I found an academic blog about the history of women's public toilets and the 'urinary leash'

Thanks for the link OP. It was a very interesting read.

What happened to women in the UK until safe public toilets were built is what's happening to women in the third world today. Charities will argue/lobby for women in developing countries to have safe and hygienic single-sex toilet provision but at the same time argue that women in countries like the UK don't merit the same basic consideration.

Bonkers.

I was reading a history of New York (random I know!) and the same happened there. in the form of Macy's in 1858.

Socialising was done by visiting each other at home. Women did not really go out around the city much as the streets were dangerous and hotels were for the wrong sort of women.

Macy's opened in 1858 and became a public space (probably the first public space) that women could go to alone, hang about, meet friends, and yes, go to the bloody loo!

It is quite disturbing to realize just how new all of our female freedoms are.

I do think we need to teach this kind of thing in school. People start to believe that all of these freedoms are a natural consequence of modernity but - they are not. Every one of them was fought for and the opposition put up a bloody good fight.

The women of Afghanistan would have an interesting thing or three to say about losing rights.

In the scale of history, this time and these freedoms are a blip and only a fool would consider them permanent.

EDIT for spelling.

Great blog, thanks BadSkiing. When I was a kid our local posh department store had a great space in the ladies with lovely sofas, big mirrors and small tables. Just wonderful for rest and a gossip after traipsing round the shops - though tbf groups of 14 yo girls were probably not their target market.

A 19th century woman could, with another woman in tow, access some of those male freedoms.

I think women still do that though without calling it a "chaperone." How many times have we persuaded sisters, friends, aunts, mums, to come and do such and such. Yes, it is mainly driven by friendship and company, but deep down, we all know that there is safety in numbers.

I was reading a history of New York (random I know!)
Not at all! That must be fascinating. Could you share the title?

In Victorian times a woman’s role was associated with domestic life of tending the family and caring for the home. The few women who left the home to feminine jobs such as teaching, dressmaking or looking after the middle and upper class households...

This isn't correct tho, In the 19th century thousands of women worked in cotton mills, potteries, pit brow lasses at coal mines, match factories and so on, how did they manage?. There's nothing about women in industry until the munitions workers.

In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina there’s a reference to her going into the ‘First Class ladies waiting room’ at a station. Although obviously it might be different in the original Russian.
I'm sure I've read fiction by UK authors referring to a First Class ladies waiting room as well. I think it might be one of those things that did exist but which is lost to history.

Yes, but in Victorian terms those women who worked for a living didn't count because they were working-class and, therefore, didn't have the sensitive natures of middle-class and upper-class women. They were to be pitied and managed by religion and charity.

To this day, I still think the UK and Irish States/NGOs view working-class women as less important when it comes to crime prevention and less easily distressed than women from the middle and upper classes.

https://www.peaked.news/p/you-meet-more-perverts-when-youre

It’s like working class women never existed for some historians.

There were still rooms marked ladies’ and men's waiting rooms on some stations when I was a child in the 1980s. Though, I think long disused. My nan always insisted on sitting in the one for women.

There is still a ladies waiting room in my local major mainline train station. You can still see them in many UK train stations. It’s a safety thing.

There was a ladies' waiting room at Leeds City station when I was a student in the late 70s.

Much warmer than hanging around on the platform between trains.

Posh department stores in the 70s often had an attendant who supervised the ladies' room and toilet. People generally left her a tip.

It's a bit much when the historian is in Leeds given the textile history there!

They had to go somewhere for goodness sake 🙄

Cavendish House in Cheltenham had one who swooped in and wiped seats.
It was a bit much tbh, she barely let you get out before she was in there..
Then there was one at Paddington Station along with an enormous cat, that one just sat there, as did the cat, I never saw it move out of the cardboard box it reclined in.

I remember ladies' waiting rooms in railway stations. It used to be acknowledged that women and children needed privacy and a safe single sex space away from men. I haven't seen one in this country for years which is a shame as we need our spaces more than ever now.

The Encyclopedia of New York City by Professor Kenneth T Jackson.

So so true.

I think the divisions of money have a far bigger impact than the divisions of race.

A series on Elizabethan theatre mentioned the fact that chamber pots were taken to people (especially women).

The pots were placed on the ground and the women could simply squat on the pot, with privacy provided by the gowns.

It was not just working-class women finding a quiet spot to urinate. If you scour Victorian accounts of everyday life you find indicators that middle-class women did so too; there's a striking passage in "My Secret Life" which talks about how middle-class women would find places to urinate in public parks. Mid-Victorian crinolines helped a lot. The trend which is apparent - and this is true with many forms of social change - is the introduction of public toilets acts both as a cause and an effect. Public urination becomes more socially problematic, so public toilets become more common, but at the same time the growing availability of public toilets draws disapproval to public urination.

Also, one must be careful about talking about prostitution in Victorian Britain. Because of the disapproval from some quarters as to sexual relationships outside of marriage, any sexual relationship outside of marriage might be labelled as prostitution, even where no money would change hands. There's a very telling investigation of prostitution in the fourth volume of "London Labour and the London Poor" (written by Bracebridge Hemyng, and not Henry Mayhew, who wrote most of the rest of the series) where you have, for instance, unmarried cohabitation described as prostitution. Whilst the scale of prostitution in Victorian London was undoubtedly large, it was also confused by a certain kind of social commentary which was very common.

Best read on women in Victorian London: "City of Dreadful Delight" by Judith Walkowitz, published in 1992, and still the best book kind-of-but-not-really about Jack the Ripper. It's about narratives of danger facing Victorian women, so heavily focused on perception, but a great book, and very relevant to the modern world.

Did the availability and design of public toilets have an effect on the decline of the huge crinolines? I can't imagine how a woman could use a loo while wearing one of those huge petticoated and hooped skirts 🤯

I have read similar myself, during COVID. If you recall public toilets, the few we had were shut during COVID, making life difficult for women being in public spaces such as parks and beaches.
I remember going to my local beach and having to coopee down in the rocks to have a wee. Men obviously didn’t have this problem.

Oh, erm, I watch a youtube called called Prior Attire, mostly because I sew a bit and am interested in how clothing was constructed. The furthest I have ever gone is a cheats version of a kirtle, not from this channel, she's proper authentic.

Anyhow, the woman whose channel it is addressed this issue, because the people watching asked her to, I think it was the most asked question.. All those cages for crinolines and bustles collapse and fold really easily, they aren't even heavy, as she demonstrated with various receptacles. Not actually demonstrated in case anyone is worried! Getting into a cubicle and managing it would be tricky tho, depending on the cubicle.

I can't put up a link but the video is called "How did Victorian women go to the toilet, a remake"

I also think that working and middle class women had lesser versions or no versions of cages under their skirts, especially working class women. It would get in the way and also use far to much fabric as you'd need to be able to afford yards of the stuff for a crinoline

Corset myth busting also available on same channel.