Looking to escalate their claim further
A GLASGOW couple have expressed their shock over how they were treated in a Marks & Spencer store while buying a suit for a relative’s funeral.
Both men, who we are not naming, say they were subjected to inappropriate comments while trying on a pair of trousers in a changing room situated within the Glasgow Fort store earlier this month.
Sounds a bit weird, two people trying on one pair of trousers – is that what the inappropriate comments were about? Was someone explaining that a pair of trousers has room for only two legs, not four?
One of the men wanted to try on trousers to wear to his gran’s funeral and on approaching a fitting room, he was told by a member of the public that it was for women only to “try on bras”.
Ohhhhh I see. Sly of the reporter not to mention sooner that the changing room was a women’s changing room. Sooooo what were the men doing there then? Do they both claim to be women? Do they claim to be the kind of women who wear only one leg of a pair of trousers and share the pair with another woman of that kind?
A member of the M&S team then told him: “I can’t stop you from using it,” and he proceeded to try on the item with his partner.
That is, he continued to use the women’s changing room despite the objections of women who were there using the women’s changing rooms. A tad entitled are they?
While in the changing room, they heard the member of the public say, “I wouldn’t want to get my t**s out in front of other men.”
Tits. The word is tits. Skip the asterisks; we’re not children. And I too would not want to get my tits out in front of men in a Marks & Spencers, especially not the kind of man who ignores women’s objection to his presence in a woman’s changing room.
The couple complained to a manager instore who told them that she would reiterate to staff that fitting rooms were unisex. They also complained in writing to the store and are now looking to escalate their complaint further.
Because how dare women want to get away from men when they’re trying on clothes. How dare women resist men’s intrusions. How dare women not comply and bow and smile and obey.
So, these weren’t even the kind of men who “are women”? These were just regular-old men who don’t like hearing “no”?
And that ridiculous repeating of “member of the public”. Just to avoid saying “woman” I suppose.
The men weren’t trans (gay?) but they were outraged on behalf of TransidentifiedMales because there was no way the women could have known that they weren’t trans and imagine how much worse it would have been.
See? Women who don’t want men in the lingerie changing room are killing people.
So, there are other changing rooms in the store and these two men insisted on using one that is set aside for women to try on bras? Nah, ain’t happening in my neck of the woods. I would be the customer doing more than making remarks they could overhear — I would be the customer going right in there with them (since privacy is not something they care about) to question them thoroughly on what sort of sexual or social thrill they were getting out of this and why they could not simply act like decent human beings and use another dressing room. I would be making sure the whole store could hear me, too.
Exactly SW. Our department stores have changing rooms dotted all over the place. Who the hell walks from the men’s dress trouser area (where there will most assuredly be changing rooms and specialist fitters) over to the women’s lingerie section?
Okay, there’s some odd wrinkles to this story not mentioned in the OP.
1: The men claim that they did not realize that there were changing rooms near the menswear department, and that they would’ve gone to the mens’ if they’d been directed there.
2: The store rep describes the changing area as having ‘individual lockable cubicles’. I’ve seen lots of different changing room designs in the US. Everything from a small chamber with a curtain that you can draw (and often have to position just right to not allow side-gaps, since the bar itself is built into the door-frame, rather than running along the wall above it) to bathroom stall-style cubicles that have gaps above and/or below, and sometimes along the sides as well, to full-blown miniature rooms with proper doors. It’s not clear from the description which is actually in play here, beyond it not being the curtained variety. The story really should’ve included a photo of the changing area to let folks decide how outrageous this particular instance is.
Then what are they making a fuss about? They could have done just that once the woman customer said something, even if they thought she did it in a nasty way.
Maybe the salesclerk was afraid that if she directed them to the change rooms in “menswear” they’d claim discrimination or threaten suicide or something.
What planet are these guys claiming to be from if they are pretending ignorance of the fact that stores have men’s changing rooms and women’s changing rooms? I don’t buy that these guys could be so ignorant of the how retail stores have been set up for decades now.