To agree with Piers Morgan..

[Science9]

I find Piers Morgan insufferable at the best of times, but I was watching him debate with a guest re Primarks new gender neutral changing rooms and I found myself agreeing with him completely. I know it's not unreasonable to agree with someone but I wanted to see if i was inthe minority by being really annoyed and worried about this and how things are going in regards to single sex spaces? I am a regular primark shopper and I usually take a big bag of stuff in to try on and their changing rooms have the worst flimsy curtains as it is- I already get majorly self conscious when the curtain doesn't fully shut (it never does) but the thought of men being in the opposite cubicle rather than another woman is mortifying for me and I am just going to have to shop elsewhere. I just worry this is going to be the start of losing single sex toilets and changing areas altogether which would be hell for me. Before anyone says it, I have no problem with trans people!

It's a big experiment being carried out on the public, one of women's safeguards that we take for granted is being taken away.

I suppose we ought to feel proud that it all came out into the open during the year in which we celebrated 100 years of women's suffrage...

Single sex spaces are vital for some women to participate fully in society. I don't understand why some people are so eager for a proportion of vulnerable women to be left out, just because they themselves have no problem with it.

Except I suspect there are some situations where they would prefer single sex spaces -
24 hour university library at 3am?
Bus station in the middle of the night?
Being pestered and harassed by a man in a club?
Shopping with a large pram you have to leave outside the toilet cubicle?
Old/frail/disabled/injured and less able to run/defend yourself? Abusive relationship where the only opportunity to call for help is in a space your partner can't follow?
Deserted swimming pool or shop changing room with no staff around? Hospital ward?
Lingerie fitting rooms where the staff have to keep leaving to get different sizes?

If you believe that any one space at all should be single sex, it isn't a massive leap to see that other people may feel the same about a space you aren't so worried about- because they may have a different life experience to you.

To raise an earlier-stated point, it's far from being a 'non-issue'. I say that in full recognition of the fact that transwomen have been sharing spaces with women for a long time. The fact is that if this becomes more widely-recognized practice, it puts women at increased risk.

Men's, and transwomen's, physical strength and body mass surpass that of women. That's an irrefutable biological fact.

That the vast majority of abuse, sexually-predatory behaviour and sexual assault is overwhelmingly carried out by men against women is a statistically demonstrable fact.

That creepy, perverted behaviour is continually targeted at females should be plainly obvious from the necessity of implementing such laws as up-skirting now being a criminal offence.

If shared changing spaces and nakedness between sexes becomes more of a socially-accepted norm, that abuse WILL increase.

To dismiss this point as a non-issue is naive in the extreme. At worst, it's downright dangerous.

I have always hated cubicles with curtains, they should be banned. If cubicles have doors and are floor to ceiling then that's fine in my opinion.

Okay Lewiji I'll bite.

Let's naively pretend there's no risk to dignity or safety here.

So my question to you would be that if a changing room has always been a dingle sex space what reason is there to undo that and make it mixed sex? As has already been asked how does it benefit the current users of that space?

Those of you who are not concerned do any of you actually give a shit about women and young girls who might be? >clearly answered my own question _

Obvs meant single not dingle

And why oh why do I try playing around with underline functions!

They give not one care about women and girls. I use unisex facilities sometimes, I am not so without imagination that I can't understand why some women would find that difficult if not impossible. I also don't think I can give consent for other people.

And perhaps Lweji can tell me (a former academic) what constitutes a study and evidence?

Having read my posts back I apologise for language used. It's not personal but I'm feeling very angry about this entire debate. We really are like the frog that s l o w l y boiled to death in the boiling pan.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels strongly about it. I'm going to complain to Primark so at least I feel like I'm not just accepting it

This may be a first in that I also agree with Piers Morgan. Though I would never shop at Primark.

I don’t know if I can explain this well but I feel that segregation, hand in hand with the perpetuated narrative that women are weak, vulnerable and pieces of meat for other people’s use, is at the heart of the equality problem. Unisex spaces is somewhat putting the cart before the horse (as the perception of women is the current main problem) but it is an important piece of our freedom to be invisibly part of a unisex world, not kept in our cages.

I know this is not the way most people here see it but it’s how I see it. And it will take a few generations of strong women being exactly where men are, unashamed of sanitary towel noises and kept safe by security measures and a harsher criminal prosecution system for our physical place in the world to change to be anywhere any other human is.

People are fighting so hard to keep the segregated spaces without realising that the real issue is that we’re not being supported to be safe and raised to be comfortable anywhere we actually want to be. We are conditioned out of spaces and it’s reinforced that we are vulnerable which keeps us wanting segregation which reinforces we’re vulnerable and keeps us wanting segregation....and so on.

I want unisex spaces and until the mindset about women changes, I want protection in those spaces. Some countries have a slightly better mindset about women than others and that’s the direction we should be moving in.

I know this is not the way most people here see it but it’s how I see it. And it will take a few generations of strong women being exactly where men are, unashamed of sanitary towel noises and kept safe by security measures and a harsher criminal prosecution system for our physical place in the world to change to be anywhere any other human is.

This comes across as more than a little disingenuous - I'm not ashamed about sanitary towel noises but I want to preserve the right to share intimate aspects of my body with the people I choose to. I also want to support women and young girls who may be embarrassed by having to expose aspects of their bodies to men.

As companies in general are cutting back on staffing there will not suddenly be lots of extra security...so that's a non-argument. Presumably that's why you follow up with a 'harsher' criminal justice system but personally I would rather have women safe than more people prosecuted because they were exposed to increased risk of assault/voyeurism. Having been wanked on in a fairly empty cinema, and on the tube which are relatively public spaces, I shudder to think of what might have happened if these incidents had happened in a deserted or isolated loo or changing room.

As for weakness I'm not a weak woman I've studied martial arts/boxing, I weight train and so on...but I'm very short and my weedy partner who's never lifted a weight or done any sort of training can still overpower me in a mock fight...although I can get in some good shots! It's not about weakness it's about bodily/biological advantage in terms of muscle mass, average height differentials and so on all of which make women more vulnerable. As for women as meat that's a male perspective and irrelevant here as an argument for sharing spaces with sundry males.

If you were advocating all girls being taught self-defence such as Krav Maga from an early age along with classes to boost self-esteem fine. But you don't put someone into a space with potential predators without means of defence. What mystifies me is that this site is obsessed with sexual predators but yet on threads like this so many fail to see that this is a huge safeguarding/privacy issue and one that gives sexual predators further spaces in which to operate freely.

Happy I'm a bit confused by your post as I find myself agreeing with parts of what you have to say but then I feel you're contradicting yourself.

I would be so happy for my daughter or granddaughter to grow up in a world where they could be seen as absolute equals to a man in every area of life and for them to feel at least as safe as any man. We are a long, long way off and I doubt it will happen in her lifetime, maybe her daughters if we're lucky.

In the meantime for so many reasons, biology being a major one, I will fight to keep her safe and happy. This is not because she is weak as she's showing signs of being pretty badass already but there are people some men out there who would absolutely harm her if they y had a chance.

I think I see where you want us to be unfortunately we have work to do still.

YANBU - I find it really worrying and wouldn't want to try clothes on there. I feel the same about unisex toilets too - it scares me what may happen

@kateluvscats

"torn down by the PC brigade" = outed as nasty bigots.

The bathroom/changing room conundrum is pretty easily solved in my opinion. But it might cost money.

Have all cubicles open on to a main area (no corridors or rooms within rooms), have proper walls and doors with locks. For bathrooms put the sink in the cubicle.

I was at the movies the other day and they had this. The bathrooms were all unisex but as there was no "shared" space it didn't matter. They were kind of set into a curve, but all still visible from main area.

I want unisex spaces and until the mindset about women changes, I want protection in those spaces.

What?

@IAmNotAWitch I think that’s the best idea.

I would have thought this was a safeguarding issue anyway, given that underage girls use changing rooms.

It is, feelingverylazytoday but you're not allowed to say that precisely because it should stop all this nonsense in its tracks and some male people don't want that.

Its funny that someone has said 'where will it end?' as though the issue is women are demanding more and more single sex spaces on buses or classrooms.
In fact its male bodies demanding access to our pre-existing single sex spaces that is the issue.
Where will that end? I wonder.

From my own point of view I think anyone who wishes to perv on me in changing rooms has a weird getting for frumpy fat middle aged women.

From a general point of view I’m not sure if feel comfortable with my teenage daughter potentially changing in a cubicle with two older men doing the same on cubicles on either side.

I know that being non-gender accommodating is now an issue but perhaps some single changing rooms and a willingness to queue if needs be, would be the answer if you want to make an issue of what’s on offer for whatever reason!

We have had to fight for years to get women only spaces, why are women so happy to give these spaces up??? Men have proved time and time again that they cannot be trusted not to attack, abuse, peep on us. We need these spaces for our protection. FROM MEN!!

We are not happy to give them up. Some women don't seem to mind using unisex but to be honest while that is lovely for them it is also irrelevant as they can't give consent for other people .