M&S Changing Rooms

[Foxglove22]

It seems from these threads that M&S have decided that people can 'choose' which changing rooms they wish to use at their stores whilst not actually clearly marking them as mixed sex:

mobile.twitter.com/OnjaliRauf/status/1562365191458902016

mobile.twitter.com/marksandspencer/status/1562385003866075139

Swimming pool near me has a changing village. Complete with man taking photos over / under cubicles (at least one that got caught, anyway).

Do you remember the thread from an MNer who encountered a man standing naked at the lockers in the changing village, outside the individual cubicles?

I was shocked by the number of women who were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. It showed me how important it is to have very clear rules about changing areas, because predators seize on anything that could offer them plausible deniability.

Stay classy, Christine.

I agree. I know these centres don't want to advertise that they are mixed sex, so either have to outright lie and have male or female, man or woman on the door, or use other phrases, so we forget its a changing room. But 'changing village', with its imagined village green and hanging baskets, is a far cry from the reality of poorly working locks and the chance for men to hid cameras in the stalls.

There’s a Tweet from a mother who’s daughter works at M&S in Exeter ( yes staid old Exeter!) where a man was trying on trousers in the “woman's” section, while wearing no underpants.

I’m on my phone and can’t link the tweet (argh) but seriously?

It’s called “indecent exposure” in any normal worldview.

I’m going to have to give up my Percy Pig addiction and boycotts M&S completely.

Which hurts my middle class heart <grin>

But 'changing village', with its imagined village green and hanging baskets, is a far cry from the reality of poorly working locks and the chance for men to hid cameras in the stalls.

This! You've managed to sum up why I find it so jarring.

I think they were hinting at mixed motives for finding access to women in a state of undress. 😉

bang on, in my view.

Why I stopped shopping at M&S full-stop is:

They don't care if clothing that I might wish to try on has already received the attention of Seaman Staines from Captain Pugwash iykwim;

They don't care who is in there with me;

They don't care.

And their food isn't all that either, so shit on it.

My OH used to buy three pairs of M&S trousers every winter and summer. He had to go and try them on because they change the cut every year.

He was appalled at the thought that some random woman might twitch his curtain aside while he was struggling in and out of his trousers. He doesn’t go there anymore, and he refuses to buy them online as they have made his life ‘more difficult’. He buys online manufacturers instead.

So it’s not just women they are putting off. Maybe M&S and John Lewis will just be like some ongoing ‘Rally’ eventually. ( except where will be the fun in that?)

I'm still boycotting too, was it 2019? We all emailed and got the same insipid responses.
I think by now I'll never go back. I've found alternatives for the things I used to buy there.
I also no longer buy much in any stores because of the risks of bodily fluids being highlighted by the man who likes to leave a surprise on the underwear he tries on and puts back. I refuse to take a blacklight every shopping trip.

Like Iadorerain above, I do most of the family's clothes shopping at M&S - what retailers should I use? Who has women only changing spaces?

I’ve not yet RTFT but my large out of town M&S recently had a refit/reorganisation and offers 3 changing rooms:

• Men’s changing room
• ”Lingerie” changing room. Used to be called a women’s changing room but clearly they were concerned that was not inclusive of male people who wish to try on lingerie.
• ”Try It On” - apparently a mixed sex changing room.

So that’s 3 changing rooms for male people (all of which need staffing), but none for women who do not wish to share a changing room with male people.

Of course M&S have not “sat around wondering how they can annoy women more.” They have instead been captured by TRAs and Stonewall and have decided they literally could not give 2 shits about the female customers who have made up the majority of their customer base since the company began, despite many and repeated protests and objections.

Slow hand clap for M&S and their “inclusivity”.

And as others have said, one of the most egregious things is that M&S are not making clear in their stores that the changing rooms are mixed sex / mixed “gender”.

Why is it, I wonder rhetorically, that the “lingerie” changing room doesn’t have a big sign saying “This is a mixed sex/mixed gender changing room.”…?
Could it be because it would deter, what, 50%? 70%? 90%? of female customers from using it and from going on to buy underwear?

Instead they are very careful to publicise the “everyone is welcome” message on channels used by men and TRAs such as twitter (which I suspect is not regularly frequented by many of their female customers).
No, they would rather obtain by deception the female customers’ consent to the mixed status of the changing rooms.

No, they would rather obtain by deception the female customers’ consent to the mixed status of the changing rooms

I guess they have to, because without the women in the space, there’s no validation for the type of man who wants to (ab)use women as a fantasy prop.

Exactly.
If the women actually knew who they were sharing facilities with and decided en masse to either not try the items on before purchasing, or to shop elsewhere, then it would just be a very dejected male in an empty room with no-one to see them "womaning". Who gives a crap what the signage on the door says then?

Might as well use the men's changing room in that case!

It's a very good point but I think he would get off just from the staff at the entrance knowing and letting him in. That's possibly enough validation for him.

God, no, I don't remember that.

As more people wake up to the ideology, the publicity around this 'stealth forced sharing' might gain more traction.

M and S were totally happy to ignore women a few years back, despite newspaper coverage.

With so much of it in the news re sport , etc, I wonder if they might think twice if the papers picked it up again and applied some pressure.

I remember that thread @PurgatoryOfPotholes. People were falling over themselves to find any explanation other than he was deliberately exposing himself.

My M&S ditched its women's changing room a couple of years' ago. Still got a men's one. I don't buy any underwear there any more since they made it very clear they prioritise men with fetishes over the safety and comfort of their female customers.

If they go under, it will be entirely their fault.

We’ll have to learn to make our own clothes again like our mothers and grandmothers did. I don’t know of any clothes shop which hasn’t fully bought into this ideology of humiliating and endangering women whilst facilitating men to do whatever they like up to an including indecent exposure and soiling goods and changing rooms.

I find it rather interesting that that is the case. Why have businesses, pretty much all businesses and corporations so quickly and deeply embraced this ideology? Why are they all promoting it? Presumably they have financial incentives since that is their raison d’être.

It makes so little sense for the likes of M & S and John Lewis to actively seek to distress their customer base. Are they just afraid of the scandal and fuss that men might make if they weren’t allowed to try on lingerie alongside women? Don’t they realise that being in the papers for refusing to allow men access to women’s changing rooms would actually be more likely to be a boon to their businesses? Or is there something more sinister going on than misreading the strength of feeling about this amongst women likely to shop with them?

This is of course just giving a green light for the weird types. I will not indulge in the stores with my custom as long as this is such a barmy policy is in place. Apparently the majority of women’s rights have to be trampled on for the sake of the rights of a tiny vocal minority who won’t fit in.

An MNer once found a thread on reddit from a user requesting legal advice on how to force a gym to allow male transitioners to use the female changing room.

The redditor came back to the thread to thank users and tell them that the efforts had been successful. Then the thread lapsed, naturally.

A few months later, OP returned. The female customers had stopped using the changing room at the gym. OP wanted to know if there were legal ways to force the female gym users to use the female changing rooms again.

We all said this back in 2019 when we all emailed and complained mightily. Still there they are on the high street. I bet too if the do go down the pan, it'll be blamed on the current financial situation. Not a word will be said about changing rooms.