Men in women’s spaces

[BrightSaturn]

Just using this to rant really…

2 times in the past month I have encountered men in women only spaces.

1. I went to a feeding room to breastfeed my daughter in a shopping centre. I walked in and there were two young women in there changing their babies and one of their boyfriends just taking up one of the only chairs just sitting there, sitting using his phone. It’s a small room with 3 chairs in. I didn’t know what to do so I thought I’ll just sit down and get ready slowly and hopefully they’ll leave. I have fed in public but this was a small room so I felt vulnerable and like he shouldn’t be there and I didn’t want to lift my top up whilst he was sitting basically opposite me so I eventually asked if he could leave the room, they looked annoyed but thankfully he did go, after she looked at him and said “it’s up to you”…
2. I went into a changing room in a shop the other day with my mum, imagine a big room with seats in the middle and curtained dividers all round the outside. My mum was only trying on cardigans so really she just needed a mirror but in the middle on a seat was a boy about 17/18 years old. His girlfriend was trying on clothes. I couldn’t believe it! It wasn’t even doors on the changing rooms, just curtains. Why he thought this was acceptable I have no idea. Again I felt vulnerable and this time I didn’t have the confidence to ask him to leave. If my mum had been actually changing I would have probably found a shop assistant but still it’s not fair that we have to ask them to leave, he should not have been there in the first place!

aibu to think women’s spaces are being invaded more and more? How can we stop this from happening?

Curtains are frequently badly fitting and leave gaps. Not the main point of the thread I know but an easy "fix" for this, if shops really want to go for unisex changing rooms is a an actual door with a bolt on it. And yes, @Blackandwhites @totallynormal to step out and do a twirl if approval is really needed. A touch of "embarrassment" is really nothing in the wider picture of people being safe and unthreatened surely.

So many shops now have mixed sex changing rooms or allow men in on a ‘self id’ basis (ie he can just walk in and they will assume he identifies as a woman, whether he actually does or not).

The high proportion of sexual
assaults and voyeurism that mixed sex facilities generate compared to single sex has been known for years but the people making these decisions still go ahead.

Stonewall and its nationwide push for ‘inclusivity’ has explicitly demanded this, thus removing the spaces that have been hard fought for by women.

It is clearly not working well for women, countless uncomfortable encounters like OPs, tearful girls recording their upset at being filmed by men or men deliberately opening the curtain to their changing cubicle, but these organisations press on regardless. Companies like Marks & Spencer and John Lewis even make snarky remarks to women who complain. They clearly don’t want our custom.

There are many incidents in M&S stores, a woman was flashed at by a man in the female changing rooms, staff report ‘bodily fluids’ on women’s clothing and people born male film themselves with an erection in the women’s changing.

None of these things have prompted a policy change so we just have to conclude that despite being their core market, our safety and comfort don’t matter to them and take our business elsewhere.

Sounds like sexist patronising b'shit. What a horrible attitude. Not you obviously but is awful if this is what HV's are trained. Or is this just her personal opinion?

It might not bother you, but just this year we had report after report of women being recorded in changing rooms (and one by a police man no less) and women having men walking into cubicles all in Primark where they introduced their mixed sex changing rooms. The fallout was immediate. In terms of whether I’d risk being sexually assaulted or being a bit embarrassed at having to nip out the changing room - well I know which one has more serious consequences.

I'm not sure to be honest. The conversation came up in the context of a relative commenting on how much fuss the midwives seemed to make of her male partner when she was in labour. Constantly asking if he was OK, saying how difficult men found it, and how brave he was. Then acting like cutting the cord was THE job of the day. My SiL then made the comment that that the way to bring men on board and make them useful was to give them a job and make them feel important, otherwise they tended to either get in the way or disengage. Don't know whether it's from training or experience.

Seconded

And yes

posts like that amaze me, its the same when posters (on other threads obviously) talk about single sex toilets like they are a new thing

I'm just hoping that the terf toilets we're being promised materialise at some point.

Just before Xmas I was in a shopping centre and tried on a top in one of the changing rooms that is a large central space with curtained cubicles. No sales asst or other shoppers in there. As I stripped off my top I heard a cough outside, thinking it was a sales asst I peeked round the curtain to see a bloke just standing there. He appeared to be on his own and he looked and smiled at me.

I suddenly felt very vulnerable even though I think I am quite a confident assertive woman. I quickly dressed and opened the curtain and he was gone, but it did shake me up.

He may have been allowed in there but it did freak me out a bit.

I would not have challenged him (how could I if he's allowed) to be there) but I will not use changing facilities again. This is what happens when single sex spaces are quietly shelved and made inclusive. Women lose.

That’s it. Chipping away at everything we’ve had to reserve for our own privacy, (and often protection), as well as the very language that describes us, until we’ll find soon that WE are seen as the threat now.
I tell you, we’ll look back at typical 1950s patriarchal attitudes and wish we we back there, at this rate. It was one thing being shackled by old fashioned social customs, but to be recast as the main threat to a civilised modern society shows us just how much women have always been hated. Germaine Greer was absolutely right, in The Female Eunuch: we really had no idea how deep this loathing ran, nor how dangerous it was.

I'm sorry that happened to you. This is it - it also normalises men being in spaces that previously would have been just for women. So whilst everyone's boyfriends/husbands etc may be lovely & harmless, it means that when there IS a man in there who means us harm, they are able to hide in plain sight as the usual internal red flags aren't activated. And the predatory ones know this and know women are becoming increasingly not allowed to challenge them.

They were called parents rooms everywhere I lived even in the 90s and it was nothing to do with Stonewalls influence. It was do to with the fact that women didn't want baby changing facilities to called "mother and baby rooms". Maybe you lived in an area that was in the dark ages where baby changing was still considered women's work but that is hardly progress. Taking away the ability of men to contribute to childcare takes away women's rights rather men's in most cases. There is obviously a bit of a conflict with women's rights to be able to share childcare and women's rights to be able to breastfeed privately but any commercial setting is going to go with the majority if they don't want to provide two separate facilities. Far more people need baby changing facilities than breastfeeding facilities so if there is one room available, baby changing will be prioritised.

If there really were two separate rooms then I would ask to get the baby changing facilities removed from the breast feeding room. That would prevent this. Who wants to feed near dirty nappies anyway?

See this is what I just don't get. Surely any decent man would be embarrassed and mortified in that situation. My DH wouldn't dream of being in there, let alone smiling at a woman poking her head around the curtain. It's just not appropriate.

What's happened to make men feel they can be in these spaces, and why are some women saying it's ok?

I tandem fed for a long time & there is no way of doing that discretely. As soon as baby went on one, my top would be around my neck & young toddler on the other. I used to throw everyone out of feeding rooms unless they were actually sat there breastfeeding. I didn't even want an audience of nanna or older children, never mind men. I never got any resistance, nannas were often fantastic & stood guard outside (my own mum was long dead so I really appreciated the understanding, camaraderie & care from older women).

You're missing the history of this - which I've evidently not explained clearly. So once more:
In the 80's & 90's women campaigned for the establishment of breast feeding spaces along with making it acceptable to breast feed anywhere. Back then it was frowned on to breastfeed in public and women were often kicked out of shops, cafes etc for doing so. In response to campaigns many large stores established "breastfeeding" spaces - many used "mother's rooms" (squeamish about using the word breastfeeding) After this, came important campaigns to ensure that fathers did their fair share of childcare and many of the breastfeeding spaces morphed into parent / family spaces.

Stonewall's toxic influence is recent - back in the 80s they were great - in London they even had meetings for lesbian mothers. We were coming out of a dark time where women lost custody of their babies if they left their husband for a woman, so being an open lesbian parent was only just becoming "socially acceptable". I personally wouldn't call living in London in the 80s the "dark ages" but you may see it like that
What this thread is recording is the progress from establishing resources to aid a woman's need to breastfeed when out of the home, social changes to seeing childcare as the responsibility of both parents & now the unfortunate influence of Stonewall and their determination to remove the language of women and deny any specific biological impact of our sex.

Some of the above is unintended consequences. And some is a vicious attack on women's rights.

Sorry for the lengthy posts but I hate it suggested that older women are "in the dark ages" when we try to explain the broad history of women's activism.

I'm not missing the history of it. I was breastfeeding in the 90s and was involved with campaigns for breastfeeding facilities and for women to be able to feed anywhere. Campaigning for men to be able to change nappies did not come after this- it was at the same time and isn’t in conflict as there's no need for nappy changing and breastfeeding to be in the same room. The last place I would want to feed is where someone is changing dirty nappies anyway. That isn’t much better than breast feeding near toilets.
Not everything is about Stonewall or trans issues and this has nothing to do with it.

Great that you were involved with the campaigns for breastfeeding facilties in the 90s. Maybe you can have a word with posters like Tryingformore1
disneydreaming101, lawandgin & minimarshmallowsmore who spent a lot of time insisting that these campaigns didn't exist.

Sadly the groups you were involved must have been unsuccessful (unlike the London based groups) as yesterday at 23:42 you posted
"It would be a good idea for there to be separate breast feeding areas but generally there aren't and there never have been".

Are you saying that breastfeeding facilities were always separate from baby changing facilities in London? I didn't live there in the 90s but don't remember that when visiting. Regardless, I said that generally they have never existed separately from baby changing not that there have never been separate facilities anywhere. It's nothing to do with Stonewall or trans issues.

So many ignorant and pretty nasty comments on this post, not surprising but still really disheartening.

women dismissing others breast feeding experiences, and basic facts because they don’t like the idea that involving men in the process actually helps women and has been shown to improve outcomes for women to be able to feed for longer. The lactation consultant I went to a few weeks after my DS (who is now 8 months) was very informed on this and actively promoted her group sessions and classes to both parents for this very reason, she had seen that since including partners in those sessions those who attended with support ended up requiring less sessions and reported being able to feed for an extended period of time. It’s also backed up by many health visitors as my NCT friends all reported they were pleasantly surprised at how many partners attended their BF sessions and how normal it was.

women totally ignoring the fact this was a family/feeding room not a womens only space, so shouldn’t even be on this post in the first place. We need to focus on men actually invading womens spaces, not spaces they’re more than welcome in. Doing so just makes those arguing for that look really silly and invalidates the genuine concerns many have around men in womens changing facilities. And if you don’t welcome all parents into feeding spaces you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

add into that posters oddly claiming all family or feeding rooms were once mothers or breastfeeding rooms it’s almost a perfect storm of a post. Those with sensible and fact based replies being shot down by pigeons playing chess.

Involve your male partner in your breastfeeding by all means; the rest of us don't need your partner involved in ours.
Women had to literally fight for the right to breastfeed, no one wanted to see us do it and that's why we were given private rooms.
The fact that you want to make single sex facilities mixed sex is your problem. Stop making it ours.

Well, of certain types of know it all mothers weren't such bitches, I wouldn't have required the support of my husband in the feeding room.

Maybe think before making "helpful" suggestions on how other parents feed their children.

I've never said they were separate - as you pointed out in one of your posts, these are commercial organisations with limited space and resources. I'm not arguing about language - simply highlighting the importance of those early campaigns (which you now suddenly appear to have been involved in) and recognising how over the years the focus has shifted and unintentionally some women's spaces removed.
Stonewall's recent involvement is toxic because their determination to remove all sex based language makes it difficult to argue for women's needs. It also intimidates people into silence for fear of being accused of being bigots or terfs for talking about women and rights.
Good thing that wasn't prevalent in the 90s eh or women like you would never have been able to campaign for "breastfeeding facilities and for women to be able to feed anywhere" 😉

Off to do some NYE prep so wishing everyone happy new year.

There have been lots of nasty comments from both ‘sides’ of this argument

If the breastfeeding facilities were not separate from baby changing then they never should have been "women only" spaces and there was no campaign for them to be women only spaces because women wanted men to be able to change nappies too! You aren't arguing for women's needs by stating that baby changing facilities should be women only spaces so no need to be upset that Stonewall have made you feel you can't. I think most women would prefer it if nappy changing while out and about isn’t something only women can do.