Looking for advice re how to respond to the following email. I recently contacted Next to let them know that on the last two occasions I tried on clothes in their Oxford Street store, there had been men in the changing rooms (at this point I thought they were single-sex). The first time a man was sitting in the communal area of the changing room, and the second time a man was in a changing room opposite mine. Both times I was trying on swimming costumes and felt really vulnerable being naked with a man directly on the other side of the curtain.
This was Next's response:
"Thank you for your e-mail and I am sorry to hear you have felt uncomfortable on your last couple of visits to our stores, due to the presence of male customers in the fitting rooms on the Womenswear floor.
Just to explain, our position has always been that all fitting rooms, irrespective of which department they are situated on, are open to all customers to use, and they are not designated as a single-sex provision. Hence the signage above the entrance just saying 'Fitting Rooms', rather than 'Men's' or 'Women's' Fitting Rooms.
We want to encourage customers to be able to use whichever facility is most convenient for them at the time. For example, for customers placing orders online for delivery to store, the collection point in most of our stores is on Menswear so female customers may find it more convenient to use those fitting rooms to try items on and decide what they wish to keep or return while they are still in store.
We are continuously reviewing and updating our fitting rooms, for example, by attaching hook and eye fixtures to secure the curtains in fitting rooms in our existing stores in order to make customers feel more comfortable, and we are also looking at alternatives to replace curtains in fitting rooms when we re-fit stores or open new ones."
I feel really disappointed with Next and don't feel they're taking women's safety seriously. They have changing rooms in the women's section and in the men's, so in what way would it be detrimental to them to make one specifically for women and one for men? There is absolutely no reason for men to need to access the changing room on the women's floor as all the men's clothes are on the upstairs floor, with it's own changing room. And I can't imagine many women actively choosing to use changing facilities on the men's floor. What is the legal position here? I thought that under the Equality Act companies can provide a single-sex space where there is good reason to do so?
At the very least, I would want there to be clear signage stating the changing rooms are unisex so that women can be made aware that they do not have access to a safe single-sex space before they enter. Is that unreasonable? Is there anything else I could add?