M&S + John Lewis - your poor Christmas sales will be due to the contempt you've shown your female customers

[Sunkisses]

It's all over the news that M&S and John Lewis have had terrible Christmas sales. I am absolutely sure this is due to the terrible press coverage they received and viral threads of Twitter about how they allow men into the female changing rooms, the contempt they treated their female customers with when we voiced our complaints, and the 1,000s of us who pledged not to shop with them over Christmas. I stuck by my pledge over Christmas and they lost about £1,000 of custom from me with gifts and food. Anyone else kept up their boycott?

Sorry to drop and run about Timpsons! (They also own Johnson Dry Cleaners by the way). They mend phones and tablets too. And watches. Prison education, recruit ex-offenders (both women and men), and treat their staff really well - own holiday homes staff can stay in for free, big profit share paid weekly, day off on your birthday, maternity bonuses.

Here's the chief exec's Twitter, which is lovely.

twitter.com/JamesTCobbler

I see Snowblight has decamped to other threads now. I wonder why?!

Thanks I had no idea about Timpsons.

Yo I bust him in the eye, and then I'll take the punk's hoe

If your girl steps up, I'm smacking the hoe.

I still can't get over this.

If they knew, then it's unbelievably snide, or worse, contemptuous.

And if they didn't ... well why didn't they???

Christmas adverts are huge. How many people signed off?

Ugh.

Johnsons ( my local one anyway) has a sign that says they dryclean interview outfits for unemployed people for free.

It's the lingerie reviews on the website that send out the most unpleasant corporate message, imo.

If they simply scrapped the completely unnecessary 'gender' marker against a person's name then they could pretty much eradicate the problem in an instant.

But they haven't, despite this being pointed out, which speaks volumes. They clearly see men buying women's underwear for themselves as a significant market.

It's one of the weirdest marketing decisions no matter what your personal feelings as a marketeer.

To me, this suggests that there’s just disdain for middle-aged, middle-class women from M and S. As though this group of women are so bland and homogenous that they’re unlikely to think about issues like feminism and sex-based rights but just robotically shop in M and S as always. It’s not even like they’ve just been dismissive of their core demographic, it’s almost like we just don’t exist. There’s an inherent misogyny at the core of the decision.

It's one of the weirdest marketing decisions no matter what your personal feelings as a marketeer

Did nobody in M & S management ask "Do our women customers want men in their changing rooms? How will they feel having their bra fittings with a man in the next door changing room?" Or even, "What's the evidence that women want mixed sex changing rooms?"

Either they are totally out of touch or they are so completely frightened of the woke bullies that none of them dared ask. Or of course they just said - "Fuck women. They'll do as we say"

Been boycotting for around a year now - since this first reared it's head and I was basically told to f off by their chat bot, and that they weren't going to change their policy.
My bras are quite nasty and old now. Keep trying different supermarkets. I won't give in.

I think if they really believe in being inclusive and that TWAW they should have Kelly Malone or Eddie Izzard modeling some bras and knickers on their website snd in their magazines. Why wouldn’t they? Don’t just talk the talk - walk the walk

Just had another Sparks email from M&S, finally got around to Unsubscribing rather than just delete it. They asked why, and gave me a text box .

probably aren't buying anything more than a packet of Pervy Pigs.

I have just RTFT and am amazed nobody picked up on this

I propose "Pervy Pigs" as the new name for the dodgy blokes who want to get into women's facilities. Especially at M&S.

(BTW, has anyone sent this thread to Steve Rowe and his fellow bunch of largely pale, male and stales?)

Pervy Pigs.

Ideal.

Pervy Pigs - perfect

To the poster upthread who mentioned tights, try Asda. Bonus points as the store is on Terfblocker, so I support them and their terfery even more.

"Nothing you do makes any difference" turns into "you, personally, are putting shops out of business" so easily when the first tactic isn't working.

Doesn't it?

Why is Asda on terfblocker?

"Nothing you do makes any difference" turns into "you, personally, are putting shops out of business" so easily when the first tactic isn't working.

Oh no you don't! It was the management decision to engender women's safety and utterly disregard their privacy and dignity that put that train in motion.

M&S started their own downfall/risk to jobs. We're just reacting to being told we're not welcome. Stop being so weaselly.

Another one who abandoned M&S before Christmas for their anti women policies. Have discovered a great local butcher and farm shop as a result and am happy with that money going to local businesses.

Clothes.... no idea where I'll be shopping now since M&S would have always been my first choice, but I won't be returning there or spending money anywhere else with these anti women beliefs.

Why is Asda on terfblocker?

God knows. There's no rhyme or reason to this insanity.

I must admit, I thought it would be harder to boycott M&S than it has turned out to be. My default shop for underwear, basic t-shirts, trousers etc. Quite a lot of food too.

I had already started to wean myself off the Food Hall because of the overpackaging (whatever happened to 'Plan A. because there is no Plan B.', M&S?) but still bought loose fruit & veg, cheese etc. That's gone now too, M&S's loss is Sainsbury's gain. Clothing, I don't buy loads, but I needed a new winter jacket and had liked one in M&S, but fuck 'em, splashed £140 with Seasalt instead. I now need slippers, have bought from M&S for years - fuck 'em, there's loads in the smaller shops in our High Street, I'll buy elsewhere. Bras are going to be tricky, the Rosie range fitted me well, and Bravissimo was my second choice but again - fuck 'em, I'll find somewhere else to spend my money.

It's actually not been too difficult. It's been a surprise really. The quality drop-off of recent years means anywhere I've used instead so far has been at least as good and often better. I won't be back. I'm building up new loyalties to new-to-me shops.

Same for me - as I said, I live right next to one of their shops so I did most of my incidental spending on clothing/homeware/some foods/gifts with them. It was very hard at first over birthdays and Christmas as it was my go-to but actually, I’ve not missed it at all and I probably won’t go back even if they do come to their senses at some point. Too little, too late.

Why is Asda on terfblocker?

I think it was when the TRAs (mostly male bodied people and woke youngsters) decided to “go after” any of the companies that deal with Mumsnet (the site made up of mostly women who makes the majority of shopping decisions). I’m sure Asda are devastated. 😁

Oh. Asda sell jam to women and so are hateful bigots?

Gotcha.

Scum.

So a bunch of TRAs decided to invade the womens changing rooms at M&S.

Changing rooms that they had already been given access to use freely. So why the need to invade them?

It's a puzzle...

We boycotted M&S and JL, and will continue to do so until they respect females.
They lost hundreds of pounds from us over xmas alone - loads of things I would normally buy from them, I bought elsewhere. ALL our household stuff normally came from them - now we need new towels and blender, for example, and we'll buy them elsewhere. Bras and underwear all came from there, loads of clothing, footwear, etc for decades - now, elsewhere.

Many posters here are saying that even if policies are changed they won't be back. I'm not sure what incentive shops have to change their policies on trans customers then really...