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?

Sure, boycott them. I’m sure they’ll be gutted.

"@Stayawayfromitsmouth*

"Tbh I find it embarrassing just browsing around the underwear dept. There are alway, always men lurking around.
I have absolutely no idea why any man would be milling around watching women shop for underwear and think it's acceptable."
What makes you think they are watching women shop for underwear? That wouldn't occur to me.
At Christmas I would assume they were looking to buy underwear for their partner. Otherwise it would depend how they were dressed. With the constant talk of self-identifying trans women in the press and on social media, I would assume that if the men were dressed as women, that they are transwomen and, if dressed as a man, that they are transvestites.

One of the things nobody has mentioned yet is how easy I to woul be for a male in the female changing room to leave a small camera in there to record any females that go in after him

I mentioned it ElGuardian - umpteen pages ago. (Page 3 at 18.09)

And also mentioned that he need never even enter the store again because he can have everything he wants online. Totally safe way for any pervert to get his rocks off.

Well your post will be considered to be extremely transphobic by some.

I understand what you are saying but for me, sex change is impossible and I would not want ANY man - dressed in a skirt or not - changing next to me.

Dealing with ‘inappropriate actions’ - let’s call that what it actually potentially might be: rape, indecent assault, voyeurism, filming without consent and posting on the Internet and any number of other sexually predatory behaviours - after the fact is rather too late wouldn’t you say?

Sure, boycott them. I’m sure they’ll be gutted.

They will when they end up closing down having alienated their core customer base. But then it will be too late and many decent people will lose their jobs.

I've been stared at by men in M&S lingerie so often I've lost count, from teenage years onwards.

Proper gawping.

Their partners may well have been in the changing rooms, but they were looking at me looking at lingerie. Intently.

So many shops have unisex changing rooms- Gap, Ted Baker, Nike,

And...?

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz

No. What does it have to do with the shop assistant why a man wants to wear a bra? Their job is to find the appropriately sized item, not to make judgments about the customers.

M&S know the difference between male and female when it comes to promoting and paying their staff

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/marks-and-spencer-gender-pay-gap-staff-reporting-women-less-men-a8230751.html

M&S paid it's female staff 12% less and now it's female customers are less safe in their Mixed Sex changing rooms.

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

SchadenfiendeUnmortified

Because he wants to buy a bra? Really, I don’t see the issue, and I imagine a shop assistant would be putting their job on the line if they refused.

I agree with those who like me walk into a locked cubicle, choose for themselves and walk out. Nothing wrong.

However I disagree on behalf of those young women who want to use the areas outside the cubicles to show their friends, or use a corridor and mirror to see if the clothes move nicely. They're not going to want to show that off if their male school mates or dads are around. No cubicle is big enough for that - and some girls don't want to undress in front of girlfriends, just want to go outside.

I also disagree on behalf of elderly women, women who can't for MH or religious reasons be near men.

And how are they going to sort out the lingerie issue if there's a self identifying as woman person who demands to try stuff on?

It's worth contacting [email protected] the CEO rather than writing to customer services. Or the chairman of the board Archie Norman.

I imagine M&S clotheswear won’t be around much longer, not in store anyway whether people boycott it or not, soon it will just be online so no worries about changing rooms then.

Our local ted baker changing room is a nightmare, but luckily the female staff members and the men who've been waiting to try on totally understand that I would like some privacy, so the men wait and the staff keep watch.
(They do have curtain closures to the changing rooms, which never shut properly, so everyone see's the issue).

A tiny minority appeased and the majority refusing to shop there as a result.

What an absolute cock up.

Excuse the pun.

What if the fitter feels uncomfortable being in an enclosed cubicle with a topless man trying on an underwired, padded, hello boys number?

If a man feels he has the right to make a fitter feel uncomfortable like this so he can be fitted for a bra I will judge him very, very much.

Can you tell us why men can't just stay in their own lockable facilities? If they feel unsafe why can't they address the reason for their issue?

It's really not too far away from Yaniv and his waxing cock up

Urban Outfitters, White Stuff,Primark, Hollister, H&M, Go Outdoors, supermarkets......

Loads in my area have unisex changing rooms. Going to be a long boycott list.

I don’t care if it’s transphobic. I would rather someone get offended then opening up female spaces to men to endanger my daughter.

I have never met a male, who was genuinely in need of trying on some much woman’s clothes that would NEED access to female changing rooms to not look like a hairy man. If you do not want to look feminine then how do you identify as a female? Surely only in sexual way and why should my dd have to suffer because of sexual fuelled desire?

If anything I have always been very “meh” to transgender until now, it’s starting to make me extremely uncomfortable because suddenly it’s impacting my daughters future. I genuinely can not believe that suddenly the people who know they was born in the wrong body ( fri -sat only) or men who need to dress, behave, pretend, get a kick out of wearing woman’s clothes has just ballooned in the past few years from a minority to now the majority so they have more rights then a DNA born woman who no sexual body dismorphia.

It’s bullshit dressed up as progress and being open minded.

What’s next? Lots of humans want to have sex with minors, do we cater for those poor minorities and stop the age of consent? In a few decades we will.

There are men who get turned on by being in female only spaces, it's a fetish and M and S are making female customers and their female staff props in their fetish, without our consent. There is a web sites dedicated to this which lists shops and toilets that are mixed sex and the best place to fix your camera. Some of them like to record women and girls urinating, then it is shared on line.
Interestingly, Marks have stores in the Middle East with very different changing room policies ...

@crosstalk easy. change in cubicle, come out. show friends. go back in. the chance of boys hanging out in front of the cubicles is lower than mean girls hanging out there bitching about others (and taking photos to bitch on instagram). the more people around, the safer these areas are.
And lingerie hardly ever gets paraded around between cubicles by religious women. they try on in cubicle, and stay in there.

So she doesn’t shop in Hollister, Urban Outfitters,Primark.....

Female spaces are only safe if they are policed. changing rooms are not policed, so more footfall - more safety.
Predators come in both genders. sex, money, bullying, loads of motives. Again, more footfall means safer.