Women do need protecting in the changing rooms
Charlotte Griffiths’s article about her experience in the changing rooms at the Zara branch in Kensington High Street made for uncomfortable reading.
So this is the reality, is it?
Sharing our changing rooms with blokes. It’s disgusting and has to stop. If space was allocated and clearly marked as ‘unisex’, it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps that is the answer.
As Charlotte points out, some of us are shy and seek privacy, even from other women.
S. Martin, East Preston
There is no reason why these men couldn’t use the male changing rooms. It’s becoming a very unsafe world for women.
I find this deeply uncomfortable and think it’s disgraceful.
L. Anderson, St Austell, Cornwall
May I suggest that Charlotte spend her precious time examining her own prejudices and insecurities rather than looking for someone to complain about?
It is none of her business how others identify themselves and if she is so uncomfortable or afraid of strangers and the danger she perceives they pose to her, then perhaps she is better off shopping online.
Carolyn Bailey, Lincoln
I suppose the Zara management will apologise profusely but what would it have done had the two men turned on Charlotte and attacked her?
I suggest that all women immediately boycott Zara and all other shops that allow this shared-changing-room practice, for their own safety.
Peter Belcher, Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire
Any shop that allows men to enter women’s changing rooms for any reason loses my custom. It’s simply not acceptable. F. Thomas,
Solihull, West Midlands
Owing to Covid restrictions, we have had only one set of changing rooms open at the shop I work at, so it had to be mixed.
There are policies in place enabling people to return items if they are uncomfortable trying them on in store.
I think Charlotte needs to remember that there are worse things going on in the world.
L. Miller, Norwich
I am a middle-aged woman and I would have been mortified. I genuinely wouldn’t have liked to have been in Charlotte’s shoes.
C. Clark, Durham
I assume that Charlotte wears a bikini or a swimming costume on holiday. Surely, this is the same thing.
There are cubicles in changing rooms if you are modest. It personally wouldn’t bother me, but then I have lived in student and nursing accommodations and you had no privacy there.
Wendy Evans, Staffordshire