Primark accused of everyday sexism over changing room signs labelling females 'girls'

Earlier this month Doritos was accused of sexism after revealing bonkers plans to release a lady-friendly version of their crisps with less crunch and mess.

Now, a teacher has accused Primark of having sexist changing room signs.

Claire Griffiths, a 28-year-old geography teacher spotted the example of everyday sexism when she was shopping in the Bolton branch of the retail giant and noticed that female changing rooms had signs for ‘girls’ while the male ones read ‘men.’

“I popped into Primark in Bolton and witnessed this random bit of infantilisation of women – not girls,” she told Daily Mail.

“Girl is not the opposite of man, full stop. It’s a bit worrying, who the hell thought that was okay? It’s stupid.

“We aren’t used to referring to men as boys but we often hear women referred to as girls -such as ‘grid girls’. It’s demeaning and it puts us in a vulnerable position.”

“It surprises me that no one has thought, ‘we need to get rid of that’. Is there nobody there thinking that it isn’t right?”

To their credit, Primark has since apologised for the “signage error”, explaining that other changing rooms in stores across the UK were correctly signed.

“Primark uses separate signage for Women’s, Men’s, Girls’ and Boys’ fitting rooms in our stores,” a Primark spokesperson said.

“In smaller stores, where there are only two fitting rooms, we use signage indicating Men’s and Women’s.

“In this case, a Girls’ fitting room sign was incorrectly displayed in place of a Women’s fitting room sign. We were aware of this error in our Bolton store and it has since been rectified.

“Primark aims to deliver a positive shopping experience for all our customers and we are sorry for any upset caused by this error.”

Ms Griffiths was keen to point out that although the labelling of the sign wasn’t the “biggest deal” she felt compelled to speak out about the casual sexism.

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