Zara - male bodies in female changing room

[BoreOfWhabylon]

An unimpressed Editor-at-large of the MoS was also there

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10275757/CHARLOTTE-GRIFFITHS-facing-dilemma.html

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.

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 ....

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

@Artichokeleaves

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.

Great post - absolutely this!

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

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.

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.

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)

The top comment has 20k up votes!

The list of places where I will shop is getting smaller, that’s lush and Zara both gone now ffs.

Zara went a while ago though. Most high at stores have (just look at the wording on their changing rooms). They snuck unisex (cos it’s unisex not genda neutral nonsense) changing rooms in.

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

Only male people though. Heaven help you if you offend male people. You can do what you like to female people though. It's pretty much good practice to offend, harass, scare, exclude, belittle, marginalise and otherwise oppress female people. If they complain, you can even call the police on them.

Because any man carrying a blouse on a hanger is automatically exempt from being a voyeur or any other form of predator. QED.

I don't think at this point anyone is left pretending that there's any way to know or manage the agenda of the male person entering the single sex space, regardless of what it turns out to be. The fact is, as this member of staff has helplessly demonstrated, is that the male person will do what the male person chooses, and female people and staff can do nothing whatsoever about this.

It's just male supremacism now. Cut and dried. It's inexcusable.

@Blackandwhitehorse

The top comment has 20k up votes!

The list of places where I will shop is getting smaller, that’s lush and Zara both gone now ffs.

At what point will whoever is in charge of increasing sales and profitability, not to mention branding and PR, notice this ratio and think that just perhaps women who don't want to get changed with any male who wishes to use the changing room are not 'bigoted'?

Or will they just grit their teeth and hope that the sector of people supporting males to change wherever they please and telling women they are free to change at home or shop online is larger than the sector of women buying clothes who want a changing room that is free of males?

Seriously,we need to just tell them to get out ,why are we putting up with this
Women chained themselves to railings for the right to vote ,for a voice .
Now we are loosing our voice

I feel like you're right but you know what would happen. Somebody would get their smart phone out and record you using your voice, and then you'd be all over the papers, lose your job etc.

What would it take? I mean, we've had plenty of documented cases of voyeurs, hidden cameras, males using women's clothing and underwear and putting it back, there are plenty 'reviews' of women's underwear on the M&S website from males who are at pains to make it clear they are male. There is evidence that mixed sex changing rooms put women at risk.

At what point do people start listening to women?

When do women's thoughts and feelings matter?

The aim of the game - sometimes openly stated - is to just accustom female people to loss of all space, privacy etc and to train them up in just bowing to the superiority of male doingwhateverthefuckmalewantsforwhateverreasons.

Hence the whole schools thing, start 'em young, never let them have any boundaries to start with, and avoid the current annoying generation of females who won't get undressed alongside random males and tolerate whatever said males do without being noisy and difficult.

As with refuges: the political aim is that females will just 'get over it'. They'll adapt. They will want to buy clothes and will just learn to put up with being used and having a miserable experience at the hands of males while they do it. Win for males.

The only alternative is sufficient females getting sufficiently pissed off and willing to stand up and refuse this. And stopping being the easier ones to upset.

It's no secret that plenty of MRAs feel women have too many rights.

Again, I appeal to the assistant for help.

'What can we do?' she shrugs, looking apologetic. 'If that's how they classify themselves?'

I dunno. Grow a spine. Whistleblow. Say this is causing a safeguarding issue.

Later I speak to a manager at the branch who indicates they don't feel they have any clear instructions on the issue from head office.

Again spineless staff. Why aren't you as a senior manager raising it properly and continually as a safeguarding issue.

'In some stores we get complaints when we let men into the changing rooms on the women's floor and in some stores we get complaints when we don't,' the manager says

Yes and? It doesn't stop it being a safeguarding issue.

This is a multi million pound company with a complete void on safeguarding women.

They could put in individual cubicles for trans customers which are not as problematic. They chose not to.

They choose to turn a blind eye and say 'not our problem'.

There needs to be legal action on this somehow. Its not protecting on the grounds of sex or religious belief.

Its not ok. And its clearly the only thing that gets listened to.

Shouty men complaining are more important than women trying to protect their dignity and safeguard.

No excuses. And yes these female staff are utterly complicit. There is no excuse in saying 'i was worried about my job' when its an issue that involves safeguarding. Its just pure cowardice.

The reason they get away with it is because women are frightened of confronting men on the whole because we know they can hurt us.

They rule through fear.

Just feeling glad we are suddenly seeing stories about this.

I hate this. I would feel so uncomfortable and think it totally skews the dynamic of the changing room. No teenage girls trying on fun outfits with their friends, just scared girls feeling uncomfortable around men when they are half dressed.

In a way it would be better if they were just unisex rather than pretending to be female, as we would know where we stand at least, and not be used as validation tools for men. But then why should we have to give up our spaces.

If they flagged them as unisex (generally they are just vaguely called ‘changing rooms’) then women wouldn’t use them. As it stands, women are tricked in reality because they assume the changing room on the lingerie dept is a ladies only changing room.

Unfortunately though with unisex facilities men have access and poor tip to leave spy cams so that isn’t failsafe either. And lockable cubicles in vicinity of men is giving an opportunity they don’t have in a single sex supervised changing room.

We need to stick up for single sex female culture and campaign for our own changing rooms with no men allowed. It’s worked reasonably well for decades.

Opportunity! Not ‘poor tip’…

I don't understand. Why would the assistants send men into the women's changing rooms when women are getting undressed in there? That's insanity. Changing rooms don't get allocated to people according to the clothes they have in their hands. It's people who need single sex changing rooms, not the clothes.