The thing is, some of the views on this thread mirror the official M&S stance; that it’s ok for men to try and discuss underwear with children. The company won’t say men who work for them won’t, or implement such a policy, so essentially saying “children may be approached by men who work in our stores to check if they need help with underwear purchases. It’s fine.”
It seems a company that’s totally disjointed and at odds with itself. The first communication with the mum was apologising and confirming the employee should not have been in the lingerie section. Then it hit the press and the official line dialled back that admission to suggest they should have been and it was a totally normal interaction. They also rather concerningly refused to acknowledge the issue being around the fact the girl is 14 and described the child as a “customer”. How has the issue been dealt with internally regarding that first apology? They’re in a tricky position either way with employee rights.
pps have pointed out the employee is identifiable. Is M&S leaving its staff open to this? If the mum had complained about bearded Gavin from food approaching her daughter in lingerie would they have said “oh sorry, come back and we’ll make sure Gavin doesn’t ask her about bras (though it might happen again to other girls).” The mum would have gone on X and told everyone his name as a warning, but the company would likely have taken the issue more seriously to start with and it wouldn’t have gone that far. On X the mum described the employee who went up to her 14 year old as a man of about 6,2 in tight jeans and shirt. She doesn’t say if she saw a name badge but whatever additional details she gave to the company were enough for them to know which employee she was referring to.
One pp accused the mum of transphobia, supposing that the mum wouldn’t mind any other man from the store engaging with her child about underwear (🤨). And without a confirmation or policy either way from M&S, the store is actually greenlighting all its male staff to do just that from now on if they want to. “She looked bewildered by all the different styles of knickers, I was just being nice and offering to help, like thingy did in that other store”. Wild.