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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask why he was in the changing room next door?

128 replies

jessieminto · 01/04/2022 19:53

Met police officer caught filming woman as she undressed in Primark.

Sorry for the DM link, and hopefully I've pasted it right.

Nowhere in the article does it say why he was in the cubicle next door, with free and easy access to slide a phone under the gap and do this.

Are the changing rooms in Primark not spectated by male/female anymore?

mol.im/a/10676217

OP posts:
Bookworm20 · 04/04/2022 12:34

Well from now on I won't just be avoiding buying anything from stores that have unisex changing rooms.
I shall make a point of collecting a fair few clothes to try on, take them to the changing room and then remark I will not in fact be trying them on now as I see their changing rooms are unisex.
Leave the clothes there and leave.
Every time.

If enough women did this whenever we see unisex changing, they might eventually start to consider the insane possibility that most women don't want to change in the same place as men.

And it makes more of a point than just not shopping there again, which was my first reaction.

Mangogogogo · 04/04/2022 12:51

Hmm I don’t think I could get excited about this unless it became epidemic.
Someone I know filmed women changing in the local swimming pool, single sex changing rooms. If they want to do it, they will do it.

SirSamVimesCityWatch · 04/04/2022 13:05

@Mangogogogo

Hmm I don’t think I could get excited about this unless it became epidemic. Someone I know filmed women changing in the local swimming pool, single sex changing rooms. If they want to do it, they will do it.
How many women and girls need to be subjected to voyeurism and sexual assaults in unisex spaces before you care?

Just wondering. I would genuinely like a number.

okayigetit · 04/04/2022 13:15

On one hand it's 'protect women', 'we know it's not all men, but we don't know which men' etc etc and on the other hand it's 'this stuff doesn't happen' the hypocrisy is astounding

Fluffymule · 04/04/2022 13:18

I can't believe sexual predators would go to all the trouble of figuring out what the most "inclusive" high street stores are...

Just like sexual predators would not go to all the trouble of becoming scout masters, swimming instructors, teachers, tv presenters, and all the rest to access vulnerable women or children?

This is what sexual predators do ffs! They will exploit any and all opportunities to hide in plain sight. It's completely naive and dangerous to think otherwise.

caringcarer · 04/04/2022 13:21

Bloody Met again.

NecessaryScene · 04/04/2022 13:23

This is what sexual predators do ffs! They will exploit any and all opportunities to hide in plain sight. It's completely naive and dangerous to think otherwise.

Of course. I need to practice my ironic/sarcastic tone of typing... Smile

ExMachinaDeus · 04/04/2022 13:25

Hmm I don’t think I could get excited about this unless it became epidemic.

Sexual harassment is epidemic. Most women & girls are subjected to it regularly. Voyeurism is a part of that.

But as a PP asks you: How many women should be subject to this before you'll get "excited"?

Fluffymule · 04/04/2022 13:25

Apologies @NecessaryScene I did miss the sarcasm - it's not always easy with some posts on this topic to pick up what is in good faith or not.

okayigetit · 04/04/2022 13:33

Gender neutral facilities don't even make sense as a trans rights argument, surely if trans women are women then they would also not want to share facilities with men, is it for non-binary people? The non binary movement seems totally contradictory to the trans movement

ExplodingElephants · 04/04/2022 13:54

Dreadful. I was in Next the other day and there was a bloke in there with his wife. It just felt so self entitled for him to be in there while other women were getting changed. I told the shop assistant and they told him to leave.

Bookworm20 · 04/04/2022 14:33

@Mangogogogo

Hmm I don’t think I could get excited about this unless it became epidemic.

You are either living on a different planet to the rest of us or you're a man if you don't think its already a problem

borntobequiet · 04/04/2022 16:43

I contacted Primark after my pre-teen granddaughter was made to feel very uncomfortable by two men coming and going in the unisex changing rooms in one of their stores. The young female assistant in charge of the changing area at the time was unable to confront them and was also clearly uncomfortable.

Their response was bland and meaningless, so I replied that I wouldn’t be shopping there again. Their lack of consideration for the privacy and dignity of women and girls in their stores is astonishing.

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 04/04/2022 17:08

It absolutely already is an epidemic.

theviolenceofpornography.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-perversions-of-men.html?m=1&zx=70ed3835d2bab9f6

Mangogogogo · 04/04/2022 17:30

I think there’s a lot of hysteria on here and it isn’t necessarily reflective of the outside world. But if you want to say you think I’m a man you can, says more about you than me, silencing women while moaning about women having their own voices? Bizarre.

SirSamVimesCityWatch · 04/04/2022 17:36

@Mangogogogo

I think there’s a lot of hysteria on here and it isn’t necessarily reflective of the outside world. But if you want to say you think I’m a man you can, says more about you than me, silencing women while moaning about women having their own voices? Bizarre.
I'm not silencing anyone? You said you wouldn't get excited about this at the current number of incidents. I'd love it if you could explain the number of women and girls who need to be recorded, flashed, intimidated and assaulted by men in changing rooms before you think this is a problem.
Mangogogogo · 04/04/2022 17:43

It’s not that I don’t care about the individual. Please don’t get me wrong.
And tbh I think I mixed your message with someone else’s in my brain, so my apologies for that!
My original comment was more aimed at the replies than the op I guess. But I stand by thinking that on here is nothing like the real world, I know because I got caught in the hysteria here too and had to leave for a while to see the world properly. And I still think if men want to do it, they will and they will always find a way and we just cannot live our lives in fear of it. Or at least I don’t want to? I dunno I don’t explain myself well I guess. Sorry also because this comment is probably huge

Borgonzola · 04/04/2022 17:54

Are the Met Police recruiting solely from the Sex Offenders Register now?

WellNotReally · 04/04/2022 18:15

@Mangogogogo

It’s not that I don’t care about the individual. Please don’t get me wrong. And tbh I think I mixed your message with someone else’s in my brain, so my apologies for that! My original comment was more aimed at the replies than the op I guess. But I stand by thinking that on here is nothing like the real world, I know because I got caught in the hysteria here too and had to leave for a while to see the world properly. And I still think if men want to do it, they will and they will always find a way and we just cannot live our lives in fear of it. Or at least I don’t want to? I dunno I don’t explain myself well I guess. Sorry also because this comment is probably huge
We can absolutely make it as safe as possible for women though whilst men continue to commit sexual offences at horrifying levels. Evidence clearly shows that women are safer in single sex changing rooms. No 'hysteria' here
SigourneyHoward · 04/04/2022 18:38

So as I understand it @Mangogogogo your position is - more women need to be harmed before I think it is a problem and simultaneously you believe that men are going to harm women anyway so what's the point in putting in place any safeguarding or preventative measures?

Mangogogogo · 04/04/2022 19:00

Ok yeah, sure

jessieminto · 04/04/2022 19:53

Given the updated guidance from EHRC, is it worth emailing Primark, M&S et al to state why we want and need them to respect our right to single sex spaces?

5	The service is likely to be used by more than one person at the same time and a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a man (or vice versa).

Example: separate male and female changing rooms.

OP posts:
DomesticatedZombie · 04/04/2022 19:55

It's fine, women should obviously just stay at home and preferably cover up when they go out at all. We can't take extreme and bigoted measures like protecting single sex spaces! Otherwise we'd run the risk of upsetting some males and that really wouldn't be kind.

Rinatinabina · 04/04/2022 20:29

I actually had someone say to me about sex segregated spaces once “well women are going to get raped anyway” when i suggested that making everything basically unisex wasn’t a good idea. I was so shocked that this I didn’t even respond. I think there are basically women out there who also don’t care about other women. Like literally don’t think any of this affects them.

May as well not wear a seatbelt because if you are gonna die in a car crash you are going to die in a car crash. Why go to the doctor if cancer going to get you its going to get you anyway. It’s weird that people are happy to accept harm reduction unless it inconveniences a man and the risks are bourne by women.

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

ExMachinaDeus · 04/04/2022 21:42

And I still think if men want to do it, they will and they will always find a way and we just cannot live our lives in fear of it.

Of course not, and, as you say, men will rape & act violently if they want to.

So all the more reason to maintain whatever safeguarding we can set up, without limiting women's lives! Single sex facilities in situations when women & girls are vulnerable to voyeurism & harassment would be a low impact start.

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