Young dependent male children in women's only spaces?

[PrincessTeacake]

Long term lurker here, very infrequent contributer.

Circumstances over the last year have meant I spent most of my very little free time on Tumblr, for convenience's sake, and I fell into the radfem circles there. Every now and then there's a rift in the community over something and it all gets a bit childish because they are mostly young and quite reactionary. I stay out of it for the most part, but I wanted to get some (more sensible) opinions here on the latest rift.

Someone brought up the topic of little boys in women's only spaces (bathrooms, changing rooms, emergency shelters) and there was a lot of talk about how boys can't be trusted under any circumstances, that it was equally as bad as letting intact transwomen in, and naturally some of the mothers in the community got quite upset. There was a lot of anti-child rhetoric being thrown around and some harassment of the mothers.

What's the consensus here? I'm asking mostly for one of my online friends, she was very upset by this discussion and was on the receiving end of quite a bit of the bullying.

We have one disabled changing room at our local pool but otherwise its just the gender segregated changing rooms. No family rooms, no cubicles. No one seems to mind boys up to around 8 or 9 coming into the ladies but after that they go in the men's and it doesn't seem to be an issue at all. They learn how to change independently when they have swimming lessons with school so its not new for them.

Just to take a slightly different tack - remembering that we are talking about mothers (women) and their young dependant children here (no disputing pubescent males have no place in a women's changing room or toilet and trying not to be dragged into bothering with the poster who seems to think ONLY the child's sex matters, not that of the adults and must think adult men should be changing with their 8/9 yo daughters in women's changing room if their daughters need parental help, as she suggests that mothers should change in the men's with their sons... though what they do if they have children of both sexes is unclear)...

Why are we emphasising the malesness of children so heavily that some people are claiming 8 year old girls are embarrassed in front of 8 year old boys.

The PrincessTeacake started off by talking about radical feminists not wanting any young male children in women's spaces, but I find it weird that we want to put such a heavy focus on the gender of children in this case. If radical feminism is about getting to the real root of the problem rather than blaming individuals (in this case the mothers of dependant male children are clearly the ones under attack for theoretically potentially making some women or possibly same age female children uncomfortable) should we not be looking at why childhood has become so sexualised that we all think it is normal for 8 year old girls to be (according to some posters) potentially so embarrassed changing into swimwear in a public changing room with other women and female children and an 8 or 9 year old boy, that they would choose not to go swimming?

9 year olds are still changing in front of each other at school for PE but we are emphasising their sex and gender so heavily on this thread ... when they are still dependant children first, and male or female second (surely).

Everyone is in broad agreement that the smallest boys stay with their mothers in the women's, but I really don't get why people are so determined to be so inflexible about the rule being under 8s and think that 8 year old girls are going to be uncomfortable changing in front of 8 year old boys. If they are, we need to ask why? Not to blame the girls of course, but to question how this has happened on a wider level - to 8 year olds?

Maybe this is all linked to the increased incidence of early puberty etc... but maybe it has a lot more to do with social attitudes.

8 and 9 year olds are just children, or should be - children first and boy or girl children a distant second. An 8 year old boy and an 8 year old girl who don't know each other should surely be more comfortable in each other's presence than with adults they don't know of the same sex...

I was swimming today. Unisex cubicles, a few family ones. On reflection I have never been in a cubicle free swimming pool in Scotland since having dcs, and have been in one elsewhere in UK. Are there loads of them in England?

I don't have a Ds so have never had this dilemma.

I can understand that some mums may worry that 8 or 9 is too young to send them I to the men's changing rooms on their own. The logical part of me says in a busy changing room it's very unlikely anything would happen.

But there are sometimes stories in the media. wasn't there a 14yo boy raped in the toilets in debenhams in Manchester a while ago? I certainly vividly remember an 11yo girl being raped in the toilets at a local national trust property near me nearly 30 years ago. One of the Drs I now work with treated this girl immediately after the incident so I know it's not just gossip.

Dragonsdaughter, precious snowflakes????? for goodness sakes, if only the odd person or two had the slightest bloody idea!!!!! no sorry thats wrong a few of you have, just other people not so understanding.

Our nearest local pool is pretty grotty and definitely only has a women's and a men's cubicle free changing room each with uncubicled showers. There is a disabled toilet but not disabled changing room - it is actually part of DD's secondary school, open to the public outside school hours. We don't go there for family swimming any more - not due to the changing facilities specifically, just because it isn't a very nice pool and stinks of chlorine :(
There are no notices up about minimum ages and we haven't been there as a family since years before my older DS turned 8 - there were small boys in the women's (mine too) but I have no idea how old the eldest was.

We usually swim at a much larger leisure pool complex which is all cubicles - no specific disabled ones but big family ones - big enough for up to about 4 people to change. Only problem is that sometimes lone adults take them for their solo use... obviously they could be disabled, but probably not all of them, and solo indicates no helper...

The showers are gender segregated and open - no signs about age limits, only signs insisting you shower before entering the pool. My 8 yo male child goes through the male showers and my 5 yo male child (who is bizarrely afraid of showers, very specifically) comes through with my and DD, very often carried by DD as he will go under the shower if carried piggy back by her... I suppose he will probably grow out of it or consent to go with DS1 when he is a bit older - we are in Germany though and I don't think people would be as bothered by a male child walking through the showers here, although if there was a sign up about a rule somebody would take it upon them-self to police it, no matter what the rule :) )

Nit UK any more anyway. I have had problems taking a 5 yo male child into a women's changing room in the UK, where there were no unisex or family facilities - posted about that before. Was several years ago.

"No not me. My son doesn't have ASD."

Many apologies- I mixed you up with another poster. So why did you say you wished you could send your child to the men's changing room but you can't?

"How about we do't fall for the divide-and-conquer shit, and campaign instead for unisex "changing villages" with lockable cubicles? Or the system at my nearest pool of women's, men's and family sections?"

This. I would add campaigning against male violence too as that is what is causing this dichotomy and men are largely absent from this discussion (apart from to make goady, passive aggressive remarks that aren't adding anything) and from the problems it causes in RL. They can walk away from this as with so much.

"But I'm getting increasingly angry on this thread to see that the entire edifice of male entitlement is being blamed on women - mothers - for being worried about keeping their children safe from male violence. And people are doing this in the name of feminism. It's about as sodding unfeminist as you can get in my books."

And this.

"but when push comes to shove I would prioritize the needs of a child regardless of sex over the needs of an able-bodied adult woman."

And the needs of the girls into whose space the boy is encroaching?

"For me, that means more men doing their share of the emotional labour and pulling their weight with the children and women expecting and demanding better of the men in their lives."

Just as an aside that's liberal feminism, not radical feminism (not that there's anything wrong with that I hasten to add).

"one male child alone in an adult male space without his mother is fine. one MTT in a female changing space full of women is terrible though."

I am not following your logic here, Honey. In the first instance, the boy is changing with others of his biological sex (and the male changing rooms is a male space, not an adult male space). In the second, the MTT is of a different biological sex.

Totally agree with scallops that the solution is campaigning for family changing rooms (which also helps 8 year old girls swimming with their dads, of course) or possibly a staff presence in the male changing rooms.

I do think though, that it needs these boys, and their mums, to campaign for appropriate changing, and to stop just using the womens.

Funnily enough, a female objecting to boys in a female space isnt taken seriously. Especially as it is other women taking older boys in, so why would other women disagree?

But if women with older boys think mixed changing is appropriate, why do they not change in the mens? Is their comfort more important than younger female not relatives?

the MTT is being envisioned as a danger because he is biologically male. yet the 8yo child is safe in a roomful of biologially male strangers. that's the logic there.

i agree with pp and i said it earlier - this obsession with dividing small children into males and females with so much emphasis is the antithesis of feminism should be aiming for for me.

especially radical feminism.

I don't believe for a second that boys become sexual predators on their 9th bday, just like I don't believe the male changing rooms are full of adult sexual predators. I do know that for about the last 2&1/2 years, my 12yr old would feel very uncomfortable changing in front of boys age 8+. And that's neither unusual or a precious, ott reaction.

So, honeybadger- are you saying that girls are wrong for not wanting to share changing rooms with boys?

It's not about danger so much with MTT, honey, it's about discomfort.

I don't get that at all from Honeybadger's posts Bertrand. Are you sure you're not putting your own construction on her words in an attempt to make her look bad so you win some kind of moral high ground?

Carol... interesting idea. I can imagine the headlines the first time a woman is raped/assaulted in those circumstances. Especially given the comments on an Indy article today about rape and Tinder and Grindr.

"It's not about danger so much with MTT, honey, it's about discomfort."

Same with men. The vast majority of men are not rapists but we still have separate spaces for women.

Indeed, Cote.

Er.... it's not that easy just to 'use the disabled changing room'. There's often only one (which as often as not is also the disabled loo). And the amount of people who think that it should double as a family changing room is gobsmacking (and no, smiling sweetly as you leave doesn't make it okay). Not to mention that fact that very often people with disabilities will take much longer to get dry and dressed. In the mean time, a child with ASD who is expecting to go swimming may well be becoming more and more distressed.

"don't get that at all from Honeybadger's posts Bertrand. Are you sure you're not putting your own construction on her words in an attempt to make her look bad so you win some kind of moral high ground"

Nope. She said- "this obsession with dividing small children into males and females with so much emphasis is the antithesis of feminism should be aiming for for me"- which seemed to be suggesting that.

I have 2 sons with Asd who have swam competativly all over the country - Yes if we were going somwhere new I rang ahead to just confirm facilities and yes on occasion when have gone a little earlier than the team if it looks like very limited changing. Such is life with disabilities it takes a bit more planning and thought on occasion. I would never prioritise my sons needs over a whole changing room of pre and pubecents girls at club or competition meetings. I wouldnt do it for casual family swimming either. I have a daughter who has had some issues with a male coach in changing rooms and also had remarks made about her developing body in a swim suit by boys of a similar age (then 9/10) at swimming meetings - she would give her sport if she had to change infront of similar aged boys and belive me she is well used to asd behaviour.

'this obsession with dividing small children into males and females with so much emphasis is the antithesis of what feminism should be aiming for for me' -

I thought feminism was about destroying gender stereotypes, not denying biological sexual differences.

And the informal poll; 1) 8y 2) 8y 3) don't know but dd (Y4) says that some girls in her class wear crop tops to feel more comfortable when running so possibly puberty isn't that far away for them.

For those who don't agree with 8 as a cut off, what age do you think it should be? 9? 10?

All swimming pools should have individual changing rooms that are unisex for individuals and family.

There's no way my husband would have taken our daughter into a men's changing room after the age of about three. Actually neither of us are communal undressers anyway and so we would NEVER have taken our children into places where they were expected to undress inform of anyone, or anyone in front of them.

DrSeuss I think 8 is fine as a guideline - it should be a guideline not a rule at 8 and it is the rigidity about it that is ridiculous, as it is still very young and firmly in the realm of childhood. As an absolute iron rule 10 does sound better, but it is a pity people can't be relied on to be sensible and empathetic (women of other women, because these are women who believe they need to supervise their dependent children) and make sensible decisions and not get up in arms if they think a male child might possibly by 8 not 7...

Our pool has a rule that children of 8 and above may swim unaccompanied if they can swim 25 meters - it isn't just about being an arbitrary age, but also a certain level of capability. Its the same for all areas of life. Just as it really isn't sensible to allow an immature 8 yo non swimmer into the main pool area unaccompanied no matter that the rules in some pools might say you can, in the same way not all 8 yos can get changed and showered sorted out and belongings put away and through to the right part of the pool complex alone - the same child might be able to at 9...