I did a recce in M&S Hastings this morning. I went into the, what everyone up till now will have thought of and probably still does, men’s changing room - at the end of the shop where the men’s clothes are, with a huge photo of a man on the wall that hits you in the eye while you’re still well outside, and with black and white pics of men covering the cubicle doors. Then I went into the, ditto, ladies’. All among the women’s underwear, torso mannequin wearing bra and knickers facing the door, sign saying ‘millions of women in Britain are wearing the wrong size bra’, and moderately sultry pics of women on the doors. I saw no difference between the cubicle layouts: both formerly-men’s and formerly- women’s had doors with gaps at the bottom, benches you could stand on to look over into the next cubicle, and disabled cubicles at the end with curtains, not doors.
I went back into the men’s to check about the disabled cubicle, as I hadn’t noted it properly the first time.
There were no staff and no customers in either. Each was signed simply ‘Fitting Room’.
Then I spoke to three female members of staff who were standing together, emphasising several times that I knew they weren’t responsible for the policy, and listing all the reasons why it was bad for women. And why it was deceptive, when the two fitting rooms were so obviously still ‘sexed’ in every way except for the verbal signs ouside.
I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I’ll just say that their attitudes seemed to vary.
I did ask if they’d been given extra training after this policy had been revealed. One of them told me they’d been given ‘a piece of paper telling us what to say’.