Woman walked in on in Primark changing room

[itwasntmetho]

twitter.com/mummabeeblu/status/1573690566889570307
Poor girl, she supports mixed sex changing because "everyone feels included" but she recommends that lone females don't use it for their own safety.
Using a fitting room shouldn't be like walking home in the dark, if you need your wits about you then women have lost something.

Unisex changing rooms need lockable doors, not curtains. I'd argue that all changing rooms need this.

Women need spaces without men to change in. Then we don't need lockable doors.

Poor thing.She was clearly shaken up. For it to happen twice in a row was just horrible. Nasty, circling piranha fish outside her curtain.

Does this say it all about young girls? Accommodating to the nth degree the very people and attitudes that may cause harm to themselves?

No wonder they are getting depressed living as they are with these contradictions.

👇
Massive thread of Primark incidents: sexual assaults on young girls, upskirting, women and girls being filmed in the changing rooms and the footage ending up on porn sites:

twitter.com/SuzzanBlac/status/1453001944373604367

There have been umpteen "Boycott Primark" campaigns and it has made no difference. Most people still don't know and it might be the only affordable clothing shop in town for some women.

Maybe WRN "Shoppers" and/or SFW Local Groups need to think about handing out leaflets outside Primark instead of leaving them in the stores?

I wouldn't expect anyone to do anything I wouldn't be prepared to do myself, I just think this needs a concerted effort to get it in to their thick heads that we have had enough of this shit. Fleeting boycotts and the occasional protest here and there is just water off a duck's back to them.

Of course it will be painted as "anti-trans", the Inclusive Crowd do not give a flying feck about policies that EXCLUDE women and girls: self-exclusion is the only way for them to stay safe from predatory men. (It's not all about YOU, trans peeps! 🙄)

We are not lacking in facts and evidence - what we ARE lacking is them paying the slightest attention to us.

Primark is putting women at risk
Women's Rights Network Response to Viral Video on Voyeurism.
Press Release 25th September 2022
www.womensrights.network/primark-voyeurism

Unisex changing rooms put women in danger
Our investigation shows single-sex facilities are far safer
Andrew Gilligan
Sunday September 02 2018, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
archive.ph/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1453001944373604367.html

Unisex changing rooms put women in danger
22nd February 2021 by FPFW
fairplayforwomen.com/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger/

Advice to service providers about female-only changing rooms
15th May 2019 by FPFW
fairplayforwomen.com/changing_rooms/

SINGLE SEX SPACES - WHY?
www.womensrights.network/single-sex-spaces

Single sex services
Single sex services are critical for inclusion. Vulnerable women in particular rely on specialist women’s services such as refuges and rape crisis centres. Everyday services such as changing rooms and hospital wards provide dignity and privacy for all.
sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/single-sex-services/

sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/single-sex-services/#publications

Stats for Sex Segregation
"Propensity to Sexually Offend"
i) female ii) male iii) transgender populations of England & Wales
www.sexsegregatedprisons.info/

Women are Human - Clare Dimyon articles
Crime stats
www.womenarehuman.com/author/clare-dimyon/

ps. some Twitter accounts that have posted the video in the OP have already been suspended. (Wonder who reported such a helpful PSA for women who might be thinking of shopping at Primark?)

As long as it is up, you can download it here if you want to:
video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1573690422278455296/pu/vid/576x1024/ynVVUGURkis0P9FQ.mp4?tag=12

I get so angry about women being made to feel ashamed as though they are bigots for wanting to feel safe. Thousands of years of existence of the human species has created extremely strong survival instincts and for women that means being on guard against men they don't know but we are being told we're bigots if we don't override our instincts to be safe to accommodate men in spaces where we are undressed and vulnerable.

The vast majority of the public are law abiding but we don't leave our front doors unlocked when we go out do we? We don't think people who lock their doors are being bigoted and discriminatory towards their neighbours and general community do we? But women have no right to be safe these days.

I'll wait (and open the betting book now) for the case in court where an assaulted woman is told in court by the defense something along the lines of: "you knew that it was an inclusive changing room and you chose to go in there and take your clothes off, so you were asking for it weren't you?"

In the same way that walking home alone in the dark or wearing a short skirt is seen as putting your biology in the path of some poor male who couldn't possibly be expected not to make use of it.

I used to think inclusive was a positive word.

Thousands of years of existence of the human species has created extremely strong survival instincts and for women that means being on guard against men they don't know but we are being told we're bigots if we don't override our instincts to be safe to accommodate men in spaces where we are undressed and vulnerable.

I wonder whether survival instincts are as much a part of the apologising as the female socialisation is. We know that a male is more likely to have a fight/ flight reaction and a female a freeze/ fawn. I wonder if it's a form of appeasement when we have a fright.

I wonder whether survival instincts are as much a part of the apologising as the female socialisation is. We know that a male is more likely to have a fight/ flight reaction and a female a freeze/ fawn. I wonder if it's a form of appeasement when we have a fright.

I'm sure sometimes it is a survival mechanism, you hear of female kidnapping victims being able to survive their ordeal by being meek and "humanising" themselves to their capturer, then again many times that approach doesn't work.

Women are definitely socialized to be friendly and accommodating. One of the few benefits of ageing is the decline in my giving a shit. In my twenties I wouldn't say "boo to a goose" and I'd be too polite to random males who try to interact with me, now i I couldn't care less. Only a few months ago I was screamed at on a London street by a male stranger who had stopped in front of me facing me and all I did was step around him quickly and keep going - for that he screamed bitch and cunt at me. That would really have shaken me up in my twenties, in my forties... couldn't give a toss.

Fuck Primark. Fucking idiots.

Response.

twitter.com/Primark/status/1574437046244069382

Well we know the solution won't be more staff

Nor will ot be lockable cubicles.

They won't stand for the abuse from tras on single sex exemptions

My money is on them closing the changing rooms all together

Yeah they are frantically trying to think of a third option that doesn't mean they sell fewer clothes. Good luck to them! I do feel like the tide is turning and they are finally learning that "be kind" doesn't actually work out in real life.

I think sadly that this political movement has trained us all to be a lot more cynical having been taken for mugs so emphatically.

The only answers will realistically be to provide locked single rooms or to remove the changing rooms altogether, I agree. Until once more it is strongly taboo and socially unacceptable for male people to attempt to enter female spaces, there are going to be male people who determinedly take advantage of this genie having got out of the bottle for their own reasons. Including insisting on entering and controlling a female only space when a gender neutral one is available to them, as demonstrated by well known TW on twitter recently; they were finding it very funny to remove any access for females and demonstrate their greater power.

It is not reasonable to expect a usually female member of staff to try and guess whether someone entering the female space is male or not, or to deal with an angry male person insisting on their right to use the space they want to and to not care about the impact on anyone else. We've all seen the footage of the huge individual screaming "call me ma'am" into the face of a frightened shop assistant.

Thanks @Bosky for collating all that.
Primark response is hilarious. The solution male and female! Our store still has two separate areas (the old female and male) it wouldn't be hard. It won't be 100% full proof but will help prevent blatant spying.

They could use the same old changing rooms and make them 'female' and 'unisex'.

As of just now, 2023 replies, 618 retweets and 1630 likes- they've been ratioed! People are not taking this.

They could use the same old changing rooms and make them 'female' and 'unisex'.

That simply won't work because the issue is with males who declare they're female and then demand access to the female designated space.That's the point for them.

A news reporter had a similar experience last summer in a Zara in London when she was suddenly confronted with two males coming into the women's dressing room, these men were completely masculine in appearance (not that that matters either) and the reporter was shocked at how upsetting and intimidating it was for her. She complained to the store staff but they told her they were instructed to allow anyone who say's they are female to go into the female changing area, even if they're clearly totally male.

The only (expensive) solution for stores would probably be to have completely individual changing rooms with locable doors and mirrors inside for privacy, My local M&S has that kind of arrangement but of course the extra space costs money!

My local Decathlon has a row of cubicles with fixed doors on the shop floor, not tucked away. I like it because no one is in a secluded space with anyone else but the doors are lockable.
It's probably good for making the most of shop space too.

The only (expensive) solution for stores would probably be to have completely individual changing rooms with locable doors and mirrors inside for privacy,

Which in essence and practicality will mean that male people get all the changing rooms and females will quit using them and having access to them.

And we're all supposed to pretend that sex isn't a thing, or dimorphic with one sex having all the power over the other which is a fixed fact from birth, and male people busy waving male dominance and misogyny in the faces of females are something different from entitled male people behaving really badly to females and enjoying doing so.

Male people after all can identify themselves as women and do whatever they want and no one can stop them. As a female person can I identify out of being treated like shit by male people and have them block my equal access to society and spaces? No. I can't.

Bit dimorphic and biologically sex based, this privilege, isn't it? Not inclusive. Not kind either.

I really don’t get this ‘included’ stuff. You are trying on clothes.
The curtain is shut. Why does everyone need to be ‘included’ in that? Why do men need access to women trying on clothes.
Same with the bloody toilets.

River Island have the lockable doors on changing rooms- that’s all that this is going to achieve. I lock to keep pervy people out- whether male, female or identifying as a flipping tree.

Looks like the Twitter storm might have had an impact. (No mention of all the other incidents)
www.itv.com/news/anglia/2022-09-26/primark-reviews-unisex-changing-rooms-as-men-walk-in-on-woman

They're just reviewing the situation, Dame Maud, and I'll bet the veg patch if not the farm that they'll decide no action need be taken.

Yes... You're probably right. A bit like the charity commission/mermaids thing. Best not to get hopes up for the tide turning much yet. Still, seems to be more sunlight pushing through in many areas.

Thank you for the link, DameMaud. A quote from it by Primark: "We are currently reviewing our approach to fitting rooms in our stores to ensure these are always safe and inclusive spaces for everyone."

But that's the whole fucking point, isn't it? "Inclusive spaces for everyone" is always rolled out as a lovely and fluffy and rainbows and glitter word - "inclusive" - to put a lovely gloss on things.

But in real life, "inclusive for everyone" and "inclusiveness for everyone" and "inclusivity for everyone" is utterly meaningless. And when applied to women's former single-sex spaces for justifiable and provable protection against all males, regardless of "gender" - then "inclusive" etc have become weasel words, misdirection, misleading statements, creeping, in all senses; they mean "queering boundaries" = fucking up women and children and their lives, but with an academic gloss on it.

Exclusive is sometimes, possibly quite often, wholly necessary. For example, "Exclusive" is why the female national Welsh rugby team is never expected to compete against the male national Welsh rugby team. Not because anyone is being mean to anyone else, but because there's a strong possibility that the women could get very badly injured in such a scenario. There is "exclusiveness" for valid reasons.

*Exclusive" is necessary in spaces wherever women and girls are removing or changing clothes, for example. Male exclusion in such circumstances is necessary, in order to reduce the well-known and documented danger of male intimidation, aggression and violence towards women and girls.

And also, cruically, to ensure women and girls' safety, dignity and privacy. And feelings of personal comfort away from men. Women's feelings in a men's world "are" important.