boys in girlpants

[ScrumYummy]

The Situation
I currently work at Limited Too. It's a girl's clothing/accessory store, for girls ages six to sixteen (generally). There are two sets of dressing rooms--three in the center of the store, and three in the back (secluded, in their own hallway). Yesterday, two teenage boys were caught by one of the managers in one of the back dressing rooms, trying on girl pants. She kicked them out of the store.

Her Reasoning
The boys were being inappropriate, and shouldn't be trying on clothes in a little girl's store. They could lift each other up and be looking over the walls of the dressing rooms. They might be catching looks when mothers open the door to their daughter's dressing room.

My Opinion
1. It is a fashion statement right now for boys to wear girlpants.
2. There are brothers/boyfriends/friends/fathers/cousins/etc walking around in the store all of the time. You can't kick all of them out because they're male.
3. Not allowing a male to make a purchase or not providing him with a dressing room is discrimination based on gender.
4. They were probably in the dressing rooms in the back because they were right next to where the jeans are. If you are worried about them using those rooms to "peek" in on girls, ask them to go out to the dressing rooms in the middle of the store, which are highly visible. Also, in the Gap (and many other stores) the dressing rooms are mixed gender.
5. I've witnessed girls take their boyfriends into dressing rooms before, reported it, and management did nothing. So you're going to say that that isn't appropriate, but this is?

And now the question
What is your opinion on this? Do you think that boys should be allowed to shop in girl's stores? Was it inappropriate for the boys to be trying on clothes there in the dressing room? Do you think it was discrimination for the manager to kick them out?

[Blackmage]

I think it's disturbing but discrimination yes.

[Kugyou]

Without getting into questions of discrimination (since a private business has, within certain limits, the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason), I think it was not in the best interest of the store to deny the boys the ability to use the dressing rooms. The boys were interested in trying on pants (ostensibly with the intent of buying said pants), a business transaction that normally entails testing a garment for proper fit before buying it. Without the ability to test the fit of the pants, the boys were unable to engage in a necessary step in an intended business transaction and, as such, are precluded from making an informed transaction at any potential given future date. In other words, refusing to let the boys try on the pants cost the store direct and indirect potential business: direct in that the boys who wanted to buy pants now will not be willing or able to do so, indirect in that those who receive poor customer service, on average, inform multiple others of their negative experience, and word of mouth has a great potential to remove the chance that other boys will even seek out that store for future potential purchases.

Redux: I'm skipping "right" or "wrong" here; from a purely utilitarian ethic, it was dumb.

On the subtopic of girls taking their boyfriends into the dressing room: I remember being barred from following a girlfriend into the dressing room at a store due to "potential inappropriate behavior", yet one could clearly hear a pair of girls engaging in similarly inappropriate behavior in one of the stalls.

[Terin]

/agreed. the manager should designate the middle changing rooms unisex. Now, if you worked at Vickies Knickers I'd have a different story. (Hehe, I just made that up, but I'm gonna start claling Victoria's Secret Vickies Knickers ^_^)
-T

[Kudasai Hiroki]

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. If you don't want people peeping into the other dressing rooms put celings on them. Girls can peep at other girls too.
Secondly, girls wear guy clothes all the time and, quite frankly, it's kinda' hot. Now I'm not saying that a guy in girls clothes is hot 'cause I really don't find that sort of thing appealing. However, I did dress up as a chick for Halloween once and I got 4 phone numbers that night so I must have been pretty hot!
All in all it shouldn't matter who wears the clothes as long as they pay for them who cares?

[Sciler]

Well, unless i read it wrong above, the guys were in the same stall trying on stuff?

Kicking them out was a bit drastic. If anything she should have just asked that they be in separate stalls, because otherwise it just looks fishy, or she could have always just checked in on them or whatnot like most people do when people are trying on things. Leave them be for a few minutes to try stuff on, then check to see if they need help or another size, etc.

There was definitely a better way to handle the situation. Has that person been a manager for long time? Or do they simply lack in people skills?

[Graillik Tur]

Boys should not were Girl Pants. It's over, Emo has moved into an non-unisex mode which is good for the procreation of the Emo species.

So yes, the woman was doing the boys a favor and savign their little twig and berries from undo pressure.

[Silver Adept]

That seems a bit of a double-standard, since most stores I know of will let women try on the men's clothing. And several of the people I know will buy gents pants because of the way they fit., and the general standardization of sizes across manufacturers.

From what's been provided, it sounds like that manager wasn't too fond of the implications of what two boys trying on female jeans could imply. The action taken, though, seems well out of proportion with what they were doing.

[ScrumYummy]

[Stingdragon]

I don't see what the problem is with boys trying girls pants.
Maybe they just thought that the pants was nice and wanted to buy them.

But throwing them out because they could spy on the girls in the other stalls?
It is like going around and see every guy as a possible rapist. And that is bad for your health.