It’s official; Marks and Spencer have fallen, the sequel.......

[MrsSnippyPants]

First thread getting full and and I continue to be interested in responses received to people’s emails and store visits.

Scurrying inning thill enough now then is it? It’s an audience.

Are they separated off though, with floor to ceiling doors Vicky? If the unisex toilets have doors you could look over or underneath I think they're illegal.

Toilet regulation has taken peeping toms into account.

Like this? Fitting room

A poster on another thread has said that she was sexually assaulted as a teenager in a fully enclosed, lockable cubicle - she could not see the man behind the door, and when he had her trapped in there she could not be heard from outside.

Men DO NOT BELONG in women’s toilets and fitting rooms. Under any circumstances.

Men DO NOT BELONG in women’s toilets and fitting rooms. Under any circumstances.

I agree, they bloody don't.

If life, custom and shopping has evolved to provide big stores where women can buy off the peg clothing and try them on in a changing room provided for the purpose, then the shop needs to accommodate that system.

As far as I remember, Marks & Spencers didn't used to have any changing rooms at all. The arrogance was that they expected you to buy things without trying them on, and be forced to return them if they didn't fit.

Suddenly providing changing rooms changed their fortunes.

But for a long time, their attitude did not allow it. It seems that attitude is alive and kicking.

(Sorry just to be clear, that was a toilet cubicle. But the point I’m making is, you either have to make the walls completely soundproof, which has its own safety issues, or you have the problem of being able to hear each other.)

And again, the overriding principle is, instead of telling us you’re going to ‘make it as safe as possible’ and that you will ‘deal with inappropriate behaviour’ (TOO LATE), why not just leave our safe female-only spaces well alone??

Are they separated off though, with floor to ceiling doors Vicky? If the unisex toilets have doors you could look over or underneath I think they're illegal.

They were. Aside from the fact that they were alarmingly filthy (honestly, piss everywhere - almost as if at least one man had gone in and done it on purpose), however, the risk of being shoved into one and trapped in there by a predatory man is a big worry.

My husband’s work place has changed their separate male:female toilets to Unisex ones following advice from Stonewall. Apparently the facilities manager is getting a lot of complaints from women about the state of the toilets are left in after use by men.

I wonder if they considered disability access quite so seriously?

Could any of you wise ones pop over to AIBU and talk sense on this thread please? Men sat in women's changing rooms sorry, I don’t know how to link

link

Some of these experiences with perverted men looking for any opportunity to wank over unsuspecting women and getting them to play along are revolting.

Reminds me of a friend who volunteered at the Samaritans. Apparently a good percentage off calls answered by female volunteers are from men who want to engage them in conversation that they then turn sexual. Volunteers are trained to deal with it because dirty callers are so common. And persistent apparently.

But men would never abuse changing room provision in M&S would they? No no no! Bigots all for even suggesting it.

Will the staff be trained beyond the rainbow ‘everyone is who they say they are’. Risk assessment, confrontation management, dealing with aggressive and angry customers?

Thank you happiness

Reminds me of a friend who volunteered at the Samaritans. Apparently a good percentage off calls answered by female volunteers are from men who want to engage them in conversation that they then turn sexual. Volunteers are trained to deal with it because dirty callers are so common. And persistent apparently.

I used to be a Childline counsellor, and we were trained to deal with this too. I did one 4 hour shift a week, and it probably happened to me 1 in every 3 shifts. There are a lot of perverts out there.

@HumberHellraiser
My elderly MIL used to volunteer for Samaritans and reported the same - many, many creepy men ringing up women that can’t escape them. She particular liked the chap that wanted to know what knickers she was wearing massive belly warmers

HumberHellraiser*

That's my experience too with Samaritans. My shift, due to the time of the day I suspect, particularly seemed to attract those men who seemed to wake up and want to share their fantasies.

And these blokes didn't realise that most of the Samaritans weren't shocked by their stories (I suspect that's what they were thinking, that they were shocking us whilst getting off). Most of the women were just bored and fed up of these blokes using the line as wank-material.

We weren't horrified, shocked, or clutching our pearls.

We were there to try to help people in distress.

And each call we were taking with the man who wanted to tell us about their silk stocking fantasies were stopping us taking the call from someone in distress.

And yes, silk-stocking man, we dealt with you calmly and kindly because you may one day be that person who properly needed the line.

Ok I replied to my stock answer.
I asked if they were new to the internet and hadnt found the abundance of evidence that men like to pray on women.
I directed them to reddit and the men who like to wank and leave deposits on seats in women only spaces
I asked if they had notified their insurers of this increased risk.
And finally I asked if they had made very clear that the rooms were now mixed sex and if not why not.

I actually cannot believe I wrote "wanking" in an email to m and s
😱

Prey urnnngggh

@dangerfloof this is not just wanking, this is M&S wanking.

I'm thinking I might use that as a headline on some of the leaflets.

In Samaritans we called them the 'early risers'. You had to check they weren't asthmatic hence panting, before ending the call. Routine part of the training as it's so common FFS

corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/policy-documents/code-of-ethics.pdf

A copy of this internal Code of Practice is given on the (publicly-available) corporate M&S site, interesting to read it.

It has a list of some protected characteristics and some other inclusions they’ve added of their own under the non-discrimination section (see the ‘Colleagues’ heading on page 6).

Guess which legally protected characteristic is NOT included? ‘Gender’ seems to have been put in there instead.

Yeah, let’s share facilities! But first let’s have a look... www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-offender-gordon-pike-helped-set-prison-trans-rules-q8n3lnksv

Quelle surprise. It’s the Stonewall/Gendered Intelligence calling card. They must supply cut and paste policies for these companies.

Have just asked Facebook to stop showing me M&S ads. It wanted to know why and the nearest option was ‘sensitive subject’