M&S Colchester claim mixed changing is ‘completely safe’ for women.

[PeachOctopus]

How is it that M&S can continue to flaunt the high court ruling and do not offer single sex changing rooms?

Abouterf in this video confronts the store manager and is fobbed off and told that it’s head offices policy:

Colchester @marksandspencer I asked where the women’s changing room was to try on swimwear. Manager Andrew (he/ his /him) says gender neutral changing areas are “completely safe” for women and girls. For asking him this question, he told me to leave the store.

Abouterf x account

So why do the men get one to themselves, but the women don't? It is unfair, and shows utter contempt for women. Other posterx here have listed thecreasonscwhy mixed changing rooms are a bad idea, but why do men get a choice of mixed or single sex, but women get mixed only?

There is a higher rate of sexual assault in mixed sex changing facilities than in single sex.

He WAS crap & dismissive.

A more appropriate response would have been ‘madam, I’m running this store in accordance with UK M&S head office policy, but I would be happy to signpost you to how to raise a concern with them. Please come this way so I can talk you through it in the office, & would you mind not videoing me as I’m uncomfortable with being filmed at work’.

’It’s perfectly safe!’ followed by asking her to leave & legging it isn’t great optics.

I’d argue that if M&S are going to have unisex fitting rooms & no single sex options in the UK, whilst emphatically providing single sex fitting rooms elsewhere, it’s a deliberate policy & they’ve decided that this is what serves their UK business model.

At which point, it’s only fair to expect them to train their store managers to manage queries & complaints about what is inevitably going to be a controversial policy.

I am confused. Does Marks and Spencer still provide a men's changing/fitting room? With signs saying as such?
If so, how is it NOT discriminatory to provide a mens changing room but not one for women? Or can women also use the men’s one? Anyone know?

He might have been all of those things but to humiliate publicly like this is unacceptable. Write a letter of complaint to head office to his line manager anything but this is just out of order.

what law, exactly?

On M&S store finder, they list
Fitting rooms(men)
Fitting rooms(women)

For Stane Park Colchester.

I dont think its unreasonable to go to the store and expect the changing rooms to be as advertised.

Im wondering the same. Have they definitely not changed the men’s too?

primark do the opposite - mixed gender and female but no male only. Primark reintroduces women-only fitting rooms - BBC News

A lot of posters on here are mixing up a policy that is unfair/unwise/nonsensical (all of which I agree providing male and mixed gender changing rooms but no female equivalent are) and one that is illegal which it is not.

Because there's no law saying shops HAVE to provide changing rooms at all there's no law saying that they have to provide single sex changing rooms, or if you decide to provide male changing rooms you also have to provide female ones, or vice versa.

I'm surprised at so many people assuming that if you have 1 'thing' reserved for one sex you legally HAVE to have equal provision for the other sex. Have you not noticed, for example, ladies only swim sessions at pools, girl only coding classes, female self-defence classes, brownies, school football teams where boys play football and rugby and girls netball and hockey, etc.?

I have a degree of sympathy for the bloke who was filmed looking like an absolute muppet, which is why I’m saying that M&S need to train him & the rest of their store managers to explain that M&S UK don’t want to provide single sex fitting rooms.

At which point, it’s above his pay grade as to what M&S customers choose to take from that information.

But he’s hardly been ‘humiliated publically’. He’s just dealt with a customer facing situation clumsily, not been flogged through the lingerie section with a stained thong (apparently it’s not a good idea to go anywhere near unsealed M&S underwear, if you read their reviews…).

While I agree in principle yes, the reaction is wholly out of proportion. If I were to find an issue in a store like that, I might send an email not start an online lynch mob. This is not some noble quest for women’s rights, it’s the changing rooms in a M&S in Colchester. People need to get a grip.

Dealing with a customer situation clumsily would be an interaction between two people - the staff member & the customer.

having that interaction half filmed - we obviously didn’t hear what was said before she decided to film - and posted on the internet with the intent of humiliating and degrading him to the public…is the definition of publically humiliating him. He’s had his sexuality assumed and sneered at as well as a whole host of vile assumptions about his intentions towards other people.

The woman in question should have enough brains to know that this was totally fruitless, he cannot change the policy, cannot suddenly
provide her with another changing room and if she’s allowed out unsupervised should be able to work out how to contact head office without needing to be shown how - she could use the phone in her hand to google it if she’s unsure. She wasn’t in danger and wasn’t forced to change anywhere that made her uncomfortable, she was free to leave the store and take her custom somewhere that aligned with her beliefs, so the reaction to him was entirely unwarranted.

Here’s a link to a thread discussing them at the time and yes M&S refused to remove them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4511424-M-S-Reviews

I was particularly grossed out by some of the reviews on the bras for teenagers although they weren’t necessarily the worst, it’s just they were the reviews young teen girls were most likely to see when they are trying to decide on their first bras

My friend wanted to try on a swimsuit in M+S the other day, so we took the item up to the first floor changing rooms, as it was based right in the lingerie department (men’s clothing was on floor -1).

Two chairs just inside the changing area, both occupied by men. I said loudly, “Why the hell are there men in the lingerie changing rooms?”. Then my friend got some static from the attendant about why she’d brought the swimsuit upstairs to try on and I just told her that it was because we were hoping we’d find fewer men around on this floor while trying on swimwear.

Admittedly I have very little filter or patience as I get older, but I would never try stuff on alone in that shop. As it was, I stood guard outside my friend’s cubicle.

i also feel for men and young lads who want their own single sex space too, for fear of being labelled as Pervy and who want to feel comfortable. And who want women to have their own spaces for safety and comfort!

I remember a family member telling me she was in the queue for an all gender toilet and this poor old boy was standing there apologising saying he has to use this toilet and he felt so bad and awkward!

Who here has suggested they’d be OK with someone being filmed in a changing room?

I have been there too.
I have only ever used the upstairs changing room by the bras and I've never seen any men in there. It's just cubicles with lockable doors too.

I'm not sure about other changing rooms in the store. Is it the downstairs one that is mixed sex?

Same sort of thing has happened in the New Look changing rooms too, when I’ve been there with my daughter. A doorway leading to a large room full of cubicles that encircle the walls, with a sofa in the middle. Two bloody men sat on the sofa.

It meant that DD didn’t want to come out and show me her swimsuit and was nervous to open the door and let me in.

Again, exasperated, I asked the staff why there were men sitting there. In end I asked the men to leave and wait outside, as they were making women and girls feel uncomfortable. I don’t care if they were there with wives/daughters/girlfriends, they could have waited outside the entrance. My DH would never have done similar.

The problem is that in mixed sex facilities, it easier for men to film women and girls.

M&S are advertising their changing rooms as single sex, the staff are saying that they are mixed. How do we know that there are designed as mixed sex, not single sex? Talking 'women' and 'men' off the signs isnt enough.

If they’ve taken women and men off the signs, how are they advertising them as single sex?

On their store finder, they are claiming that they have fittingrooms (men) and fittingrooms (women)

Clothes shops are not obliged to provide changing rooms at all and there is no law to say that changing rooms if provided in a clothing store must be single sex because no one has to use clothing store changing rooms. There are laws governing workplace changing rooms because no one should be forced to give up their autonomy over their own body or their dignity as part of earning a living. What is the law is that clothing stores mustn't advertise a space as if it were single sex and then actually operate it as mixed sex. However, marks and spencer's target market includes wanting to sell feminine style clothing to transwomen, especially bras, so they are at liberty to operate mixed sex changing rooms. Being able to shop at M&S isn't a human right, you can shop elsewhere. Or if you want their stuff you can buy it on credit, try it on at home (or in the ladies loo of whatever closest business offers actual single sex facilities) and return whatever doesn't fit/doesn't suit you

As I understand it (not being a lawyer), the default position with sex equality legislation is that things should generally be for everyone, but that you can make single sex exceptions (by separating the sexes, or by providing for one sex but not the other) where that can be justified.

What exactly is justified about men getting a single sex changing room where a single sex changing room for women is not considered necessary, I can't quite see.

The customers of M&A must vote with their feet and shop elsewhere . They will get the message when their profits fall through the floor

Spot on! For any sensible grown up this is a complete non-issue.