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

Also no one is strolling in when anyone is undressed. They have cubicles which are monitored and assigned by the staff. Which you are well aware of but are choosing to ignore because it suits you.

[quote Cordyceps]@DoubleTweenQueen perhaps if that is your takeaway, you might be more comfortable engaging with someone else instead. There are plenty of people here who agree with you wholeheartedly and you can all have a great time agreeing with each other. Because that of course is exactly how good policy and a well-thought-out world view are created - by only engaging with people who agree with you to the tiniest detail of the teeniest thought.[/quote]
I would like to discuss the issue with someone who is also addressing the same issue, rather than deflection to something else, and then outright dismissal.

Do you think it was appropriate for the woman in the story to be without a private cubicle, in the women’s changing room, because two men were each taking up a private cubicle each, so necessitating her to change in the communal women’s area, then be slightly put out that said two blokes caught her out in her underwear? Do you think that’s acceptable or not?

incredibly insulting and not remotely what I said. Why can’t you make your point without insulting another woman?

I'm not a woman. I am confused by women who are happy to let men into their changing rooms. And I'm not happy that these actions put my daughter at risk. You might feel insulted. My strength of feeling goes far beyond feeling insulted.

@Cordyceps

Also no one is strolling in when anyone is undressed. They have cubicles which are monitored and assigned by the staff. Which you are well aware of but are choosing to ignore because it suits you.

Women are often undressed or in a state of disarray. They come out and get different tops, or lean out to ask the attendant to do it, they stand looking at the communal mirror, adjusting their clothing, they talk to their friends, asking opinions, etc. Especially teenagers.

None of this would happen with males present.

@FindTheTruth

two "masculine looking men" appeared behind her when she was in her bra in the female changing room of Zara.

Single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 already apply

I would love for there to be some sort of contractual breach too - woman goes into women’s changing room to remove her clothes without expecting intrusion of men.........

In the same week wolf whistling is to be banned, this is happening in Zara. and what about young adolescents in there?

The changing room is set up with a communal area so that you can nip in and try on a top or trousers or whatever if the cubicles are full. this means being in your underwear in teh communal area. letting two 6 foot blokes walk in is wrong. It makes women uncomfortable. It's dangerous for young girls. It's unfair on low paid staff for Zara HQ to be so vague in their policies.

Also no one is strolling in when anyone is undressed. They have cubicles which are monitored and assigned by the staff. Which you are well aware of but are choosing to ignore because it suits you

Two men strolled in and witnessed the female journalist in her underwear. What don't you understand about that?

Also no one is strolling in when anyone is undressed

You clearly haven't been in this changing room or read the article

Mixed sex provision actively removes all the benefit that women enjoy.

[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]
Frankly, your phobia has the square root of bugger all to do with either the subject or me: sorry and all that, but in the great scheme of things what it gets is "bad luck, you had a nasty experience at school". So did a lot more people than you, and in most cases if they are female the chances are the person or persons who assaulted them were male.

Your having had a bad experience does not entitle you to anything except a certain amount of sympathy: less than I might accord someone who didn't try to use their experience as a pretext to tell me (and every other woman who has ever been raped) what I am supposed (and they are supposed) to find acceptable or not.

Nor do you get to define what someone else finds to be "risk". Being hit over the head with a rock is not the only thing which causes trauma.

That's just what you made me feel; it's a big wide world and people have different opinions, that one is mine.

Loads of women and girls don’t like it. So don’t change it. It’s that simple.

It’s not a safety issue, it’s a men controlling women thing.

When I was a teenager, one of the most fun things I used to do with my best friend was go shopping. We saved up our pocket money and spent the afternoon in miss selfridge and biba and Chelsea girl, in and out of changing rooms with armfuls of clothes.

It's so sad that experience is being denied our teenagers because men are being allowed to trample over our single sex spaces. And some women are idiotic enough to let them.

I work in retail, I tell men to go to the mens changing room . I don't want men in my changing room regardless of what they are trying on!

@gunnersgold

I work in retail, I tell men to go to the mens changing room . I don't want men in my changing room regardless of what they are trying on!

Thank you.

And if these women change their minds - then they’ve given it all away. Explain that to your daughters and granddaughters who gasp when you tell them of days out with your pals buying the latest fashions, or to your mum or older self with failing eyesight or mobility issues feeling unsafe when you hear men’s voices behind a curtain as you get undressed.

@gunnersgold

I work in retail, I tell men to go to the mens changing room . I don't want men in my changing room regardless of what they are trying on!

Bravo!

gunnersgold good.

@KittenKong

Loads of women and girls don’t like it. So don’t change it. It’s that simple.

It’s not a safety issue, it’s a men controlling women thing.

Well said. Not one of these companies have ever asked women whether they want to share changing rooms with men. Most women want privacy and safety when vulnerable and it defies belief that the demands of men to violate that privacy and safety has so much influence.

@KittenKong

Loads of women and girls don’t like it. So don’t change it. It’s that simple.

It’s not a safety issue, it’s a men controlling women thing.

Sadly many women, particularly younger women and some older ones who should know better, call themselves trans allies and are perfectly ok with this.

I still think though that the women who are unhappy with it may have more spending power, so maybe the only way is to stop spending in these shops, even if they have the most beautiful dress you've ever seen.

And, of course, let them know why. Maybe there might be some power left in declaring that if they go woke, they go broke.

Awful that it might only be finances that change their minds but let's use whatever we can.

@gunnersgold

I work in retail, I tell men to go to the mens changing room . I don't want men in my changing room regardless of what they are trying on!

Good. Thank you

MrsOvertonsWindow
You are right. Companies do not even consult their women customers over this. I went into a branch of M&S where womens fitting rooms were open to men who wanted to go in. The staff said they could not do anything to prevent it as it was now policy. I think it shows complete contempt for their core cusotmer base that this was imposed with no consideration for their female customers (who are the majority I imagine), I won't buy anything from Marks & Spencer now because of this.

cordyceps Sorry for your experience as a teenager, that sounds truly awful and it is of no surprise that it has left ongoing issues.

I am not overly bothered about unisex changing rooms, though if that is what they are then it should be clear that they are, not 'women and others'

@Cordyceps

I just got back from the states and shopped at a few places where the changing rooms weren't gendered. It was literally 100% fine and not even remotely an issue. You actually do the changing of clothes behind a door. What are you actually worried about? This is a genuine question. Is it that you think someone will enter your cubicle and see your underwear, or that they will physically attack you? The doors lock, and the staff keep track of which ones are in use. If someone did try to contravene this system by trying doors themselves or, I don't know, trying to climb under, then the shouting of the victim would be heard immediately and the other people queueing along with the staff would do something about it. I actually felt safer in a crowded, mixed-gender changing area with lots of people around then I would have if it were some dimly lit "female only" curtained space in some far corner of the store. If there was some sort of raging violent sexual psychopath with a penis who wanted to take a break from trying on miniskirts to sexually assault someone, well, that wouldn't happen in a staffed and busy changing area, and if a non-staffed changing area existed, they certainly wouldn't be fazed by a "women's changing room" sign.

Honestly there are actual problems and issues to worry about, this isn't one.

@Cordyceps you have just demonstrated in a single post that you haven't bothered at all to read the article.

• The cubicles are protected only by curtains
• There weren't enough cubicles because two of them were occupied by men. So the woman had to change in the communal part of the changing room.

Women have the right to privacy and dignity.

Is they are labelled as unisex (I remember all that in the 70s and it didn’t go down well did it?) then you can choose. But now they sneakily call them ‘changing rooms’ so you assume that the one in the knicker dept is ladies until you are standing there in your undies and head a man’s voice. Then you realise is didn’t say ladies/woman and there wasn’t a woman sign on the door...

@gunnersgold

I work in retail, I tell men to go to the mens changing room . I don't want men in my changing room regardless of what they are trying on!

Thank you!