Women’s privacy and dignity

[Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks]

I’ve just been to my local leisure centre swimming pool and while I was in the changing rooms a woman walked in from the showers, fully naked. I averted my eyes, and she walked quite close past me in a way which to me (and I fully accept I may well have imagined it) felt a bit pointed. I felt vaguely uncomfortable and embarrassed in the same way I would have if a man had walked in naked.

My impression is that the vast majority of people on this forum believe that it is a fundamental breach of women’s privacy and dignity if people with male biology (whether cisgender men or trans women) share changing facilities with women. Yet they do not consider that it undermines a woman’s privacy or dignity to have to get changed in front of other women, or to see other women naked.

I understand that many women have had experiences with men’s exhibitionist or voyeuristic behaviour which makes them specifically uncomfortable being undressed around men, or being around men who are undressed. But I’ve often seen the argument on here that it equally undermines men’s privacy and dignity to have to share changing facilities with women.

So my question is, do you think privacy and dignity are not infringed by having to get changed in front of people of the same sex? If not, why not?

It's a changing room, be prepared to see naked bodies.

Personally, I would also prefer separate cubicles. But seeing a strange woman naked in a female changing room would not bother me in the same way as seeing a naked man in a female changing room.

You lost me at cisgender tbh
Don't use the changing room if you dont want to see half naked/naked members of the same sex
It's totally different to males being in the female changing rooms

So my question is, do you think privacy and dignity are not infringed by having to get changed in front of people of the same sex? If not, why not?

I accept that public money should be used wisely so while it would be great if public funded spaces had individual spaces within WSSS it is a cost/benefit issue.

We (the public) agree to a limited loss of privacy and dignity to gain access to relatively low costing public services. This is while accepting exhibitionism may still happen and therefore have laws in place which allows persons (female or male) to be charged with indecent act

https://www.police.uk/ro/report/rsa/alpha-v1/advice/rape-sexual-assault-and-other-sexual-offences/indecent-exposure-flashing-offending-public-decency/

I'd feel uncomfortable too, but I wouldn't feel the same way as if a naked man walked past me.
To me, it's the comfort of familiarity. Females pretty much have all the same bits, in slightly different sizes. We also have different bodily functions, in some instances, to men.
Healthcare professionals will have treated and examined both female and male, but I'd rather have a female carry out a smear for example.

I’m quite modest about nakedness but surely you realise there’s a big difference between being naked around people of the same and opposite sexes? (Intimacy aside)

Exactly. The minimum I expect is not to have to get changed in front of a man.

Also “cisgender men” isn’t a meaningful distinction to most women (it’s activist jargon). Every single “trans woman” is a man.

I might feel embarrassed and uncomfortable, just like you, but I wouldn't feel threatened by a naked woman, I would probably envy their body confidence.
If it was a naked man I would also feel threatened based on my own experience around some men, by no means all, or most men or even many, but the dangerous ones don't walk around with a label so I've learned to be wary.

“So my question is, do you think privacy and dignity are not infringed by having to get changed in front of people of the same sex? If not, why not?”

I don’t believe it is a reasonable expectation for publicly accessible single sex provisions to have to provide people space away from other people of that sex where there is no chance of seeing some degree of nakedness. Hence why there are still communal changing rooms and to cope with space issues and crowd surge. Hence you might walk into a toilet and find a woman drying off an unbuttoned shirt or skirt.

The person using the space for the correct purpose is within their rights and you can choose to use your right to leave that space.

Surely, in line with public expectations of shared single sex spaces, if you attend a venue knowing their facilities are communal as in a gym and you enter that space your consent can said to be assumed because you entered the space?

This is very different from entering a space signposted as being a female single sex space and finding a male person using it.

Not really seeing the reason for confusion here, OP?

Everywhere from Iceland to Mongolia, a certain amount of woman-to-woman undress, nakedness, platonic intimacy is expected and culturally normative. I’ve been to 40+ countries and women support other women with bodily functions. Hundreds of miles away from plumbing and paved roads women tell other women (without sharing a common language) how to wash, go to the loo, sleep without men seeing them naked. Typically no women expect woman seeing each other in a vulnerable state to be distressing. Everything from a circular Laotian sarong to a hoodie on the steppes of Central Asia has been used to avoid men seeing women vulnerable.

Female privacy and dignity is important, and feeling a bit weird around another woman naked doesn’t make the larger picture go away.

Ime women who play sport think nothing of stripping off and showering in front of/with other women. I grew up with communal showers after hockey in school so it would never occur to me to be bothered by it and it's never crossed my mind that other women would care.

Wholly different to being naked with adult or adolescent biological males though.

I reckon using those terms sets the expectation on what the next posts will be though.

‘So my question is, do you think privacy and dignity are not infringed by having to get changed in front of people of the same sex? If not, why not?’

No, because the human body is not inherently sexual, undignified or indecent. This is especially true for a place of changing where it is expected there will be nakedness. If there was always complete privacy from others it affects safety (because you can’t be seen in an assault or emergency) and it also encourages a culture where nakedness is always seen as sexual or indecent. This in turn leads to women (weirdly not men) having to cover up their bodies to extremes.

There’s also a practical health and economic advantage to having a room easily to clean, ventilate and disinfect with more space to move about for accessibility. You must know it is actually easy to get changed without showing boobs/bum/pubic hair but I would struggle if it were my whole body.

When I was much younger and in a ladies changing room of a swimming pool, I saw an old woman with one boob (mastectomy scar on other side) getting changed. I thought that isn’t something I have seen before and if it happens to me I hope I would act the same way because it shows resilience and normalises it. It normalises bodies and biology. It’s the reality of who humans are.

So my question is, do you think privacy and dignity are infringed by having to get changed in front of people of the same sex? If so, why?

If a man had walked past me naked in a women’s changing room I wouldn’t have felt ‘vaguely uncomfortable and embarrassed’. There wouldn’t have been anything ‘vague’ about it. And I’m one of the fortunate women who’ve not really suffered from sexual harassment or worse.

But I’ve often seen the argument on here that it equally undermines men’s privacy and dignity to have to share changing facilities with women.

Well, yes, of course it does (although men are waaaay less at risk from voyeurism and assault from women than vice versa). I don't think many women on MN would disagree with this part of your post.

I can't see what it has to do with the rest of your post, though, which concerns women's privacy and dignity in relation to other women.

Surely you can see there is an enormous difference between getting undressed in front of other women and getting undressed in front of men.

Women don't (except at vanishingly small rates) stare, leer, plant cameras, get sexually aroused, expose themselves etc, in changing rooms. They don't get pre-occupied with someone and then follow them out of the changing room to try and chat them up. Whereas a significant minority of men will do one or more of these things (EDIT: if they were in the women's changing, I mean; I'm not implying they do that to one another in the men's changing).
Also, most women in a changing room will never have been sexually hassled by another woman. Whereas pretty much all women will have been sexually hassled by men at some point.

It seems from your op that the particular women you came across was rather lacking in the 'self-erasing' body language that most women (in the UK at any rate) tend to use in these situations to respect the atmosphere of privacy that tends to prevail. A tiny bit uncomfortable for some, I imagine. But worlds apart from a man sailing in.

Dear God, is someone actually plopping on to tell us that if women don't demand privacy from each other then they have no right to privacy from men?

The logic fail is frightening.

I do believe they are

Isn't it just.

The attempts to force/coerce unconsenting women into removing their clothes in front of men are geting more desperate by the day.

Other women naked doesn't bother me at all, though I've only been in that situation once as an adult. It was at a hammam in the Netherlands and there were women in their 80s and young women with their little daughters, everyone with only pants on. I felt a bit nervous at first but very quickly felt almost liberated to be around these women of all ages and sizes with no one appearing to give a hoot about their nakedness. All in all, it was a very enjoyable afternoon and I wish there was somewhere like that where I live now because I'd definitely go again.

Honestly, the few times I've ever felt uncomfortable around other naked women in similar environments is because, on reflection, I've been unfairly projecting my own body insecurities onto them.

But as Keeptoiletssafe says, normalising the human body is so important. Especially when you think that there's many teenage girls out there who may have only ever seen other woman naked in porn (and the subsequent body dysmorphia that can follow as a result). If you ask me, we need more naked women in changing rooms, not less.

Yesterday, I had a quick look around a local gym and there were women changing in the public area. I felt slightly uncomfortable as I was walking through so felt I was violating their privacy. Equally, I'm not sporty, have never joined a gym and rarely see other women unclothed so I was a little discombobulated by seeing three sets of boobs in 3 minutes but they were fine and I didn't stare or be weird. Ive decided against the gym as the pool was small with a low ceiling.

So I understand the OP but I think it's not a big issue.

I wouldn't get naked in front of strangers but plenty of women do in gym/swimming changing rooms. Until they make it so it's literally just cubicles and no other space to linger about then you will see the odd vulva.

Just avert your eyes.

I couldn't get disturbed by briefly seeing another woman's body tbh. In that context at any rate.

But you don’t have to get changed in front of anyone. You can wait until you get home to change/shower, get changed in the toilet stall (cramped, but doable), or just avoid public changing areas altogether.