DM: Women avoiding new gender neutral toilets in the home office because men can't close the door

I agree @gendercritter if it's a lockable room someone could easily follow another person there and push them back inside when their done and lock the door - ok probably not an issue at work or in a cafe but in bars and clubs definitely. It also doesn't seem as safe as just having 'normal' loos because if someone passed out behind the locked door it is much harder to notice and get them out. I've seen this exact situation in expensive bars which tend to have a floor to ceiling door for each toilet (people passing out in there for hours, not being assaulted).

I'd hate to have gender neutral toilets at work - several times I've gone to the toilets crying which I feel is a massive stigma to men as they don't often cry at work, whereas the women's toilet is a safe place where I don't mind so much as many women have done the same. We also have a box of tampons on the window sill in case people are caught short, but I know some women at my work wouldn't take one in front of their male colleagues for fear of them taking the piss when they are all out at the pub or whatever (quite a young workplace full of 'banter')

Why create new problems to solve a perceived issue that in most people's minds doesn't even exist?!

but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision

I'm not sure.

I think the people producing fig leaves (so far open doors, sanitary products bins) will just keep producing new fig leaves as old ones are raked up.

Because the majority (both sexes) are really uncomfortable with unisex and want to keep single sex. So they aren't going to be mollified with any of the proposed solutions. Because nobody is talking or allowed to talk about the real problem.

Today there are leaves. Further along there might be trees. Followed by a ruddy great forest, rustling loudly in the hope we can finally acknowledge the root of the issue.

Might be considerably cheaper to just let people say what is on their mind and have the TPTB admit that you can't solve a wide spread, cast iron preference for single-sex ...with even the most genius, bespoke, huge investment, unisex solution for all.

Then take the evidently massive budget, pare it down and refit to build some discreet, "single user" extra loos to accommodate anybody who would encounter an issue with single sex/multi-user loos

Well looking at society as it is at the moment, with most stuff built for the average adult unencumbered man, and all the shitwork doen by women, I'd say the ratio is pretty high.

Example. Crash test dummies were all male until VERY recently, meaning that women were at a much much higher risk of severe injury or death, even at low speed collisions.

What's the magic ratio, I wonder.

How many unhappy women are worth one happy man?

10:1?
200:1?
1000:1?

I'm going to call this the MVR
The Misogynistic Value Ratio.

I can rate organisations by their scaled willingness to piss off or endanger many women for the pleasure or benefit of a few men.

Organisations which treat men and women fairly would have a 1:1 ratio.

Organisations that merrily make 500 women miserable or disadvantaged to make 2 men feel 'included' have a MVR of 250:1

Laws like the GRA that eliminate the right of 33million females to legal recognition as a class and rights of their own to benefit say 3000 men have an MVR of 11,000:1

Who knows why they did it? Immaturity? Power? Apparently there is such a thing as a menstrual blood fetish - some posters on here have linked to tweets /blogs by men / trans women with a thing for that. There is any number of unpleasant, inexplicable and threatening things that men do that mean not wanting to share toilets with them is a perfectly reasonable position.

I mean they've had yonks to work that out and they still seem oblivious.

"You'd hope male architectures and designers would realise such things were needed and do better job of accomodating but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision."

lol

because they always remember about women's toilets having sanitary bins and make sure there is room to get in and close the door without too much trouble (actually that's an accessibility issue isn't it - I am small and often struggle, a larger or less bendy person might not be able to get in at all, some I've been in) and also sit on the bog without your leg pressed against it!

Post-offence reporting is not safeguarding

This, this, this.

Suppose you’re right NothingOnTellyAgain might be bigger concerns for cliental than loos.

in many gender neutral toilets with these configurations the bins will end up in the communal area, adding further stress for women

DD secondary school loos are big room open to corridor one side girls one boys mirror between two sinks down middle.

School likes it as can't hide in loos and everyone is visible. Sanitary machines are in middle of back wall visible form the corridor. Children get on with it they don't have much choice.

I image women will adapt by having bags to put them in and dispose quietly later or switch to re-usable where you need to store anyway.

I image women will adapt by having bags to put them in and dispose quietly later or switch to re-usable where you need to store anyway.

You'd hope male architectures and designers would realise such things were needed and do better job of accomodating but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision.

Yes I'd also like to know why they wanted women to show them their bloody tampons and pads before being allowed to throw them away.

What possible motivation could there be for this? Makes no sense at all.

They were demanding that anyone wanting to use the bins showed them what was in her hand

WTAF! What possibly reason would they have for doing this and why would the staff have no power to step in and stop this abuse?!

Just looked at the open air urinals in Paris.
Ridiculous. Don't punish the men, just pander to them and normalise getting your dick out in public spaces.

I can fully believe they wasted £8k on a bloody sign as it would've been 'designed' by a stupidly expensive, trendy design company in London.
People should be held to account for pissing away public money whilst benefits are being cut and food bank usage are increasing.

Men will not tolerate snaitary bins in the toilets though I'm sure, as it makes it so difficult to shut the door, and they don't need them.

Probabyl in many gender neutral toilets with these configurations the bins will end up in the communal area, adding further stress for women.

I've seen some people say they'd be happy with unisex if there were full length, lockable doors so each individual loo was private.

I can see why some are but I'm not. At the moment it is taboo for a man to enter a woman's loos. Some people go in anyway and assault women, yes, but many don't because of it being a line you don't cross.

I wouldn't want to be in a unisex loo in the evening at a venue when it was quieter to give one example - a man just has to shove you in the room and lock the door if he wished to assault you. I'd feel vulnerable. Single sex loos are what I'd like with a third option that is gender neutral for trans people.

What?

Why did they do that?

Someone on another thread said that they used the gender neutral loos on a university open day. A group of men, and at least one trans woman, had moved all the sanitary bins out of the cubicles, lined them up, and were standing in front of them. They were demanding that anyone wanting to use the bins showed them what was in her hand. The MNer tried to complain to staff but was told they could do nothing.

Agree that the women dont' want to go in because the men do.

i would feel really uncomfortable sharing a toilet in this configuration with my male work colleagues.

I'd probably go to a different floor. I suspect lots of women and men will start using the accessible toilets, thus also fucking things up for people who need those.

Depends on the clientelle bigkite! I used to go to a club back in the day where over time the 3 doors in the ladies got broken and eventually gone - you would take a mate to stand in front in lieu of a door!

Admittedly now I am in my mid 40s I would not be so keen but then drinking snakebite til I puked and trying to get off with a variety of long haired young men is not really on the radar either

Surely if they've spent so much money on gender neutral toilets they should be fit for purpose? The only gender neutral toilets that I would be comfortable using would have floor to ceiling lockable doors with the sink inside the cubicle and opening into a public area.

Those are common in coffee shops IME where there are only one or two and I've never known any one have an issue - other than queues.

it is becoming increasingly common in bars. Men hardly ever seem to be close the door and both I and a friend have walked into 'gender neutral' toilets (two different bars on different occasions) to be faced with a man with his penis out pissing in the sinks because the cubicles were occupied.

Surely at some point this would impact on customers?- I wouldn't want to go to that bar especially if there were others nearby where I didn't have to deal with that.

The women don't want to go in there because men do.

I susepct that's most of the reason as well - I suspect the door thing has been latched onto as a fixable issue.

BeefTomato

Yes - it's not difficult to think about this properly.

But there's been story after story - the barbican, the university where the men pissed everywhere, this one. They are not using common sense about how people actually behave and what their needs are when they are doing this. It's all a sort of fantasy where men are all lovely and clean and women are happy to wash blood off their hands at the sink while chatting to dave from accounts.

I do think they could if they wanted to obviously and I suspect there is an element of why should I bother, but I suspect it's down to laziness rather than wanting to expose themselves / upset women

Seriously all these men hold down jobs. Some high powered and well paid no doubt . You dont get there without putting in hard work and observing all.kinds of expected behaviours and conducting yourself appropriately.

Except of course when it comes to women.

They know. They sodding know. They don't care.

Surely if they've spent so much money on gender neutral toilets they should be fit for purpose? The only gender neutral toilets that I would be comfortable using would have floor to ceiling lockable doors with the sink inside the cubicle and opening into a public area. The setup they have is already unacceptable without men refusing to shut the cubicle doors on top of that

I think the "the men don't shut the door" reason given is a fig leaf.

The women don't want to go in there because men do. All the basic instincts millennia of evolution has created to help us survive kicks in. But in today's world, they can't say that without social, or offical sanction.

So they point to the open doors. Which I'm sure make the experience worse.

But if all the men, all the time, shut all the doors.... the women still wouldn't want to go in there.

Most of them will be of an age where hard learned, high cost, life lessons mean they listen to their instincts. Albeit while scrabbling about for a new bag of socially acceptable reasons why they are avoiding the Most Expensive Bogs Ever.

It's not women's fault though is it? If they want to protest there are other ways.

I've no issue with both sexes using a proper individual room, ie a loo, a sink and a hand dryer, with a lock on the door.

I have massive issues sharing a large room with individual toilet cubicles with males.

I know exactly how I would feel, if I was inside a cubicle and a group of people with male sounding voices came in. Who, out of us, would leave the cubicle whilst a group of unknown people who sound like they have male voices stood outside? In a space that's closed off to the rest of the pub, restaurant, store, whatever? Yes, I'd maybe be doing a perfectly lovely group of people a complete disservice, but how the hell can I tell if they're friend or foe??? I'd have no idea how many of them there were. I've no idea what size they are. All I have are the voices. And those voices, even if they had no idea I was there, would be telling me to stay still, stay quiet and stay unnoticed until it was safe to leave.

I'd either have to wait until they all left, or text my husband and ask him to come in to the "gender neutral" toilets and be there when I opened the door.

What a fucking way to live...