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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Really angry about the queue for the loo today.

303 replies

Harriedharriet · 27/12/2015 23:59

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.

OP posts:
SirChenjin · 02/01/2016 16:25

No need to piss on the floor - an awareness of the queue outside and taking as little time as possible as a result is sufficient.

ExConstance · 02/01/2016 16:54

I do notice that most other women are in there a lot longer than me. I expect it is all that wiping down handles, putting toilet roll on the seats, hovering and then having to clear up after themselves etc. that does it.
Apart from those with disabilities if you have trouble holding on etc. you should see the continence nurse for an assessment. One thing that would speed proceedings up a bit is having a ready supply of hooks etc. inside the cubicles, so that hanging up coats and bags is easier.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 02/01/2016 17:05

narp

They are doing something. Don't know if it's makeup, texting, FB or placing toilet roll on the loo seat but somethings taking ages.

I do get that sometimes it takes a long time. I said before I get ibs, sometimes I take longer than I would like.

Maybe we should start pissing all over the floor to make it less pleasant

It's a drastic solution Grin but I've seen it work.
At a festival I went to the toliets were foul (think toilets raised over a pit and your waste just drops into the pit).
Never before or since have I seen women (or men) pee quicker. No one faffeded around in those loos. Grin

eatingworms · 02/01/2016 17:07

I went to a festival once that had female urinals and they were selling she-wees. I wasn't too keen at first but the queue for the porta loos was SO long I gave them a go. And it was SO LIBERATING! Knowing that I could wee at any point in just a few minutesc rather than having to pre plan a half hour break between bands was really eye opening into the world that men have enjoyed forever.
Made me realise that it absolutely IS a feminist issue.
I appreciate that urinals are not for everyone, but for those that can use them it frees up more space in the cubicles for those that want and need them.
But yes, there should always be more cubicles available for women than for men. It's just common sense.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 02/01/2016 17:22

eating I saw those she wee things and just wasn't brave enough.

I think you are right. Women do need more toilets than men. I do think there's some faffing occurring too though.

SirChenjin · 02/01/2016 17:27

Knowing that I could wee at any point in just a few minutes rather than having to pre plan a half hour break between bands

So where do you pee when you're using the she wee that takes only a few minutes Confused

absolutelynotfabulous · 02/01/2016 17:35

What's a female urinal exactly?Confused

eatingworms · 02/01/2016 17:54

The choice was a porta loo (big queue) or a (females only) enclosure with urinals all the way around the edge (like a continuous narrow sink). You just needed a gap to stand at and could wee into the urinal. It was so quick, there was no queue.

SirChenjin · 02/01/2016 18:09

They sound brilliant Grin. I'd use one at a festival when I was desperate for the loo - not so much at work

eatingworms · 02/01/2016 18:26

Agreed! There's a time and a place, but it was totally worth it. And it really evened things up.
Also, as porta loos are usually disgusting, it actually turned out to be much more hygienic using the urinals because you touched nothing (but yourself)! It was quite an eye opener.

Dipankrispaneven · 02/01/2016 18:27

I don't really understand how shewees work - don't you still have to pull your pants right down to put them in place?

eatingworms · 02/01/2016 18:34

Depends what you're wearing I suppose. I was able to undo button and fly on my trousers and slot it into my pants. Bearing in mind you're facing the urinal, no one can see anything. It was a very weird thing at first, you feel like you're going to wet yourself because it's a strange sensation allowing yourself to see whilst still wearing your trousers, you have to really trust the she-wee! I don't think I'd have done it if I'd been on my own, but literally everyone was having a go and it was the up beat fun atmosphere of a festival which helped, a fair bit on camaraderie lol :)
This was in Belgium about 2003, I've never seen them since.

eatingworms · 02/01/2016 18:35

Pee not see

Novembercocoa · 03/01/2016 09:50

Some women are very inconsiderate when using public loos. They know there's a long queue but they still hog a cubicle for ages doing god knows what. I know some times it might be unavoidable but a lot of the time i suspect its the same people who hold up queues at checkouts and atm machines, faffing around heedless to all the people behind them.

AnnieNoMouse · 03/01/2016 10:43

Another reason women may appear to take longer.
Compare loos to supermarket checkouts.
When men go to the loo they get a choice - (1) the speedy basket-only till (urinal) for those who wish to piss and go, the queue moves fast, and there's a high turnover of users
Second option for men is the standard till/cubicle for men who wish to do a full week's shopping/take their time toileting - they know there may be a bit of a wait but the length of wIait depends on how many such tills the shop has bothered to put in.
In comparison women don't have the basket only/piss and go option. They all have to queue for the main tills, regardless of What they need to do when they reach the front.
So a shop that created a gender segregated system for tills, and then provided more tills overall for the men (or even the same number) would find that the women's queue would always be longer because of inefficiencies in the system. That is not the fault of women!
OP I agree with you.

SisterMoonshine · 03/01/2016 12:24

yanbu OP
Regardless of how long it takes (and I agree about waiting for the cistern etc) , it's the biological fact that we do often have to go more. So we do. So the toilets are busier. We need more toilets. You can see clearly when there's just a short opportunity to use the toilet, like in an interval, that the majority of women do need to go, while many men don't. It's not just that we take longer.

jaynelovesagathachristie · 08/09/2018 23:38

Sorry but I think yabu we don't need more space, in always raging how effing slow women are they take forever. I'm not buying the tampons etc. even if caught unaware it takes 1 min to make a makeshift pad, and as a woman I always have spares anyway, older people with incontinence (and me after my 1st birth ) accidents happen but that is not the majority of the population. They just dick about

abacucat · 09/09/2018 00:30

I have my period for roughly 7 days every month. When I am bleeding, I usually poo when I need a wee as well. So going to the toilet involves a wee, changing tampon and pad, and doing a poo. Of course I take longer than a man doing a quick wee.

MrsStrowman · 09/09/2018 00:39

@abacucat it takes less than 30 seconds to change a tampon, that's not much of a delay, YABU for pooing in public toilets unless you have a bowel condition

MrsStrowman · 09/09/2018 00:42

@AnnieNoMouse well put. We all end up waiting for the likes of abacucat or the women checking their phones, hiding out for a few minutes etc. Similar to PPs I've also used shepees at festivals, it's the answer, think about how many extra people you can get at a shepee urinal compared to the number of cubicles that'd fit in the same space

MrsStrowman · 09/09/2018 00:43

Wtf. ZOMBIE THREAD!!!!!

abacucat · 09/09/2018 00:44

Lol pooing in public toilets is wrong. Okay now I know you are strange.

And no, changing a tampon requires getting tampon and pad out of your bag first. Then taking out old tampon and wiping myself. Inserting new tampon. And doing same with pad. I have heavy periods so need both. When I am just weeing I am quick.

abacucat · 09/09/2018 00:46

And next time I will tell my bowel that it does not matter if I am out the house for 16 hours, it is not allowed to demand that I need to poo.
Some people are SO STRANGE.
A clue, those women taking longer in cubicles are probably pooing, rather than doing make up.

SlartiAardvark · 09/09/2018 00:47

Women's toilets need to be much bigger, with enough cubicles to allow women to have same ease of access to toilets as men,

Sorry, but you'd just end up with a huge area full of toilets & there'd still be a longer queue than for the mens because you haven't sorted the problem - and the problem is that once a woman gets in there she sits down & takes her sweet time.....

abacucat · 09/09/2018 00:49

So much misogyny on this thread.
Luckily there has actually been research into this which shows women do take longer for very good reasons, and that has worked out how many more women's toilets there needs to be. This has largely been ignored by architects though.