Zara - male bodies in female changing room

[quote Cordyceps]@FindTheTruth I'm a woman, and I still think that the SPECIFIC situation of mixed-gender changing rooms in a busy, staffed store doesn't present a real risk of sexual assault to anyone. Because they don't. They may make people uncomfortable and they may be unsuitable for people who are very modest for religious or personal reasons but they do not present a physical danger. I don't necessarily agree with literally everyone else in this thread that a private business needs its minimum wage staff to police the sex of the people using changing rooms when no actual danger is present (and those of you talking about cameras, well, what about the male staff who work there, should they all be fired? Because that's who would be more likely to be installing and monitoring spy cams, not male customers who just pass through).

It's really weird that you're calling me a man.[/quote]
So you're saying women's and girls' discomfort doesn't matter?

Good to know

cross post @Datun

Cordyceps

What's in it for women?

Liberty’s - yes - it’s been like that for ages. I was bursting (I usually avoid public loos) and went to the ‘ladies’ (on some back stairs - so out of the way) and there was 2 or 3 cubicles and a disabled one. The sink was communal.

Also the lights were out in the staircase so they were dim (and like usual fancy blocks, just plain concrete back stairs). So the mixed sex loos were off the beaten track on a dark back staircase.

So of course the women and girls queued for the other cubicles - most men wandered in, looked shocked then apologised and turned tail. One aggressive and grumpy man shoved last us all, grumbling - and went into the disabled loos (he looked fine - you never know) and slammed the door.

There was a member of staff waiting too - she did utter apologies to the queue of women when the men came in.

He was greeted with the death stare by the queue when he got out though.

I got onto that website that lists loos and told trek that this loo was unisex and they ought to note which ones were.

It sucks. I suspect Selfridges are the same (may say ladies but who is going to challenge a man?). Don’t know about Harrods.

Cordyceps

What's in it for women?

But you might not get raped, but they might not want to look at your underwear, but they might not be fetishists, but so might the other men who work there, but women do it too, and my lived experience tells me that you should just put up with it.

[quote Cordyceps]@FindTheTruth I'm a woman, and I still think that the SPECIFIC situation of mixed-gender changing rooms in a busy, staffed store doesn't present a real risk of sexual assault to anyone. Because they don't. They may make people uncomfortable and they may be unsuitable for people who are very modest for religious or personal reasons but they do not present a physical danger. I don't necessarily agree with literally everyone else in this thread that a private business needs its minimum wage staff to police the sex of the people using changing rooms when no actual danger is present (and those of you talking about cameras, well, what about the male staff who work there, should they all be fired? Because that's who would be more likely to be installing and monitoring spy cams, not male customers who just pass through).

It's really weird that you're calling me a man.[/quote]
Not really, since it's quite odd that anyone should be arguing that consent, privacy, dignity, safety and the right to have boundaries for other females isn't really a justifiable thing and doesn't matter, largely because their even talking about it gets in the way of male people being able to do exactly what they want. If they're arguing that and they're female, it gets even odder.

I'm a woman, and I still think that the SPECIFIC situation of mixed-gender changing rooms in a busy, staffed store doesn't present a real risk of sexual assault to anyone.

So what? That's one specific store, in a busy area. We are talking about wholesale policy but doesn't take into account these individual circumstances.

Most women don't want it. What's in it for them. Seriously.

Can you even answer that??

It’s really eye opening how much saying no to male demands upsets ppl whereas saying no to women is just an everyday occurrence

Goodness me my bingo card has filled up so quickly with this thread.

As pp have said, as a woman I have nothing to gain by letting men into womens changing rooms. If men want to push the boundaries of masculinity they can try on womens clothes in the mens changing rooms

@FindTheTruth I'm a woman, and I still think that the SPECIFIC situation of mixed-gender changing rooms in a busy, staffed store doesn't present a real risk of sexual assault to anyone. Because they don't. They may make people uncomfortable and they may be unsuitable for people who are very modest for religious or personal reasons but they do not present a physical danger. I don't necessarily agree with literally everyone else in this thread that a private business needs its minimum wage staff to police the sex of the people using changing rooms when no actual danger is present (and those of you talking about cameras, well, what about the male staff who work there, should they all be fired? Because that's who would be more likely to be installing and monitoring spy cams, not male customers who just pass through).

It's really weird that you're calling me a man.

Reading in the DM comments that Liberty now has mixed-sex toilets. Is that correct? What a shame, I love Liberty but wouldn't shop there again if that's the case.

Also I wouldn't want to try on any items of clothing after a man had tried it on. Grim.

Shopping is definitely one area where women can exercise some power and make a protest. Wouldn't it be great faced with the male in female changing room problem to blow on a Posie Parker dog whistle, alert all the women in the shop - and we all leave.

I said I was done with you because you asked for stats and evidence , you got them and ignored them @Cordyceps

I am simply using my own experience to point out the difference between a perception of risk and the actual existence of risk and how they often don't match up.

Yep - your perception that there is no risk and the actual statistical evidence that there is indeed a significant risk to women and girls in mixed sex changing rooms absolutely don't match up.

Glad you've realised that.

I am simply using my own experience to point out the difference between a perception of risk and the actual existence of risk and how they often don't match up.

God it's such a low bar that women are allowed, isn't it? 'Do you really think you'll be raped or someone wants to look at your underwear.'

The thing is, @Cordyceps i'm not interested in sharing my changing room with men. There's nothing in it for me. I much prefer to change amongst members of my own sex.

Re: The Mail, I do have my doubts, sometimes extremely, about the comments section of that website. It's often goady, lacking nuance, ignorant and distasteful, and full of barely disguised prejudices and glee in the downfall of others. I often cringe to read, even on the more feminist pieces.

However the last few times I've clicked through to a Mail story, including on this, the comments I've seen have been noticeably largely intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful. Perhaps this shows something of a change in the type of reader looking for and engaging on this topic there.

Female spaces aren't safe, females are dangerous too

You can't be all irrational and make decisions on how you feel or what you want unless someone more objective and apparently with superior judgement has decided first that you have a case and entitlement to those feelings (unless you're male and trans, in which case your feelings are THE most important concern and any objective views is all kinds of awful, and you'll get lectured to death about lived experience/stay in your lane/yada yada)

All the cool girls are doing it/you're isolated and out of touch and probably frumpy

Tick, tick, tick.

Bingo's going well today.

All continuing to serve the agenda of 'tediously familiar ways to get females to surrender boundaries to the advantage of males who will have no reciprocal responsibilities of any kind^ .

Sexist bollock. This is all. There is nothing more complicated to any of this than plain sexism.

I wouldn't feel safe in a unisex changing room, or any changing room where males were allowed access. I wouldn't feel comfortable at all. I'd feel extremely vulnerable. I don't love anyone seeing me in a state of undress/half-dress, but with other females I feel like we're all in it together. No way would I be happy with males being there. Any male who uses a female changing room must know the discomfort they cause.

I am simply using my own experience to point out the difference between a perception of risk and the actual existence of risk and how they often don't match up.

As others have pointed out, it's not just about risk.

Particularly as a teenager I would have hated being around men in changing rooms.

Mixed sex changing rooms directly infringe on women and girls' participation in society whether you agree with how they feel or not.

Shops need to understand who their customers are.

If it's women, then that's who they need to cater to.

It just requires enough people to point this out. And as the tide is turning, I expect that to happen more and more.

Bro, you have failed a moral test.

she had to be in the communal area because all the cubicles were occupied - because these two males were taking up two of them.

In response you talked about locked doors, the united states and staff tracking none of which applies to the situation. and in response to this uncomfortable situation said "Honestly there are actual problems and issues to worry about, this isn't one". A man who mocks boundaries cannot contribute to good policy and a well-thought-out world view

If shops are going to give in to this crap, then it's time for the same idea as school toilets SHOULD BE these days - that is, single lockable floor-to-ceiling unisex cubicles which are completely enclosed, along a wall of the shop and clearly visible to staff and customers

Except they present their own problems.

Its a space you could collapse , faint, have am asthma attack/epileptic fit/ fall or walk into as its unlocked witg a predetor in their already waiting for u and u could just he there with no feet visible and no way of being seen .

Amd of course completely reliant on the clean nature of those watching the footage or waiting around outside

I din't think, Cordyceps, that anyone is saying a single sex female changing room is 100% safe for women to use, but it is safer to use than a changing room advertised as single sex but men can wander in if they want to. Because men going somewhere society has stated is not meant for them, means their reason to go in is not a nice one. Can be anything from validation of their own self to creepy behaviour to actual assault. Who knows?
We also know most sex offenders take advantage of opportunities presented. So why give them ample opportunity?

Again, why put women at that risk?

[quote Cordyceps]@DoubleTweenQueen my point, perhaps badly made, is that people think that a man in the busy Zara changing room makes it unsafe, while a strictly female-only changing room is safe. That perception is wrong. It doesn't mean that someone is wrong for feeling unsafe in one situation and safe in the other - I know, logically, that I'm not at risk being alone on the top deck of the bus with 10 teenage girls. That doesn't mean I'm wrong to feel my illogical fear, but then again, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily the bus company's responsibility to make me feel better about the situation. I don't think that, realistically, any woman is at real risk in the specific scenario of "man in the Zara changing rooms" and I don't think they have any particular obligation to make people "feel" safer by policing their changing cubicles. You may disagree. It'a a big wide world and people have different opinions.[/quote]
Women are self evidently more unsafe around men.

Men commit 98% of all sex crimes.

Men are the ones who put cameras in changing rooms and toilets. Men are the ones who are voyeurs and flashers. Men are the ones who have all the fetishes relating to female biology.

Men self evidently constitute more of a threat.

And apart from anything else, it's rather unpleasant to have members of the cohort who do all these things to be violating your boundaries when you want privacy.

No thanks.

What's in it for women? Seriously @Cordyceps, what is actually in it for women??

If shops are going to give in to this crap, then it's time for the same idea as school toilets SHOULD BE these days - that is, single lockable floor-to-ceiling unisex cubicles which are completely enclosed, along a wall of the shop and clearly visible to staff and customers. Much harder to perve, get attention, prove your point, etc, just anonymous. Much less fun for the groups of girls and women who like shopping together, but that apparently has to be sacrificed for the 'needs' of men. However I'm sure some creepy bastards would find some way to abuse it.