US college first year describes her experience of mixed dorms

There is logic in that approach

Prodigal yes, I once read a poster here state that if self ID was to happen and any man could use single sex spaces, she would start using the men's as the predators would all be in the ladies

Look I know it's hard to accept - but yes, most uni accommodation does have mixed sex bathrooms. Yes you can request en suite, catered, single sex, but you are not guaranteed. En-suite are in the highest demand, but most uni residences were built decades ago and unis have very little money to refurb. So kids DO usually end up sharing a bathroom with students of the opposite sex - both mine did. Happily I'm glad to say.

titchy can you clarify your last sentence. If a DD of yours hadn't been happy to do this (for reason outlined in the article), would you not have been glad? I'm curious to what degree you feel the boundaries, dignity and safety of our girls are important.

Be too Much hard work have a toyboy i reckon

Ive only just trained dh

& then in later years, I was in MO terraced houses, usually with about 5 students - extra rooms carved out of the attic space, former living room & in one horrid example, the basement.

One shared bathroom & possibly an additional outside loo.

But that was groups of friends - different from a free-for-all of random 18-19yos & their guests sharing flimsy communal bathrooms!

DS, not DH! I am not implying that Rufus has gotten herself a toy boy.

My nephew is a similar age to your DH and I think the poor lad would resort to showering in the middle of the night with a prior scouting trip to ensure nobody else was around if forced to share those kinds of showers with women.

Should

FFS

Sorry that shiuld read

As for today, two of my kids had the unisex setup at two different university towns (UK)

I agree, Rufus - most men don't really want mixed sex facilities either. They may be less likely to complain than women due to fearing for their safety less, but given the choice most would prefer not to have to share.

There's a difference between multi-entry facilities and single-entry ones.

The former is a facility that can be used by several people at the same time and is typically single-sex. If it isn't then this becomes a multi-sex facility, where bpth sexes may use the facility at the same time.

The latter is a facility that can be used by only one person at any one time and is called unisex because while members of both sexes can use it, only one sex at a time uses it.

In my university and school days, I was in both shared single-sex and mixed-sex flats with unisex facilities and single-sex dorms with single-sex facilities as well as at the end mixed-sex dorms. By far the worst for privacy and safety were mixed-sex shower rooms with flimsy curtains and shared toilets in the latter.

As for today, two of my kids had the former setup at two different university towns (UK). The norm there for university accommodation are 3 to 6 bedroom flats with the residents of each individual flat sharing one or two single-entry unisex bathrooms. With lockable doors.

Even though these bathrooms are safe and private, every student also had a choice between single-sex and mixed-sex shared flats.

What that student describes is not the single-entry unisex bathroom that is the standard* option for UK university accommodation but a multi-entry mixed-sex facility. And it doesn't sound like any of these kids had a choice.

*En-suite bathrooms are the premium option - if they are available at all.

Ds1 would have been have been mortified sharing the showers with women in the picture ive posted

I’ll tell him he is clutching his pearls

(Thats not going to end badly 😀)

Pandora: Lots of student accommodation in the Uk is en-suite.

Yeah, and it is almost like there are other countries that are NOT in the UK. Almost.

RE "pearl clutching" part 2, if those accusing other women of that want to share facilities with men then they're welcome to do so. Most of us don't want to, and don't owe anyone else a justification for that preference. Majority preference wins, frankly. If a minority want to feel terrible smug and superior about their position then they're welcome to do so, but they shouldn't be allowed to impose their preference on the majority.

Re. pearl clutching.

19 year old me (lib fem through and through, doing a blokey subject, proud of being "one of the lads" in the outdoorsy activity I did in my spare time) probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid at the row of cubicles with gaps top and bottom.

My friend who had the misfortune to be raped in our first year - she would probably have been completely freaked out by that arrangement and would have had to make do with stand-up sponge baths with a basin in her room.

Older me - who knows the prevalence of male sexual violence, and voyeurism - not a chance I'd think gaps top and bottom of cubicles in a unisex shower room were acceptable.

That's not because I've turned into a pearl clutcher, that's because age and experience have sadly taught me what fucking perves a small but non-negligible minority of the male sex are (round about 1 in 20 if David Lisak's research is correct).

Yes, the US system will be flimsy cubicles with doors with gaps on top and bottom. Even I, a small woman, could force my way through one of those doors if I wanted to, so a man would have no problem doing so, or indeed peeking over the top if he was so inclined.

Shes talking about shower cubicles/toilet cubicles - like in the gym. An enclosed room with flimsy partition between showers.

In the UK rooms are either en suite or have an enclosed bathroom leading out onto the corridor, like an actual room rather than a row of partitions. Or single sex cubicles. Most UK accomodation you are able to rrqhest single sex, otherwise the accomodation is not going to be accessible to some groups of women e.g. muslim women

I just think that some of us are at cross purposes

I understand completely that there are mixed sex halls in the uk, and mixed sex student houses, but I’m not sure thats what is being referred to in the OP

@DianasLasso

I was at a Cambridge college (early 2000s) and the showers were like you describe in your second paragraph. It was fine, didn’t even think about it.

My university accommodation was mixed sex, including mixed sex showers - one block of them in each corridor. I think the toilets were unisex too, can’t remember. The showers definitely were. It was absolutely fine.

Honestly I think sometimes the horror of unisex thing gets into pearl clutching territory and does us no favours.

30 odd years ago - Cambridge college, mixed staircase, bath/shower/toilet (shared between 7) in a lockable room. Not a problem.

There's a big difference though between that and, say, a shower room with three cubicles with a 6" gap at the bottom and 18" gap at the top, even with lockable doors on the cubicles (which is what I can imagine in some places which originally had single-sex halls with shower rooms with multiple cubicles).

There is a huge amount of difference between the photo posted by Rufus and most UK university shared bathrooms. Despite what several posters on here claim I have had four kids attend four different universities and their first year uni accommodation was all shared mixed sex living spaces and mixed sex showers and loos. However all the showers and loos had lockable doors. Ensuite is certainly not the norm in most university owned and run accommodation but is in the private halls, which are much more expensive and have a reputation generally for being less sociable.

Shared showers is completely unacceptable, and frankly men wanking in the next cubicle is about the best result one can expect from such an arrangement. It could and most likely will get a lot worse, and colleges will cover it up because they want to avoid responsibility and they don't want to face the backlash they'd get for doing the sensible thing and making showers and toilets single sex.

The whole idea is bad enough in general but the age range of students makes it a particularly bad idea in this case. Lots of young people with poor impulse control, away from home for the first time, booze freely available and them not really used to drinking yet - what could possibly go wrong??!

I think some posters Are talking about this

Yeah

Lockable being the key word...unlike sharing a shower room with the potential for men to be in the shower room with you