Really angry about the queue for the loo today.

[Harriedharriet]

Was in a museum with dds today. They needed the loo so off we went. They are quite young, 7 & 8 yrs approx. The queue for the ladies was very long and very slow. No queue for the men's. They sauntered in and, a few minutes later sauntered out. All the men looked relaxed and at ease. All the women looked uncomfortable and ill at ease. We waited at least 20 minutes to get in. There were elderly women, pregnant women, women who looked drained, fatigued or just down right impatient.
Why do we have the same amount of space as men? Our biology is different. We need more space and more time. We menstruate. We reproduce the human race. And we bloody stand in a queue like cattle to attend to basic human needs.
Any architects out there? Why does this happen? It really is an outrage. I have spent so much of my life waiting for the loo in public spaces. Now to see my dds subjected to it really made my blood boil.
Anyone else?
Rant over, thanks for reading.

I'd have gone in the mens loos

yep ^^

Oh god yes, YANBU. I always think that places with more ladies loos than men's, or better still just one lot for everyone, are just so much more enlightened.

Totally agree. I think men just go in, do what they have to do and out.
Women seem more slow, make more fuss. Fuck knows what half of them do in the cubicles. Sometimes its just silence, no tinkle or plop!
Im sure they sit on the loo sorting out their hand bags.

But Scoff that is not the point. I have often done that but why do we have to? And I cannot expect two young girls to walk in to the men's. Unfair to them and the men. The point is - why are the Los not designed with women in mind? Why do equal space when it is going to cause us to wait. A long time.

YANBU!!

So annoying, I've gone in the mens / disabled many times when it's my kids that need to go.

Old buildings have fewer female toilets.

New buildings (especially stadiums) now have equal numbers of toilets.

Most women could be quicker on the toilet to be honest. WTF do they do in there

Designed with women in mind! Example?
They just need to move a bit quicker. Ive often nearly wet myself and had to run to the disabled. Im in and out in a flash.

You are so right.

Women should have double, if not triple, the number of toilets compared with men's toilets. Women take longer (either due to menstruation or because we need to remove/pull down more items of clothing).

I think it's genuinely a feminist issue. This just isn't given enough consideration when it comes to public spaces.

Flat - think about it for a second though. It is not a discussion about efficient women are or are not when using the loo. It is a discussion about how the creators and builders of buildings do not cater for the fact that we need more space than men.

I'd love to know what some women do in the toilets. I go in, lock the door, put my handbag on thr hook, wee

You see the same thing in places like John Lewis. Another thing women take longer at doing is getting cash from machines and paying for things in shops. There is nothing biological that I can see which causes this, so I'm not buying the biology excuse for the length of time in the toilet either.

The etihad stadium has hundreds of women's toilets and it is fab.

Wipe, flush and get out before the people next to me who were already in there. It's a loo it's not a sofa.

Why do we need more space to go to the loo?
Do you mean more cubicles. I agree with that but not always possible in some buildings.

Flat, that's pretty misogynistic. Assuming you're female, you have a pretty good idea about what some women, sometimes, may need to do in toilet cubicles in terms of dealing with urinary incontinence, or trying to find a tampon in the bottom of a bag if an unexpected period has started off heavily, or emptying a mooncup, or improvising with toilet paper if you've run out of tampons/pads. Any number of things. And the culture of shame that still surrounds that kind of thing far too often probably doesn't help.

Women just need to stop faffing tbh

Why do many take so frikin long? Usually myself and both children have all peed in one cubicle toilet and all the rest still full when we come out and the next person behind us in que still waiting..

Yes women mensturate, but why does that take so much longer? 30seconds/1 min extra to change tampon or towel and leave and wash hands.

Penelope - it should not be about us moving quicker. It needs to be and should be about the physical set up of a woman vs the physical set up of a man.
An older woman cannot be in and out in a jiffy. Likewise a child. Likewise a woman with cramps, likewise a woman changing pads or tampons.
We are not inefficient users of loos in public spaces. Public spaces are inefficient designs for women.

YANBU but some women don't half take their time! We need to help ourselves too.

I sort of get the argument re space etc, but with the exception of people with physical disabilities which slow them down, I am rather on Flat's side of the fence and really fail to see what some ladies are doing all that time! You need the loo, you pop in, you "go", you wash your hands.....job done!

(However I have had a conversation with OH and the DS's which actually leads me to suspect that some of the time usage is potentially due to women washing their hands more thoroughly than blokes......mingy buggers!)

But hand washing is usually done outside of actual toilet cubicle though isn't it, so doesn't account for time actually in cubicle

Yeah, I completely agree that women can be justified in taking marginally longer than men in public toilets.

That's not the reality though and I don't think we require a massive reinvention of toilets in public places in order to solve the problem.

I'm afraid I'm a bit confused about this too
I realise, obviously, that menstruation means a need for a sanitary disposal bin in each cubicle. That's a space issue of course.
But I'm not sure if the extra time we need for changing, emptying etc really warrants the length of some of the queues I see. I used to have shockingly heavy periods but I didn't take ages in the loo, even wearing tights etc.

I think the best solution, in newer builds, is unisex but some people hate nthat too.