Gym thinks only men can be Drs

[DrElizabethPlimpton]

I've just seen a link to a Daily Fail article (I won't link obviously) about a gym in Cambridgeshire

A paediatrician joined and she found that her electronic key wouldn't allow her access to the female changing room. The 'glitch' was explained by staff - apparently her title Dr automatically defaulted to the assumption she was male.
I'm currently speechless.

Once you've been living as a woman for a decade or two you'll see how naive that viewpoint is Kim.

Thank you, I do appreciate the apology, but I'm afraid I do have things to say all the same.

It is upsetting for me to be told, repeatedly, that I have been 'abusive' based on your misreading, you know. I have a fair amount of experience of abuse. I find it triggering to be accused of it.

And I am mentioning this because, you see, you do tend to post as if only your feelings could ever be important or valid. Your feelings are important and valid. But, so are mine. I don't bang on about them all the time because I think it's derailing and unpleasant, but I think because of this, you tend to imagine you're the only one who might find the conversation upsetting.

You find it 'upsetting' I said I didn't think you believed misogyny was real. But is that so different from you saying we are only 'probably' responding based on experience? You casting doubt on my lived experience isn't any less upsetting than me casting doubt on your beliefs, is it?

It's this double standard I find difficult to deal with. I can't have an honest argument with you, because you will dish it out, but you won't take it.

Anyone remember the riddle?

A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon (doctor) says 'I can not do the surgery because this is my son'. How is this possible?

It is a really, really old riddle. I first heard it probably 20 years ago. And we still have the attitude it was pointing out.

So I wouldn't be holding my breath for the change in the IT system, or the attitudes that it is holding up to the cold light of day

I'd love a title that didn't include my gender or my marital status because as I'm Ms I'm obviously divorced but unfortunately I haven't got 8 years to devote to becoming a doctor not that it would matter because they're men

Well, I appreciate that restraint, thought it'd have been nice to have some acknowledgment.

heck - yes, good point.

Kim if your brain was more logical you could deduce that (a) it takes more than a few days to change an IT system within a business and (b) it makes more sense for the gym to ignore this than it does for them to spend money changing it.

Nice, though that you can brush off women's views as being not logical.

We just read up thread heckler, two dads.

My brain also sees a problem, a solution, and an easy fix.

And then it sees the blinking obvious, which is that - as usual - ingrained misogyny will frustrate said easy fix.

This is not about your brain functioning in a special and unique way.

Kim I don't think you doing a course once makes you a great authority on whether this particular problem is easy to fix.

Not that that point changes your inability to understand why it is dismissive to say the woman should just accept being Miss or Mrs in the meantime. From your post, it's clear you think having a gendered title is more important than a title that reflects achievement and you also don't get that feminists don't like gendered titles, especially not ones based on our relationship or otherwise with a man.

Many people have said why you don't get it. You're not listening, as usual.

It is a problem that requires two solutions anyway. The business needs to fix the problem so that it doesn't happen again, and the member of staff dealing with the customer needs to apologise to the customer so that she knows the organisation recognises that they have inconvenienced her.

What's wrong with using a pragmatic interim workaround until the sloppy coding has been fixed? Accepting the workaround until solution is found doesn't mean caving in. Nor does it mean that the long term correct solution won't be implemented. Just means that she can access the right changing room in the mean time.

Hamster, there was some talk of bringing in the gender neutral title Mx.

widow - I don't think anyone thought alex's pragmatic solution was a problem? Even kim accepted it as a possibility, if I remember rightly.

Obviously, you are right, it's important she get to use the changing room.

I will say, though, I think this has another big solution that needs to happen - we do still need the 'ideal world' solution where men and women don't need separate changing rooms, IMO.

Either pragmatic interim solution is OK, in my view. And yes, unisex changing villages FTW. My gym (well the swimming pool therein) does it, and I think it's brilliant.

A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon (doctor) says 'I can not do the surgery because this is my son'. How is this possible?

See, my reaction to this has always been, how can she do the surgery? Surely you're not allowed to operate on someone you're that closely related to?

Good for you. But you know nothing about this database so you don't know if it is an easy fix.

Lovely for you though that you feel confident enough to pronounce on this point with no information about the issue. Funny that.

Actually I can build and code databases using SQL and Access. I did far more than just a course. So yes - it is an easy rule to fix. If it's brought in software, I would be on the phone to the company. They can dial in and update the rules in a few minutes. And it would be done for free

Buahahaha at this. I work full time as an analyst on a database application.

You have no idea how easy a rule it is to fix. This rule may be buried in code that is many thousands of lines long. Then the whole of that functionality would need regression testing to make sure that it has not broken other stuff.

Our clients do not just phone up and we fix stuff. They have to raise a change request, get an impact estimate, raise a purchase order and then we schedule the work. Not all of them we can 'dial in'. We do nothing for free.

Your post sounds like you have no idea of the practicalities of commercial software, but may have dabbled a bit elsewhere.

Your post sounds like you are extrapolating your experience of that dabbling should be applicable to commercial software companies. This is not the case.