AIBU to want to boycott M&S?

[thatdamnwoman]

Marks & Spencer has made its changing rooms unisex because it is striving to be inclusive and it wants everyone to feel comfortable in whichever changing room they want. Which means that a woman like me, who wants to try on clothes in an area where I know I won't encounter men if I step outside the cubicle to see how a garment moves when I walk, is now excluded from M&S.

There's evidence that when facilities are made unisex the number of sexual incidents goes up:

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

I think most ordinary men are horrified at the thought of unisex facilities. They're worried that they might cause offence or be mistakenly accused of predatory behaviour. On the other hand the changing rooms will be a magnet for all those men who get a transgressive thrill from going where they shouldn't and being just a few inches away from where a woman's changing her clothing.

I've contacted M&S and they just say they want to be inclusive and if anything happens to anyone in the changing room they'll take appropriate action. But why should anything inappropriate have to happen?

This year we're having guests for four days over Christmas and I would normally be spending at least £200 at M&S. This year I'll shop elsewhere instead. And I won't be buying gifts or clothes or home stuff from them either.

Will anyone join me in a boycott?

Trans women and men occasionally identifying as women don't feel safe in men's changing rooms. Solution: allow men to use all changing rooms.
How does that help?

Headline news this am that their profits are down, particularly clothing.

And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Trans women and men occasionally identifying as women don't feel safe in men's changing rooms. Solution: allow men to use all changing rooms.
How does that help?

Exactly.

And I think this has now been pointed out so many times, that the narrative is changing. It's obviously not about safety, it's about validation. Otherwise a third space would be something transwomen would join women in campaigning for.

If, as according to Stonewall, cross dressing fetishists are now transwomen, there is no fun to be had in being told to use something that is gender neutral. You want something that is gender positive, and that has to be the women's.

Shame about M&S's profits - hugely down today. Perhaps they will reflect on how they are destroying their customer base - perhaps they won't. Either way they are now in financial trouble.

It might be the case that some men who are trans/say they are trans/‘feel like women’ don’t feel safe in men’s spaces. It is also very much the case that many of those men just plain want to be in women’s spaces.

If it was about safety they would surely welcome a third space?

If it was about safety they would surely welcome a third space?

Exactly. There is zero appetite for it, though.

The people saying 'are you going to boycott x and y other shop' are very welcome to start their own AIBU threads calling for those actions.

Unless your point was 'oh you can't do everything so you should do nothing' in which case - nice argument

There is zero appetite for it, though.

That's because the third space option that is often discussed on FWR is deliberately misrepresented by TRAs outside MN where they try and make out like we want special, transpeople only spaces. Which is utter bollocks.

We're in AIBU here, where there have been hundreds of threads regarding preteen boys in female toilets and changing rooms and what age is it appropriate to.

I think a true, mixed-sex space in addition to single-sex facilities that could be used not only by transpeople, but by mothers with sons, fathers with daughters, other gender non-conforming people as well as all the many self-identified 'c*s' people who are often found on here and other social media talking about how little they care about who they're in the toilets or changing rooms with.

It would work really well for lots of people. But, for some reason, this is not good enough.

And people might think that it's asking a bit much to add extra facilities, and maybe they'd be right. But M&S are clearly interested in being inclusive and making all their customers feel comfortable, so I think it's a fair request to make.

I won't hold my breath.

It's the same old on this thread .... posters concerned about the rights of women's and girls being eroded.

We're then told it's nothing/not a problem/we're mean.

Not one, one, can actually be bothered to debate these concerns.

I don't know if it's my lack of sleep making me overthink but I wonder how some women can give so little shits about other women

I wonder how some women can give so little shits about other women

Some genuinely believe that being a woman is less about biology and more about some internal, indefinable 'feeling' about being a woman.

It makes no sense to me, as someone who has never 'identified as' or even really felt female. Apart from when biology is involved. But obviously, that doesn't count...

@bloated1977 That is incorrect. The staff at that particular store obviously have not been made fully aware of M&S’s new policy allowing men into whatever fitting room(s) they feel ‘most comfortable in’.

Oh, apologies! Thought that was a new comment, not one at the start of the thread!

Please see attached comment.

Again, please see attached comment.

@V1daw1inter - stop being so reasonable and trying to bring balance and perspective to the debate

@Orangecake123mand @lotsofoysters - you both make interesting points. I appreciate the nuances of what you are saying

Gosh how predictable. You are 100% happy with this then?

if a man doesn't feel safe in the men's then do something about that. The solution is not to go in the ladies making others feel unsafe.

Exactly!

Men make women feel unsafe.

Men make men feel unsafe.

Do something about men.

From the guardian article:

www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/06/marks-and-spencer-profits-plunge-clothing-sales-fall

The chief executive, Steve Rowe, blamed the 5.5% decline in like-for-like clothing sales in the first six months of its financial year on supply chain problems and buying errors that meant popular sizes quickly sold out in store and online. This contributed to a disastrous performance from its website, where sales barely grew – an outcome it admitted was “less than planned”.

M&S reported a 17% decline in pre-tax profits (before one-off items) of £176.5m on sales of £4.9bn.

A slightly longer article in the Mail has:
"M&S is trying to persuade customers it has shaken its old-fashioned and dowdy image, with the new products targeting a 'busy family-aged customer'."

Also:
"Last month M&S launched a new 'slimmer, sharper, more stylish' range for men who dress casually at work in a bid to target younger customers. "
"As the same time it announced it would make a foray into 'influencer marketing' - where a brand pays celebrities to feature M&S clothes on their social media profiles."

I wonder what celebs they will use? Perhaps rubberman celeb-booker has moved on from the NSPCC.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7654823/Marks-Spencers-profits-plunge-17-falling-clothes-sales-blame.html

I wonder when firms say they are chasing yoof, whether they really understand what yoof want. It's a tough world out there, and plenty I have met can be quite socially conservative.

Needmore

Sign Emma Watson up for that one.

I don’t believe it is about feeling safe. Hope Pink, for instance, is small, slim, and wears all sorts of traditionally feminine clothing, and uses male facilities everywhere. Posting pics of how he is generally accepted as a non conforming male.
I do not believe that the males who will now be using the Female fitting rooms in Lingerie, will be there because they feel unsafe.
If that were the case, then the solution would be to make the male spaces safer, yet no-one is campaigning for that, oddly enough.

I have contacted them. I explained that as I have been repeatedly raped, once in an area near other people, I cannot be in a private or enclosed space, alone, near anyone male bodied without panic attacks.

I enquired how on earth they expected their predominantly female, teenage or 50+ employees to prevent a sexual assault.

I enquired how they proposed to stop hidden cameras.

I asked about provision for people like me, or orthodox religious people, or other vulnerable women.

I explained the concern of a male looking man filming me, or forcing his way in.

They sent a reply saying about ensuring action would be taken with inappropriate behaviour, that was pretty much it.

So I sent them a reply asking them to consider if their mother or grandmother were in my position, if they were attacked like me; if they thought it would all be better because someone rang 999 after and said they were very sorry on behalf the store... I'm awaiting a response.