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 don't think in the grand scheme of things periods cause longer queues, given the fact that not every woman...or maybe not even half of them will be menstruating.

Or even if they are, perhaps they need to stop fannying around there too and just get on with changing themselves.

Mobile bloody phone conversations and texting also slow a lot of people down.

FFS just leave your phone alone for a couple of minutes. Unless they're updating Facebook or Mumsnet about the state of the loos

Handbags like clown cars

Well, only in very unusually-laid out public toilets are there mirrors inside the cubicles, and we're talking about time spent inside cubicles, rather than having to queue to wash your hands and look in the mirror, so surely two separate issues?

Overtired, I understand entirely where you're coming from, and think it's pretty poor you've been made to feel bad by this thread, which should, I think, be about the need for better provision of women's toilets/unisex toilets, rather than women complaining about other women's legitimate time taken.

To those of you who pride yourselves on your lightning fast technique - bear in mind there are people like Overtired in a cubicle, there are elderly women and heavily pregnant women and nervous eleven year olds wrestling with their first tampon, and women trying to get out of a pair of Spanx or a jumpsuit to pee, who may not be as super-quick as you.

Apparently a lot of women do the following
Go in cubical
Disinfect hands with spray
take their coat and bag up and hang it up (if there is a hook on the door) if not they hold it.
Put toilet paper on the seat
Disinfect hands with spray
Sit down and do business
Wipe
Disinfect hands with spray
Stand up and remove toilet paper off seat and flush
Disinfect hands
Get tampon or towel out
Flush again so the people in the next cubical won't hear them unwrap towel
Put on towel or insert tampon
Disinfect hands
Dispose of tampon or towel
(may be another flush so they can't be heard using bin)
Disinfect hands
Pants up or skirt
Get some more toilet paper
Put toilet paper over hands and put the toilet lid down
More toilet paper on toilet lid
Sit down
Disinfect hands
Dig in bag for phone
Check their phone
Put phone away
Dig in back for makeup
Check makeup
Top up makeup
Put makeup away
Use breath freshener spray
Put breath freshener spray away
Remove toilet paper off lid, lift seat and flush
Disinfect hands
Put coat on
Dig in bag for phone
Check phone again
Put phone back
Handbag on shoulder
Finally come out of cubical
And how do I know this my aunty once did a study when she did health and social care on what women do in toilets. It has come up in conversation often during the years. I must admit before I found out all this I did wonder why quite often the same person would flush two or three times.

YANBU - found the same just before Christmas in a shopping centre - women's loo queue out the door , men wandering in and out. Same at the theatre in the past - the whole interval spent queuing for the loo...
I remember a number of years ago at the Notting Hill Carnival portaloos - the same - I used the men's as did lots of other females - ended up with a (shorter) queue of women outside the gents! In a posh restaurant once there were two loos - identical, with hand wash basins in, next to each other - one was labelled Men and was empty - a queue of women waiting. Talking to the woman in front of me - we should use the Mens - so I did -when I came out all the women standing there refused to use it .

I don't know what some people do in the loo - they do take ages...I have read thread on here where people cover the loo seat in loo paper etc - but surely you don't do that if there is a massive queue?
Also just the act of undressing and wiping etc takes a few seconds longer than a bloke. And children.... and elderly women (who will take longer than an elderly bloke) ...but also IME women need to pee more frequently - maybe because they have had DCs or are pregnant...
There should be more female loos than male. And planners should take that into account.
(I have issues with urgency - it is just in my mind but I get panicky if I can't go and I need to - have wet myself before now. Long queues for the loo bring me out in a sweat...I just have to keep telling myself I could use the Mens/disabled if I really couldn't wait and I am usually ok)

Mirrors are not the problem. Getting into a stall is the problem. And Worra yes, quick pee and all that but we cannot put this down to silly inefficient women.
We don't have enough stalls.
We need to complain.
Not one woman complained today.

But on a serious note like castadiva said while some women may faff there will always be good reasons why someone may being taking a long time and women quite often have issues that men don't have to deal with when it comes to the toilet and I think this needs to be recognised when new toilets are developed and built.

To be fair, there will be people like overtired, elderly men and young boys in the men's toilets too.

I think (to be serious here) if you put to one side the people who can't pee fast/get in and out quickly, you'll still find that the 'average female' (for want of a better phrase), still faffs about much more than the 'average male'.

Well in my experience they certainly do anyway.

I worked in a public place with unisex loos on each floor. All private cubicles with a sink. People complained so much we had to have one floor for women and another for men.

Fuck knows why.

I went to the theatre the other day and did the inevitable queue for the toilets at intermission. There was one cubicle that didn't seem to have any sort of turnover, and I ended up in the one next to it. As I sat there, I could hear the 'click click click' of the iPhone sound of a keyboard being pressed. No wonder it was taking so long if she had to text her mates whilst sitting there. She could have finished, got out, then sent the text.

Get the means of payment or card for ATM out of handbag while in queue or while approaching till/ATM.

worra a frail elderly man who can stand will use a urinal. Otherwise a cubicle but there isn't a high demand for those in men's loos -it isn't really taking up a space. A frail elderly woman more or less having to get undressed will take a heck of a lot longer...

It baffles me it really does. I'm aware that obviously there are medical conditions and periods (but that really doesn't take much longer on the majority of occasions and doesn't happen to all women on the same date/time.

Take this into account if it was to do with medical conditions and or periods you might expect a slightly longer wait for women vs men but not like the one you actually get.

I remember waiting about 10 mins in a pub once. Not one person came out of the 3 cubicles. In fact I was done before any of the other 2 when someone finally did emerge.

There are not enough toilet facilities for women in public places because of the lingering concept that public places are for men and women should be at home, doing domestic things. Women exist to benefit men, and most of society is set up along lines that assume the default human being is an able-bodied man.
As most architects and planners have been men, over the years, public buildings have generally been designed for men's use, with any female-only facilities added as an afterthought. Women's clothing/handbags etc are designed to be decorative more than practical, so it's more complicated for a woman to excrete as she will have to take off or unfasten more of her clothes; more complicated for a woman to pay for something or get money out of a cashpoint as her clothing probably doesn't have useful pockets so her purse/.bank card has to be tucked away in a handbag etc,. Yet there are still bucketheads like those posters on this thread insisting that women are just incompetent, disobedient nuisances who only have themselves to blame for any inconvenience they suffer.

I agree with worra. Even taking into account an elderly women might take slightly longer it's still totally unequal.

This is absolute garbage from start to finish. To be disregarded, surely.

What SGB said. In buckets.

I'll never forget seeing Ben Elton in the Edinburgh Playhouse about a hundred years ago, when he introduced the interval as 'an opportunity to experience institutionalised sexism through the eyes of a Victorian architect'

worra a frail elderly man who can stand will use a urinal. Otherwise a cubicle but there isn't a high demand for those in men's loos -it isn't really taking up a space. A frail elderly woman more or less having to get undressed will take a heck of a lot longer...

A frail, elderly man can take ages to pee though.

Also a few people have mentioned having to get undressed?

Most women pull their skirts up and knickers down, or their trousers and knickers down.

I don't see how that means huge queues unless they're (the able bodied I mean) faffing about.

I do wonder why so many ladies cubicles have a door which opens inwards with only an inch or two clearance from the toilet pan. I have to stand beside the toilet in order to shut the door, which gets tricky when there is a filthy sanitary bin and huge wall-mounted toilet paper holder on opposing sides. Add in a toddler or two and it is very uncomfortable and slower to negotiate.
Just mounting doors to open outwards would be wonderful.
Give me a roomy cubicle with a lock, a hook, some paper and a clean seat and I move like greased lightning

There are not enough toilet facilities for women in public places because of the lingering concept that public places are for men and women should be at home, doing domestic things. Women exist to benefit men, and most of society is set up along lines that assume the default human being is an able-bodied man.

Oh behave yourself now!

Public toilets are expensive.

They're expensive to build, expensive to maintain, they take up space and they generate no profit at all.

It has nothing to do with 'women should be at home, doing domestic things'....

That is such a mad 'mumsnet' type reply

This is why if I can wait I let any young child that needs the loo urgently go in front of me but I do agree with you OP it is a real problem and it's not like it's a new problem no idea why it's never been changed.

Just mounting doors to open outwards would be wonderful.

And dangerous.

Can you imagine the claims for black eyes/bruised noses etc?

"public places are for men and women should be at home, doing domestic things. Women exist to benefit men"

That's a fair point SolidGoldBrass. Whilst I agree to a certain extent, I do think women occasionally need to venture out into public places (shopping, errands etc), so should be provided with basic amenities such as toilets.

However, I think in general, knowing about the lack of facilities, they should learn to go to the toilet before they leave the house and drink less fluid whilst out.

Good post Solid.
Especially regarding the handbag/pockets thing too. Hate when some men have 'teased' women about why they take bags out.....well duh because all the pockets are teeny tiny on women's clothes!

SGB is spot on.