Men in the female changing rooms!

[ewchoc]

I know this has been done to death, but I'm sat here waiting for my children to come out of their swimming lessons and getting increasingly annoyed at the number of men in the female changing rooms.

Tiny swimming pool attached to a school with two small changing rooms, clearly marked male and female. Every week there are at least one or two men who insist on bringing their daughters (all under 7) into the female side to change before & after lessons. It's just one open space, no cubicles or individual spaces, and my DD (9) is getting more and more anxious having to change in front of these full grown men!

Am I being precious or should I ask them to use the men's? Their attitude is that it's their daughters who are getting changed, so they can't take them into the male side with all the boys!

This is such a contentious subject it’s been debated three times in three weeks.

@Soontobe60 Yes, definitely - if there are disabled facilities we can use that. It actually makes it easier to change his nappy anyway.

The problem is that not all places have disabled facilities which are unisex. Again, thinking back to the pool party - it was a large swimming pool within a school that's hired out for parties and open for public use at other times. Lots of disabled facilities but all of them buried deep within the separate male and female areas! So I'd have to walk my 12 yr old DS right through the middle of the female changing rooms, past the showers and toilets to reach the disabled facility (which was just a large toilet area, not an actual changing room but it would have sufficed).

Thankfully we rarely have any problems as most of the places we go have family and unisex areas, or those changing "villages". There are so many family dynamics which don't quite fit male/female changing areas I think there really needs to be a third space. Also, and this isn't the place to debate this - but it also provides a potential solution to the issue of pre-op trans women undressing in female changing rooms. Dignity and privacy for everyone shouldn't be too much to ask.

A lot of posters still seem to be conflating this specific scenario with a general one
for clarity - no adults are naked at any time here
This is a children's swim class based at a school pool - only children are getting changed. No woman is having to get undressed in from of a man she is not married too. Children are getting changed assisted (and potentially shielded) by their accompanying parent.
And being a school only has a boys changing room and a girls changing room - no family cubicle, no mens, no ladies etc etc. It would also be unreasonable/financially unviable for the school to rebuild its pool changing facilities to suit these external classes.
Though a do wonder with it being school with many special needs if they also have a (or some) 'accessible' changing rooms too?

@PurpleDaisies, @Gliderx, @AryaStarkWolf, @donquixotedelamancha, @Stompythedinosaur while you might deny woman going into the male changing rooms it does happen as vouched for by @newname12345 and others. There is even this whole post about this very scenario, and this older one too so it is clearly not a one way street.

As to the solution? I don't know. The dad/son, dad/daughter, mum/son, mum/daughter, 4 separate rooms doesn't really help as there will be a group of daughters getting changed in the presence of a group of dads, and the same with the the mums/sons

@Gliderx "As a society, we do not view young children (boys or girls) below a certain age as having the same demands of privacy to maintain their dignity as adult men and women do. That's why it's fine for young boys to change in the women's changing-room and young girls to change in the men's changing-room. Nor do we think that adults need to be 'guarded against' the sight of undressed children below a certain age."

Below a certain age we don't view young children as needing privacy like adults nor do we see those same children as being able to violate the privacy of adults of the opposite sex. Adults will definitely compromise that privacy so they must not be in the same room as those of the opposite sex.

@CuriousCassie

This is where village-style all-cubicle changing rooms come into their own.

I learned to swim at an old Victorian pool. The changing cubicles were round the edge of the pool, all brick built floor to ceiling with a problem door. So much safer, no going to somewhere unsupervised. The lifeguard was walking round the pool so no one would bother you. We've gone backwards.

A proper door, not a problem door.

@ancientgran - with a disabled child, it is very helpful for us if carers of either sex can have a cubicle next door when changing at the pool. This allows privacy but there is someone immediately on hand should there be a crisis. And yes, with such setups, respect for everyone is maintained

while you might deny woman going into the male changing rooms it does happen

I didn't say it never happens, merely that the idea it's common, as claimed by PP, is ridiculous.

A lot of posters still seem to be conflating this specific scenario with a general one
for clarity - no adults are naked at any time here

I think you are mistaken. I can't see any posters who don't seem to understand the specifics. The mitigation you mention is why the reaction from the women was muted and presumably why these men thought it was OK at all.

It's not OK for reasons which have been explained at great length.

@donquixotedelamancha
while you might deny woman going into the male changing rooms it does happen

I didn't say it never happens, merely that the idea it's common, as claimed by PP, is ridiculous.

As a male I can confirm that women regular enter male toilets and changing rooms

I don't think I can honestly say I've been to any big event or venue and women haven't come into mens toilet the difference is in the mens you are exposed at the urinals . I've actual had a female cleaner mop round me at the unrinal in a shopping centre whilst I was having a wee .

Women cleaners think nothing of just walk in

@rwalker out of interest, have you ever seen or heard of a female sexual predator in the male facilities?

A women entering male facilities is not in the right, but from a safety perspective the risk to men is likely to be low.

While a male of any ideology is still a male entering female facilities and posing a very real risk, which many of us women have unfortunately experienced.

@Enough4me

No I haven't so I guess that makes it alright

Not right but is definitely isn't on the same scale of wrong.

@Vanishun

Complain to the Centre (and keep complaining until they do something).

Funny isn't it - they don't want their daughters exposed somehow to other men, but don't give a shit about yours or the other women in there.

100% this

@Mylittlecoconuts Yes, it makes no sense how someone could see a little girl in the men's room(with her dad) as being a worse option than an ADULT male in the women's room where he could see women and girls of all ages undressed.

I would (and have in the past) gone fucking apeshit at the men and complained to the management.

A man was most upset that I wouldn’t allow him to enter the women’s changing rooms to get his daughter ready for her lesson. Couldn’t understand why the other females wouldn’t want him there and did I really expect him to take his daughter into the mens! Prick.

@bythere There is no women in there. This is a primary school changing room and I would be worried if an adult of any gender got undressed in any of the changing rooms with children in there.

@bythere I mean women getting undressed - only adults helping children.

At 7, girls are not going to want to change in front of 7yo boys, but they probably wouldn’t care quite as much about there being dads around.

So perhaps the dads have a point from the perspective of how the children would feel about it. (That it makes more sense to segregate by the child’s sex that the parent)

However having said that I think most dads would realise they’d be seen as a safeguarding risk, and be mortified and uncomfortable and would just not attend somewhere with those facilities.

I am surprised the men don't contact the centre to ask for a solution. Possibly a compromise of earlier access to change their girls first in the men's and have ponchos by the side of the pool, plus leave a bit earlier. As they are the ones who do not want their daughters around men and boys they are the ones who should be looking for solutions.

Policy at our swim school is you get changed in the changing room of the sex if the child, so I go in the boys with DS. YABU to assume that the policy should be different!

Did you get an answer to your email @ewchoc ?

No reply. No men there the next week, haven't been back since because we all have covid