Zara - male bodies in female changing room

So High St Ken is ok because it’s not used by Muslims? Eh? Well it’s my local for starters, yes it is, although also pupils with locals (ie Americans/french/Spanish etc).

I’d love to see my MIL Vs 2 big blokes ‘so you feel unsafe with me telling you you’re a man???’. JFC - she is from a country where women are thrown into jail for not covering (or even complaining about covering) their flipping hair (so has zero tolerance for this type of thing)

We have to be very careful, it's a very sensitive time and it's very easy to offend people.

We just have to try not to upset anyone and play it on a case-by-case basis.

This is a really crappy policy that puts the onus on the lowest paid - probably female - staff members, possibly on insecure contracts, to manage the behaviour of potentially aggressive, volatile men.

When I worked in a clothes shop there were specific policies that needed to be followed - like faulty item returns being processed by a manager - which were there partly to avoid fraud, but also to protect staff from risk. When some guy turned up at closing time on Christmas Eve and demanded he be allowed to buy something for his wife the manager stepped in and got rid of him. If I'd been faced with a guy insisting he went into the women's changing rooms, I feel confident I could have got the manager to support me and tell him no.

But if you tell your staff they need to make a decision on a case by case basis, you leave them totally unsupported if there's a problem. And create ridiculous inconsistencies between the Marble Arch and Kensington branches for nebulous "cultural reasons". (I am still processing the implications of this - is Zara saying religious Muslim women would not feel welcome in the Kensington store, but that's ok because they have their own store in Marble Arch? I really hope not)

I'm not surprised that when put in this situation, staff default to letting the men choose which changing room to use though. Who is more likely to kick up a dangerous fuss? An aggressive man who is already intending to violate women's boundaries, or a stressed woman who suddenly finds a man in the changing room. Lots of women would rather just leave when faced with a boundary-violating man, rather than risk incurring his anger. And thus these attempts to be inclusive and kind end up just reinforcing male privilege twice over. Again.

Artichoke's post is spot on, but I am ignoring it because it's depressing.

The rules have changed to accommodate the feelings of males.

The feelings of females are not given even the briefest of consideration - in fact it's considered actively 'transphobic' to mention one has any feelings, thoughts or opinions.

Women are to shut up and be kind.

Good for The Daily Mail! Keep on shining that light, DM.

Ridiculous comment from the staff having to be "careful not to upset anyone" or is that just not wanting to "upset anyone" bigger and stronger than you??? Or "anyone " that might kick off??
What about the "upset" women and girls eh? Oh yes; we don't count- the terfy bigoted rights hoarding dinosaurs that we are

I remember trying something on in Monsoon. The curtains gaped so no real privacy.

A man was sitting down inside the communal area while his wife tried on clothes.

Whenever I came out to look in the big mirror he leered at me quite deliberately.

It made me so uncomfortable I asked the assistant move him.

And they did.

Those were the days ....

They never care about upsetting women though do they.

Given women are not likely the ones in charge of household finances, doing the shopping, organising the clothes for the kids etc we aren't the ones that should be pissing off.

We will take our money for ourselves s and our children elsewhere.

These 2 makes just cost them three customers this end. Hope they spent alot and it wasn't just an.exercise in dominance

Something tells me when the women stop using the shop and changing rooms and the mLes are stopped there alone the novelty will soon wear off.

It sounds ridiculous, but in fact this is exactly what gender ideology tells us is correct.

'if people are carrying women's clothes to try on then they can use the changing rooms'

This is perfectly correct according to the Scottish government, Stonewall, the Ministry of Justice and the police.

'We have to be very careful, it's a very sensitive time and it's very easy to offend people.

'We just have to try not to upset anyone and play it on a case-by-case basis.

'As a general rule, if people are carrying women's clothes to try on then they can use the changing rooms on the women's floor.'

I ask another staff member if she knew the policy and she says the same thing: 'Our managers tell us to let people into the women's changing rooms if they are carrying women's clothes', she said.'

So nothing to do with 'gender' then. Just to do with what clothing one has. So any male carrying women's clothing can use the women's changing room.

Just as well there's no such thing as predatory men looking to access women in a vulnerable state, then, eh? Because any man carrying a blouse on a hanger is automatically exempt from being a voyeur or any other form of predator. QED.

The basic rule has become 'people who are male get to do whatever they like (largely because they kick off at the word 'no' or any hint that they might want to consider their impact on others), and females - can put up or give up the space and leave'.

I think we've destruction tested the idea that male people choosing their own spaces would have no impact on female people or their access, and it would all be a lovely happy paradise of rainbows and unicorns.

As a matter of fact it has proven two things:

1. The UK is quite unbelievably sexist. There has been zero progress on this. Society operates wholly on sex based thinking, and this needs addressing because ffs, the 1950s are not coming back and at this point it's about some male people treating female people as less human, lesser beings, subordinate to them, while knowing full well it's a lousy thing to do and all about bad behaviour and entitlement. Time to do something serious about this as a society.

2. Female people need single sex spaces, because any mixed sex space is dominated by male people, some of whom take what they want and meet their own needs without the faintest interest or regard or respect for female people in that space, or how their actions affect or exclude female people. There will be no good will. There will be no mutually respectful behaviour. There may quite often be loud, aggressive behaviour to get own way if female people try suggesting that they might be a bit more considerate and equality minded. (See fuckton of evidence.) There will be zero conscience or caring about females or their problems. (See 1.) Any shouting about equality will actually translate as 'do what I want' as opposed to any interest in actual equality and others having rights too.

Now we've proven that this doesn't work for female people in society without legal, enforcable boundaries (at this point cue some male people raging that they will come in anyway and no one can stop them which kind of proves all over again why female people need those legal boundaries because nothing else but legal consequences will manage this awful behaviour) those legal boundaries need putting back.

This has, very predictably, just turned into a total shitshow of male supremacism, entitlement and enjoying being allowed to jump up and down on female boundaries. While gleefully explaining that women can't stop them.

I won't be settling for this.

Good article- she gets straight to the heart of it.
It’s totally unacceptable. It makes women feel uncomfortable and at risk and obviously men already have their own changing spaces to change in.

Deciding for yourself must be really great for the blokes who have the choice of both changing rooms but makes it impossible for women whichever place they use. I wear men’s department items sometimes and wouldn’t dream of trying them on in the men’s. Men in the women’s trying on clothes themselves, or just coming in for a look at girls and women changing, is creepy and dangerous for us without very close staff supervision and in these days of smartphones and spy cameras.

Shops should be required to provide properly supervised single sex changing with strict rules and staff training around harassment and safety, then women and girls (however they identify around their own gender identity) can get changed comfortably and in reasonable safety.

My MIL used to take her granddaughter to Zara when the came to visit (before all this covid) and would buy her tonnes of clothes - so the changing room would be used.

Those two 6” blokes wouldn’t have stood a chance against my 4”11 MIL. She would have gone ballistic. And if it was now (she is first year of secondary) it would be so much worse for them.

That's a good article. Hopefully the next article will be from the women forced to share hospital wards with the male born sex offenders that the NHS is so keen on placing on women's wards.

This is exactly where we end up when the argument is made that some men are women and it’s unfair to exclude them.

The suggestion that no man would take advantage of a situation where males are no longer shamed for invading women’s spaces could only ever be propagated by the spectacularly naive, or the deceitful predatory.

Glad to see it in the Mail on Sunday and also pleased with the voting on the comments.

I didn’t know Zara sold men’s clothing.

Also, why is it different for different ‘cultures’?

Hmmm......the changing room allocation women/men is for the person trying on, not the clothing. If Zara are saying that the men were trying on women's clothing so could use the women's changing room, that's assuming gender based on social conditioning - that the clothes they define as women's line are therefore only for women.
Unless they're implying that the men were simply using the nearest changing room to the clothing line, rather than taking the items to the men's changing room downstairs, in which case they should make all changing rooms unisex, but that would mean either losing a lot of custom or spending millions on refitting there shops with changing areas that afford every individual privacy.
I've often been carrying around children's clothing for purchase, but am quite sure it would be frowned upon if I frequented the children's changing rooms (without my young children).

Zara aren't taking a position because it's easier for them not to, and generally we're too polite to make a fuss - I would have made a bigger scene if the shop had caused me to be exposed like that.

and in ASDA, the biggest spenders are the women (they mostly are in retail and food) and these aren't 'think right' middle class women. These are the engines of societies, these women shout loud when thwarted. Isn't ASDA a US company - Wallmart I believe

I blame Asda... but honestly, the manager saying they have to be careful not to upset people?? Women are people too!!!

Any chance of this? I for one would be seriously impressed with SW if they took on this challenge instead of thinking women are the easy target. Perhaps we have been too compliant

But then where would the validation be?

In that case, shouldn't they be happy to try on the women's clothes in the men's changing room? They could try re-educating some actual, male bigots for a change

Any chance of this? I for one would be seriously impressed with SW if they took on this challenge instead of thinking women are the easy target. Perhaps we have been too compliant

I've noticed the occasional man in women's clothing clearly making no effort to look feminine, it's about being 'edgy'.

In that case, shouldn't they be happy to try on the women's clothes in the men's changing room? They could try re-educating some actual, male bigots for a change ....

Yet again mens feelings trump womens safety.

Why are their rights more important than womens?!