poisson regression found the 4-year pre-policy to post-policy rate change to be 3.03 for Upskirt and 3.14 for Peeping Tom, and the 2-year to be 2.16 for Upskirt and 2.34 for Peeping Tom, using Trimester as a variable. While it is possible that a general rise in voyeuristic sexual offenses relative to other offenses may account for some of this increase, the magnitude and precise timing of the increase suggests that Target’s gender-inclusion policy accounts for the bulk of it. The most likely hypothesis to explain our findings is that Target’s policy signaled to sexual offenders that voyeuristic offenses would be easier to perpetrate in their stores than elsewhere. This study demonstratesthat gender-inclusion policies can bring about increased harm to women and children.

So @VenusTiger, there's your answer....

The almost gleeful celebration of a blaise attitude by some women to this issue of removal of dedicated womens spaces. The Loling and humourous quips.

How naive you are. It must be nice.

You are completely within your rights not to boycott M&S for whatever reason. Completely. However the trivialising of a policy that WILL lead to increased incidents of sexual harrassment, or simply just some women feeling uncomfortable or unsafe is quite disgusting.

'Other shops have mixed changing rooms la de da' Yes, and some women, like myself simply don't and won't use them. I'm not comfortable at the thought. As we don't use them, women like me aren't noted. If I can't try something on I'll leave it. I have in the past, I will now.

Spelling.

Exactly Catherine, and the accusations of being shit scared. Legally women have a right to single sex spaces, and many of us will continue to fight for that right, whilst others can crack on with their lolling, sneering and pissing themselves laughing if they wish.

It’s not a ‘trans’ thing as incorrectly stated above - M&S have said that anyone can use any room that they feel more comfortable in (never mind the discomfort of anyone else - and they don’t even have designated sex facilities now anyway. So you may expect it to be all women in the changing room in the lingerie dept but think again.

I'm talking about the food and food only any other discussions I didnt want to have!!

I tried on jeans last month and the changing rooms were roomy and lockable. With no toilet cubicle style gaps.

And if you are upset about the changing room issue, you wpukd have fitche ovado many moons ago when the leader took issue with the defition of woman. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3377314-ocado-siding-with-misogynists-and-agreeing-that-the-word-woman-and-its-dictionary-definition-is-hate-speech?pg=1&order=

Would have ditched ocado

@RaymondStopThat thank you, that’s actually very interesting, especially the upskirting, which is not something I would have considered.
I’d like to ask another question, again, not being argumentative, genuine question - what is the fitting rooms policy now? Is it for men and women to share the space or is it for men to have a fitting room and be available to trans men and women to have a fitting room available to trans women? How was the decision to have a mixed setup formed?
It’s all so confusing now, so are we trying to include transgender? Or just include everyone in one fitting room?
I.e. would you be okay with a trans woman using the women’s fitting rooms? If not, how do we sort this out going forward if we don’t want mixed fitting rooms?

Well M & S food is one of the very few things I miss about the UK. I wish they would open a few branches in Oz, I reckon they'd be very busy as every pom I know says the same.

Overpriced and overhyped, from a flailing company losing its marbles

Not a fan of m and s, too expensive. But sorry your thread got derailed OP.

🙄🍖🍖🍖

OK quality and small portions. I wouldn't say it was anything that special TBH.

@VenusTiger
Customers to change wherever they “feel most comfortable”. Men in the women’s, women in the men’s. This also includes the lingerie changing rooms, which are often the go to for young girls for their first bra, women post mastectomy etc. A man could be next door listening in to all the conversations wanking away whilst trying on some lacy knickers.

No such thing as split by sex anymore.

It’s all so confusing now, so are we trying to include transgender? Or just include everyone in one fitting room?

The thing is, you can't say "women's" changing rooms are just for biological women and transwomen. Because how to you define "transwoman"? Someone who has had surgery to remove their penis? Or just someone who likes wearing women's clothing? What IS women's clothing? Should biological women with short hair and wearing trousers be banned from the women's changing?

Stonewall (the LGBT lobby group that has pushed these companies to quietly change their policies) actually defines "transgender" as follows:

Trans people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including (but not limited to) transgender, transsexual, gender-queer (GQ), gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, crossdresser, genderless, agender, nongender, third gender, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman,trans masculine, trans feminine and neutrois.

Note that they include "crossdresser" in this definition. So that means that "autogynephiles" (men who are sexually aroused by the thought/sight of themselves as a woman) are now technically "transgender", simply by having a sexual fetish.

More than 80% of transwomen still have a fully functioning penis, and statistically, transwomen as a group commit sexual crimes at the same rate as men. So why did we have single sex spaces in the first place? Not all men are predators, but pretty much all sexual predators are men.

And I haven't even discussed the rise in tiny hidden cameras, described as screws in the wall......

Fine @Cccsss011 I'll talk about food.
I do not want any 🍆 near me or my children when in a state of undress.

If I want a ready meal or sandwich I can go somewhere that doesn't have a policy of allowing Male bodied people into female changing rooms.

I’m sure they are gutted to lose your custom. 🙄

I read OP and immediately thought PR plant! I dont see what the big woop is about m&s pizzas or any other food. Sainsbury's is same quality.

I used to shop at M&S a lot when I had ds2 and ate a lot of ready meals. There used to be some good deals on where you could get three (over processed, salty) meals for say £10 which was worth doing at the time. Even then I found you really had to take care as they were chronic for putting very short dated food at the front which meant my weekly shop was out of date quicker than I needed .

Anyway the 'deals' got more expensive and last Christmas I was disgusted at the ridiculous price on a big lasagna and voted with my feet. I dont shop there now.

I notice they are now doing pret a manger style lunch food but taste test is its not as nice as pret with much less range.

I’m not sure I hold individual companies responsible for erring on the side of caution - M&S otherwise will get caught up in lots of discrimination suits. Despite what we on mumsnet think, they won’t want the bad pr from that.

This dispute needs to be resolved st the government level.

Another one here who has always found the fuss some people make over M&S food bewildering. Everything I've ever tried I've found incredibly underwhelming, bland and fairly tasteless.

Except for their jaffa cakes. Those are the best ANYWHERE.

Why are they doing this? Think about it - trans women generally want to be in the woman’s changing rooms, not the men’s.

Unisex is open to all. Who benefits from this change? What type of person has a burning interest to lobby to be in an enclosed space with half dressed women? Why has there been such a push for this?

Have you ever seen such a promotion of and much bending over backwards by stores to accommodate, say disabled shoppers (we’ve all seen photos of parents trying to change an older child on a stinky loo floor) or shoppers with kids? What about the visually impaired shoppers, or customers with dementia or learning difficulties?

Read this statement from Next and think about it. Think about the changing rooms and how they are set up and staffed (or not).

What is it actually saying? What, are staff mind readers? Will any member of staff risk their job if they think someone may not be the ‘gender’ they say they are?

Are we dealing with small children who believe in fairies here?

And Next have curtains, no doors. Cubicles have always been floor to ceiling though.

There always has to be NAMALT on these threads (although given that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in some way then quite frankly ALOMALT), but I happen to think an easy way to filter out which MALT is to see which ones go in the women's changing rooms. And no, no group of males is so special they can have access.