Mixed changing room - is this considered ok these days?

[Scirocco]

Today I took my toddler swimming. Or rather, tried to.

We walked in to a giant changing area, with rows of cubicles with partial height walls and doors (gaps above and below them, doors low enough that you could see the heads of people changing). No single sex changing option. Men walking around mid-change (a towel round a waist, for example). The aisle in between the cubicles had quite a few people (all men or boys) standing looking at their phones.

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm just being prudish, but it felt really inappropriate and unsafe, with an absence of privacy.

When I asked the receptionist if there was single-sex changing available, I was told no, because it's more inclusive this way...

Is this the normal now?

(We went to the park instead.)

Thank you. Excellent post that should be tattooed on the forehead of every useful idiot promoting mixed sex showers, changing rooms, hospital wards etc

The gym I go to has male, female and family changing rooms. There is a notice on the female changing room that no male over 7 is allowed in - this has not stopped a transwoman btw and some people complained. I haven't been to the class this man usually attends lately, so don't know if still around. However, there is a firm rule that phones and cameras must be turned off.
I would be seriously alarmed by men (or women, of course) having mobile phones on in a changing room and would question the organisation on this - it's very dangerous.

Why?
Personally I'm not bothered by naked men (I mean I don't WANT them to be naked but if they want to walk around like that, then let them), BUT I am worried about them seeing me in a state of undress.
And I shouldn't be put into a position where men or boys are able to see me. It's not prudish, it's sense, and it's a situation which I know men will always take advantage of.

On a practical side, I've got a pullover towel which I can dress under when in a cubicle (like you would on a beach) just in case any phones are nearby. It won't protect 100% eg if the phone is from below, but I keep an eye out for anyone in the next door cubicle and dress as quickly as possible. Not great I know.

It has been found that sexual assaults are 18 times more frequent in mixed sex (cubicle) changing rooms than in single sex changing rooms. Mixed sex may be cheaper and more popular with men who push/ignore boundaries but they are definitely not more inclusive.

As an update, in the following 5 months we've been swimming most weeks, at pools that do have better options for changing. I've since heard several other concerns raised about the pool that prompted the thread - including people feeling unsafe due to the behaviour of men in those changing facilities.

The actually 'inclusive' thing to do would be to provide single sex men and women's, and then a mixed sex third section.

In there could be people who do not want to use sex based provisions, people with opposite sex children with them, carers of adults of the opposite sex with disabilities, and Layla Moran along with any other woman keen to validate male inner selves by taking her clothes off for them.

Those who use the mixed sex provision have consented to - and women using it have accepted the additional risk. No woman who has not consented is forced to do so.

And then you get the kicking off from men who absolutely don't want non consenting women to be allowed to take their clothes off in a place they cannot be, or to say no to them. The consenting women won't do. Think that one through and it tells you everything you need to know.

You mean like the Hampstead Pools?

Where there are three pools for men and none exclusively for women now.

But its sooo inclusive! 🙄

This logic fail is what pe@ked me.

My local pool has gone this way, it’s a bit grim. I’m too old to be of interest to the perves, but I feel for the teenage girls, it clearly
must be a deterrent to them exercising there. I recall as a teenager (and from the age of about 11/12) it’s bad enough dealing with the ogling in the street, let alone if you’re half naked and undressing. But who cares what women want, eh?

Not surprised.
I sometimes wonder whether I and my galpals are the last "girls" left who don't want to be considered as eye candy for any Tom, DICK, or Harry in the country!

I don’t use my local pool/leisure centre because all the showers and changing rooms are mixed sex. I would prefer to pay a lot more to use a private fitness centre further away which has female only changing facilities.

Its the same old story every single time, the nurses' changing issue is running to the same old tired script.

Women have a space that meets their needs.

Men, supported by fantastically silly women, kick off because of wanting to share that space to meet their own needs, largely to be with women in a state of undress whether they consent or not. They do not care at all how this might impact the women in the space, it's all and only about them.

Everybody panics, because men. And obvs women's rights and equalities are always only just gifts granted by men from the resources they don't currently themselves want.

Men get exactly what they want with apologies.

Women say this doesn't work for them and are told to get their clothes off nicely and enable said man in whatever agenda with their body like a good girl, or go away and lose facility for being a nasty uppity witch.

Many women who can't and won't enable men and provide their body as a resource stop using the facility and try and make do elsewhere.

Smug men then abuse the facility and the women in it without the faintest concern until it now doesn't work to unignorable points.

Facility is then often closed, and removed from everyone. Because obvs you cannot ever say no to a man, or place boundaries on bloody awful selfish and misogynistic behaviours.

You aren't the only one left. The women who minded have left and gone. Exclusion and male dominance in action.

This.

It will be interesting to see how these discussions progress in light of the current horror of the revelations about Mohamed Al Fayed and moves to protect women from sexual exploitation at work

It won’t make any difference. There seemed to be an epidemic of VAWG, the government wrings its hands but still intends to make it easier to get a GRC and thus 1. Make it easier for men to get access to WAG 2. Contribute to the breaking down of boundaries where women feel safe and able to say No to men.

Non of this is acceptable in any way. Just that no one takes notice of what women are saying. Sexual rights for men is the agenda here.

Exactly.

We don't need all this bollocks about 'what is a woman', we just need to look at who gets heard and cared about and who gets told to shut up, put up, get their clothes off and validate men's inner selves or lose their resource.

Very, very binary and easy every single time.

Edited to add: this applies regardless of chosen identity, as the poor transman who was raped in the taxi discovered, despite sobbing to their rapist that they were a man. They still had to shut up, put up and service the man in the situation.