Ideas please to get a response from John Lewis to my complaint.

[Nevershoppingagaininjohnlewis]

In January, I was horrified to discover at the end of a bra fitting that John Lewis now have unisex changing rooms.

I complained at the time. They took a month to reply to my complaint, and even then JLs response didn't address what I'd raised.

I escalated my complaint mid March. Still no response as of today.

Any suggestions as to what to do next?

I'm thinking a daily X/insta reminder that they haven't replied? However, when I did that for the initial complaint, I was ignored or had a "we've passed your concerns onto the store involved".

The only other think I could think of was an actual letter sent via recorded delivery.

What would you do? This has bothered me too much to let it drop.

Are they floor to ceiling/locking separated rooms?

Nice attempt at a derail. The OP asked for help getting JL to pay attention to her concerns, not a discussion on what counts as acceptable unisex changing space.

Unfortunately OP I don't think they are under any legal or moral obligation to respond to you.

Don’t worry - the last couple of times I’ve been in JL (different towns) they’ve been dead. Only the dumb dog walkers letting their dogs snuffle in all the clothes. They’ll go out of business soon.

Who did you address your initial complaint to? And when you escalated it, then to whom?

There’s no obligation to respond to complaints.

No, but any good business would reply - even with something automated. And a really good business (which John Lewis always supposed to be) would care about what its customers think.

The generic complaints webform.

As was the escalation - there's an option to say "not happy with your reply? Escalate it here."

At the time, the response seemed human, but on reflection the deflection on actually addressing my concerns could easily have been AI.

Posts like these make me wonder whether the poster has any clue about women’s lives. (No, I’m not going to go into the details of what happens during a bra fitting, and why floor to ceiling/locking separate rooms are not the issue here.)

Happy to respond to the question, as I wish more people knew what is being taken away in the name of inclusivity.

The bra fitting all took place behind a loose fitting curtain. The man was the other side of the curtain.

JL said they can't do bra fittings behind locked doors for the safety of their partners conducting the fitting. I completely understand that.

However, there is no other space in the store where the fitting could have taken place behind a curtain in a female only space.

There were no signs in the changing room or store indicating the changing rooms were unisex.

I would have cancelled the fitting if I'd known what was expected. And I'm a confident middle aged woman.

Write (an actual letter) to the CEO about JL policy on this. Don't be fobbed off by them saying they are awaiting guidance or referring it to a particular store. What they are doing is illegal and the company needs to clarify its position as to the law.

A retailer can choose to provide unisex changing rooms. Men behave illegally and disgustingly in such spaces (yeah, yeah, NAMALT, but it’s not women voyeuring and jacking off in unisex changing rooms). As a result women self-exclude from unisex change rooms. Some are excluded regardless of personal choice, due to other PCs such as religious faith. Until there have been enough court cases, and enough retailers financially penalised for sex-discrimination by excluding women through not providing changing rooms for them, retailers will go for cheap woke points.

Have they got a formal complaint procedure? If so follow that.

I would combine approaches - write a letter, but also start a social media post about what happened and do an update each day as to whether they have responded and email them referencing the letter and including a link to the SM post. Anything you can do to publicise the SM post and het more views will help. Good luck, no woman wants to be half-naked behind a flimsy, I’ll-fitting curtain with unknown men immediately outside

Fgs shops providing unisex changing rooms is not illegal. It's not helping the OP to make up random laws, is it?

I think you will find that the Supreme Court ruling last year deemed it illegal. Nothing random about it, only that implementing the law is being ignored.

It could easily be illegal.

The Supreme Court judgement has shown that if you do not provide female only facilities where necessary, you could be guilty of indirect discrimination.

So it's all very conditional and whether it's women who are being disadvantaged. And in terms of a bra service, yes they are.

A 12-year-old girl going for her first bra fitting should not be standing in a cubicle with a door or a curtain, next to a man, while she's discussing her breasts.

No woman should.

But it only takes a second's worth of imagination to realise why.

Stores cannot get round the ruling by leaving out the word 'women' from their changing rooms if they discriminate against women, whether they're naming them or not.

i'm editing to add that if you're not anonymous, you need to be very careful, OP. This is the sort of thing that is really coming for stores like John Lewis, and it could escalate quickly.

Stores like John Lewis are absolutely going to have to wise up.

And yes, OP, I would make a big fuss on social media, with updates as a PP suggested. But bear in mind, you will draw a lot of flack.

It's the work of a moment to put changing rooms back to men and women, with a third one labelled gender neutral.

Spineless idiots.

It's not illegal for shops to provide only mixed-sex fitting rooms as long as they aren't indirectly discriminating against someone in relation to their sex.

As most males don't have breasts that require a bra, the majority of people who attend a bra-fitting appointment will be female. It is (easily) arguable that it is inappropriate for women to only have curtains between themselves and men when having a bra fitted. The conversation itself will be a turn-on to some men and curtains don't provide the same guarantee of privacy as enclosed rooms. So the provision of only mixed-sex rooms could presumably (easily) meet the threshold for an indirect sex discrimination claim.

JL is right that it could be unsafe for a staff member to be alone in an enclosed room with a partially dressed member of the public for this reason. So single room unisex spaces aren't the answer here either.

OP, if you're not getting anywhere with the complaints escalation process, it may well be worth writing to the CEO and pointing out that they leave themselves open to an indirect sex discrimination claim as well as losing customers like you.

I always want to ask these policy makers at John Lewis, M & S etc what is it they find so exciting about insisting that women and girls must have bra fittings in changing rooms next to random men?

They must have discussions about it? So what happens when someone points out that few women or girls would want a bra fitting with random men listening?

Of course, I am working on the assumption that they must have some senior staff aware of sexual VAWG. Do they just dismiss it? Or what?

Good question.

You really have to wonder why the bleeding obvious gets disregarded, by so many people, for so much of the time.

I would send a registered letter to the head office explaining your original complaint and dissatisfaction with how it has been handled. If you get no response then, yes use social media to expose their shoddy service as frequently as you can be bothered to, same if you get a response that doesn’t really address your complaint. But if you get a response that is limited to the bare bones of their legal obligation, I think you would be wasting your time to pursue it.

In time, when shops start feeling the cost of all the returns that result in customers refusing to try garments on in mixed changing rooms, we might start getting our privacy back.

I think the supreme court ruling made single sex changing rooms legal, not that stores had to provide them. It was so that stores could legally exclude non-biological 'women' from those changing rooms if they provided them. A suggestion was that they provide women only and mixed to cater for everyone but they don't have to.

No, it is now legal to provide (biological) women only changing rooms, but they don't have to they can just provide unisex ones.

To be honest I do think you are being taken seriously. I unfortunately needed to use JL’s complaints and escalated complaints a few times in the last couple of years over order issues/repairs.

For JL, they usually respond within 2-48 hours in my experience. That is still the case when they’ve needed to reach out to a store.

The fact your response has taken longer suggests it’s more complex to them, they are probably seeking legal advice etc. As their baseline for business as usual complaints and escalations are much swifter.