To think we should all boycott John Lewis until they respect their female employees

[Lovelyview]

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/resignation-letter-from-a-john-lewis

This is a letter from a female employee of John Lewis's Cheadle branch. John Lewis told its female employees that they have to share toilets and locker rooms with trans identifying men. The employee says this is having a terrible effect especially on colleagues who have experienced trauma relating to men or who have religious reasons to not want to share a space with someone who is the opposite sex.

No, just pets. My colleague took her dog to see Father Christmas last year (she does have a toddler too :) but couldn't find anyone to look after the dog. So instead of her partner waiting outside with the dog/taking it to one of the many parks in London they took it into the shop).

I am with the pp - dogs do not belong in department stores.

And male bodied people do not belong in toilets for female bodied people. JL shops are big enough to have a few unisex toilets and changing rooms.

That’s because JL look after their male employees.

I will happily boycott. Its shameful that they are allowing this.

Exactly. Boycotting a company that employs so many people (and is struggling already) is basically telling the women who work for the company that you'd rather they lose their jobs @Lovelyview

If you want to support them, write to the company instead of taking action that may mean they lose their jobs.

Good idea. Maybe tweeting them too if you feel strongly. I think they have a tweeter.

Is JL unionised? It's a partnership so doesn't have employees, so far as I'm aware.

Unfortunately John Lewis is morphing away from it's winning formula.
It will go the way of other large dept stores.
I don't agree with them forcing females to share like this esp after the case in Scotland.

That's a really interesting point and I agree that writing to John Lewis is a good thing to do. I was just so shocked that they've done this without any consultation at all. John Lewis used to be such a good employer and it seems like they've just thrown all that good will away.

Why would i care who John lewis lets into which toilet?

The letter points to staff members who have experienced abuse and whose religious beliefs would mean they don't want to share spaces with men. I care that women are being put in this position at work in the UK right now. Obviously you don't have to care about it at all.

The retail environment is devastated already. The high street is decimated because people shop online, exacerbated by Covid. Whatever stores are left simply have a mishmash of labels, so shopping online has no preference or loyalty now.

We have a JL Home at a nearby retail park and, as a PP said, it’s like tumbleweed in there. There’s no one to advise on products, in fact very few staff at all.

Everyone knows that assistance dogs are exempt from restrictions, but I don’t want pets in retail outlets either.

With their recent stance, as outlined by their ex employee, it surely can’t be long before they hit the skids too.

I'll boycott because I'm still going everywhere with a relatively small child and I don't want to shop anywhere a K Dolatowski would be welcomed in the women's toilets. My child's safeguarding comes first.

I also feel strongly about religious women and children being excluded by these policies or any woman who needs a single sex space being deceived into the trauma of realizing they're sharing a space with a man without their consent.

John Lewis, like every single other major high street retailer does not ban trans women from women’s loos. You will have to boycott every single one of them. Good luck with that.

You will need to abandon the high street and every single public service, too, because not a single one excludes trans women from women’s loos.

I'm already boycotting John Lewis since their advert where a young boy trashed the house and his Mother and sister's things and for their mixed sex changing rooms.
I'm also boycotting M&S for mixed sex changing rooms and toilets and the awful pervy reviews of women's underwear on their website.

This thread is specifically about how they treat their partners (not employees as I've previously said) Do you have any thoughts about the points raised in the letter I linked to or can you not be bothered to read it?

Yet another reason not to into JL. There is a large one in a nearby city but it is usually empty.

Poor choice, poor customer service, dogs sniffing round the clothes (I have never seen registered guide dogs do that), and now further erosion of women's rights.

I am sorry if women will lose their job but they need to lobby their bosses, en mass, about having to share toilets etc with males.

With this sort of crappy attitude to their main customer base they deserve to fail. They'll be replaced by another business in the same space - hopefully one that has a better approach to women's rights, their female employees and child safeguarding, and by doing so do better at giving the customer what they want.

That’s discriminatory against women. They should take it up with their union.

I don’t use John Lewis much anyway, but will boycott and write to the CEO. Does this policy also apply to their Waitrose stores?

Fine with me, plenty of local independent retailers have single sex spaces and run by sex realists with a grasp of child safety, because I chat with them about it. More expensive but I can afford it. The MRAs deserve to fail. And public services will be sued back into single sex provision pretty soon, contributing to crowd funders will speed that up.

They all let men into women’s toilets? Trying to imagine the epic privilege in being able to be nonchalant about this.

Agree. It used to be a good shop but not anymore. Women will work and shop elsewhere.

How would you even go about that?

How do you choose to not financially support the NHS?

Would fit right in Afghanistan with that attitude! Completely fine with women being excluded from public spaces - exactly like the Taliban.