to be surprised by single sex changing rooms in M&S!

[MrsMaturin]

There is a new M&S near us. It's pretty huge with ladieswear downstairs with a changing room and then menswear and childrens upstairs also with a changing room.
This week I took dd2 (13) to look for a school skirt which she had to try one because school are v fussy about length. We found two and headed over to the changing rooms on that floor. When we got there the man wouldn't let us in saying it was men only. I pointed out that the children's department was also on that floor with no separate facility but he was implacable. AIBU in finding this really odd? The changing rooms are all made up of cubicles and I've never been told they are single sex. If I had been shopping with my son would I be told to wait outside, unable to see how the garments looked on him? This is a minor issue of course but his officious exclusion of us really made me cross plus the ladies changing rooms were miles away. If we'd wanted the staff there to fetch us something else it would have taken them quite some time.
Or am I being weird and you would expect changing rooms to be single sex only in a major clothing shop/department store?

I am a lesbian Corus. This isn't about that.

Honestly I despair at MN sometimes. All the "cool" women so desperate to say that it doesn't matter if a man they don't know sees them half undressed and telling other women they are stupid to care about this.

Having said I've only ever seen single sex changing rooms, I'd actually prefer unisex.

Our local pool/sports centre has unisex changing rooms, with cubicles and lockers all in one giant room. I love it, it cuts out all the 'oh is my child too young/old'.

And I've yet to encounter a lurking pervert

Whooooooaaaaaaah there!

Nobody's calling anybody stupid please.

I don't see why in a changing area with cubicles there's any need to see anybody half dressed so the whole thing leaves me bemused especially as it turns out you ALL knew changing rooms were single sex and nobody told me! How did you know?

It's true in every m and s I've ever been in. Totally pisses me off. As do single sex toilets tbh.

I have never seen unisex ones

The difference is that lesbians don't leer at other women in changing rooms, or make remarks about other women's bodies. You would think sexual harassment didn't exist!! Some men sexually harrass women. Especially young women.

And like most women in the UK, I have been brought up not to show parts of my body to random men I don't know. Why should I have to deal with the embarssment of that happening?

Women have a right to privacy, as do men. My elderly FIL would never go into a unisex changing room either.

I am fine with choice. If you want a unisex changing room provided alongside a female and male one fine. But you have no right to say that other women should have to use a unisex changing room, whether they want to or not.

Why would anybody see anybody else half dressed. They have doors ffs!

I can't think of any shop where I buy clothes which is unisex but I suppose as I don't buy clothes from high street / chain stores I suppose I'm unlikely to be trying on clothes in a shop which sells menswear.

But yes you abu.

In my experience women are just as likely as men to comment on other peoples bodies.

A certain type of ill-mannered man or woman it's true, but I wouldn't feel safe in the knowledge that there were no leering commenters in single sex changing facilities.

But a unisex set of changing cubicles???? Surely that's acceptable? I never come out of the changing cubicle half dressed. I change inside decide I look crap take it off and get dressed. Then leave.

God if only people did actually not display naked body parts in the street! Has anybody SEEN how young people dress today? They will catch their death.

I don't waltz around. I see women all the time come out of the cubicles to the communal bit of changing rooms to show female friends/relatives what they are wearing.

Every single bra fitting I have ever had anywhere, you have to open the cubicle door to let the assistant in e.g. when she goes to fetch other bras. From Bravimisso to Debenhams. I dont want to change every time so a man doesnt catch a look at me only in a bra. I can live with another woman seeing that.

So you would all have gone upstairs to look at childrenswear then simply assumed you would have to trek downstairs to try it on? I can't believe nobody told me about this rule. I've probably been brazening it out in mens changing rooms the length and breadth of the land.

gap always has unisex changing rooms, there usually isn't a problem

Canus - I can assure you have never been leered at by other women in shops like M and S. I have had a man make sexual comments to me on the shop floor of M and S.

Maybe some of you are fortunate and have no real experience of sexual harassment, fine. I am glad if that is the case. But don't dismiss other women's real experiences and tell them they are being stupid.

All the shops I've ever tried on bras in are either lingerie only so no men, or they have a separate set of changing rooms in the lingerie section so no men there either. Unisex changing rooms elsewhere in the shop wouldn't change that.

With regard to your mum trying things on petalunicorn, the shop should have a roomy accessible changing room and it accommodates both the person with disabilities and the helper. I would complain in writing and see what their response is. It is not acceptable that your family had to make two trips, causing your mum undue stress, when they are a big enough company to take discrimination very seriously indeed!

In our big M and S in Manchester, this is the case.

I don't think my dc have ever tried clothes on in the shop, am I really unusual?

And personally the bra situation is avoidable, a hassle yes if you feel you need to put a top back on each time but doable.

No such option for the lady who wants her husband to help her try on clothing that she can't do alone.