Skirting boundaries

SIR – What a shame that Marks & Spencer has reacted with a knee-jerk to the criticism of store lavatory signs depicting a female with a baby (report, August 9) and agreed to alter the picture.

With a little less fear and more thought, staff could have stated that it might just as well be a depiction of someone from one of the new, vaguer categories of the gender spectrum. Why assume that the skirted figure is a woman?

Incidentally, in architectural ironmongery these signs used to be called “sex symbols”. I wager that this has changed. Anne Birkert

Codsall, Staffordshire