I’m a regular Primark customer and was surprised to go the store yesterday and find all the changing rooms had been redesignated as mixed sex. The shop assistant told me not to worry, because most customers on the ladies’ floor were women, and anyway, she could see down the line of curtained cubicles and would challenge a “dodgy man”. When I questioned her about how she would spot one, she called the Manager as he could explain the policy better.
He told me the world was changing. I asked him why Primark had had sex segregated changing rooms in the first place. No answer. I asked him what specific legislative change or scientific discovery had occurred that made the world different to this time last year. No answer. He said that this arrangement was more inclusive for nonbinary people.
I explained that I didn’t feel that comfortable stripping to my knickers in a mixed area, and he told me I could always use the one disabled cubicle which has a lockable door. Clearly this has been designed for mixed sex use and did have a lock, but obviously I would then be blocking its use for a disabled person. He suggested there was no reason to be concerned. Yet when I think about me and my women friends, all our me-too moments, - of being flashed at, or masturbated at, sexual assaults and rapes – all have been my men.
The manager was unabashed. He said Primark had done research – even though he couldn’t produce it, and there were no leaflets or posters to explain this HUGE policy change to customers. He told me I was the only person who had ever complained.
So I guess this is what I want to know. Am I a dinosaur? Am I being unreasonable to want a women only changing room?