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.

At the Stoop for a rugby game the other week there was a queue about 20-25 long for the men's and I just sauntered straight in. It was marvellous, I felt very special

Whenever I've gone to a rugby match there's always been a queue for the ladies. I don't think when they were building the stadiums they expected it to be so popular among women

I’m astonished that everyone doesn’t agree that women should have more toilets than men. Clearly it takes us longer to ‘go’ because of all the undressing and if there are a lot of people that time adds up causing the women’s queues to lengthen.
Add to that the need to flush and sometimes have to wait for the tank to fill and the (possibly) extra time needed by menstruating or pregnant women and that puts even more time on the queue.
I think the people who design loos think they are being fair by giving an equal amount of space to men and women completely missing their different needs. I recall a former workplace where the management was alarmed at the amount of toilet paper being used in the women’s loos so they (all men) decided to introduce a rule where we were supposed to seek out the caretaker and ask for paper every time we went ! It remained a workplace joke for ages.
I’m not sure about the idea of keeping women in their place but .........
I know a small French town very well. There are two sets of public toilets with both men’s and women’s toilets. Additionally there are three urinals. Maybe there is a sort residual leftover of something of the sort here.

Well i thought dollys post was well off

I'm hapoy to believe that there are women (and men) with cleanliness issues who would do all that but that is not a thing "women" do

I dont know anyone who sanitises once let alone three times!

I may just be a dirty mare though

I went to An Evening With Boycott and Aggers in the summer. Similarly enjoyed skipping into the loo, and out again, to see the queue for the men's still snaking round.

However, completely agree that with any large number of people needing to use the facility, even small average differences in time per person will quickly add up to a much longer wait for women.

More cubicles for women needed, definitely.

(At the ripe old age of 43, I learned from my boys the other day that some lads still pull trousers and pants down to use the urinal. Turned to DH - surely they all grow out of that? - apparently not! He hastened to explain it isn't that common, but still the occasional unpretty sight will greet him when nipping for a slash. The things you didn't know you didn't know. And most likely didn't want to know, but there you go.)

At big events its the children that we as women are usually responsible for that take the extra time and there should either be extra family toilets or more womens. Simple

I sometimes wonder if mn has introduced a hide poster function and i missed it

There are actual biologicial reasons why it takes women longer, and the effect is cumulative!

I once read an article about this. It said that womens bodies take on average longer to pee than mens. So if you are somewhere with equal numbers of men and women there should be twice as many loos for women in order to enUre equal access.

This is slightly off topic but a similar issue.

I remember on a school trip as a teenager being outraged because the girls had to pay to use the loos (ie they were those old fashioned 'put a coin in the lock' cubicles) whereas the boys could use urinals for free. We were on our way back from a trip abroad and not all of us had the necessary coin, and the attendant at the toilets (yes, I realise that an attendant is pretty rare, even then!) enforced the rule strictly, so there was no holding the door open for your friend to use as well. Some of the girls (including me) didn't get to pee and had to get back on the bus and hold on for hours because even between us we didn't have enough of the right coins. I was almost an adult and seriously in danger of actually peeing myself, it was awful. Yet there were the boys, all happily sauntering back on with empty bladders, free of charge.

That was the early 90s, I'm hoping that better equality legislation means that doesn't happen any more.

this thread has been an education for me and it's good that I learned from it

I also hadn't factored in how much time it would take for doors closing and loos flushing so I get that.

However, I must ask, in complete ignorance, why the actual function of peeing takes women longer? I must pee really quickly and so must my friends I guess. And heavy periods didn't impede speed for me either. (Again, I am not including anyone with children or health problems - just asking the biological question of why it takes women longer to pee).

Weird side note - in terms of peeing, I have never taken longer in the home bathroom than a male partner.

so apparently if I were an architect I wouldn't get this either, but I do think removing mirrors would help in large venues. Weaving your way between women doing mirror-related stuff adds a lot of time.

also, all this "hang bag on door hook" - am I the only person who just keeps their bag on their shoulder and pees?

I agree that there should be more loos to take account of the additional 'stuff' we have to do - but dear god, what do some women do in there?? I can go in, wee, change a sanitary towel, poo (which in public loos is really traumatic for me)...and the cubicle next to me will have someone in there who makes literally no sound for the whole time I'm in there. There is a hell of a lot of faffing going on in women's loos.

I remember when women had to pay in public toilets where the men's were free. I asked DM why and she said, because if they tried to make men pay, they would just wee in the alley round the back.

Women are so ashamed of making a noise, or heaven forbid a smell, in public toilets that many of them feel an obligation to hide in there until the queue has moved on and anyone who they might have made eye contact with whilst queuing will now be gone. How many times do you see threads on MN where people dismiss anyone pooing anywhere other than their own home as 'disgusting' and 'rank' and cry 'surely an adult can wait until they get home?' etc. If you are not fortunate enough to have super human bowel control (and many perfectly normal adult humans really can't hold on for a prolonged period of time) people can be left feeling so ashamed that you don't want to come out and face the judgement of the queue. Better to be judged for hogging the cubicle for too long than to be judged as being disgusting.

"Use the men's" is not an answer where the men's have urinals on the way to the stalls which is the usual layout.

I was standing at a urinal when a woman with a young child brushed past the back of me. I was a little confused, for a moment thought that I was in the wrong place, followed a microsecond later by realisation that since I was standing at a urinal, I couldn't be. Looked at the sign on the door after I exited, it indicated men and women. This was beneath a mountain restaurant at a ski resort in France.

I do think we could just have unisex, even with urinals. You're unlikely to glimpse a penis, unless you're looking, or someone is showing off. Though it would probably be a good thing if women became so accustomed to the sight that it didn't give them a fit of fit of the vapours.

Having said that, the state the men's gets into sometimes at work, I doubt women would want to share, even if they had no objection other than cleanliness.

I think women in the UK should just routinely use the men's whenever it would save them time. I seem to recall from a discussion here a few years ago that it's not illegal to use the opposite sex toilets, as long as they "are only used for the purposes for which they were intended."

"Use the men's" is not an answer where the men's have urinals on the way to the stalls

Seems to work in unisex loos in France - though admittedly I hate it

Just why do they have the urinals near the entrance, so women have to pass grunters and shakers en route to the cubicles ... what's wrong with putting the bloody things at the far end??

That could be part of it Treacle.

I am a totally filthy slattern by Mumsnet standards but a fortunate side effect of this is that I can poo as and when needed and sometimes there is no holding it, so will use public toilets freely, but I heard a bowel doctor on the radio and she said that you have to be relaxed and comfortable to poo so if you are embarrased about making a smell, it could be that you physcially cannot go.

Her book sounded very interesting - I bet a lot of Mumsnetter would love it .

treacle - in busy public loos where there is a constant queue and/or people coming and going all the time you simply can't hog an entire cubicle for hours on end - it's not fair on everyone else, some of whom are in dire need of the toilet (like DD when she's having a bout of IBS)

I understand and agree with you, Harriet. Yesterday, I went shopping with DH and needed the loo (as did he) - in a massive shopping mall, that was as busy as Sydney airport yesterday, the ladies' loos had four stalls. FOUR. The queue was out the door and halfway down the corridor.
OBviously there would have been more loo facilities elsewhere; but this was one of the main entrance/exit areas. Four stalls. There are more than that in the ladies' loos at our local supermarket complex (six, to be precise, but it's a MUCH smaller facility!)

I whinged. DH understood. It sucks.

DH felt uncomfortable about young women coming into the gents when we were at university so think before you do this. Unisex loos may have been different as he could have been prepared for it.

What we need is several unisex self contained loos with floor to ceiling door (like a restaurant near me). Might not be the most efficient use of space but if it means ladies who feel self conscious about the noise can go quickly then great.

Just wanted to add in my experience of rugby day at Twickenham - didn't go to the actual game, although some of our group had tickets, but we spent lunchtime in the pub (the White Swan if anyone knows it). About half an hour before the game was due to start, the pub emptied quite rapidly (of course!) and I went to the loo. The ladies' loo was swimming - because the pub had been 95% men, they'd used the ladies' as well because the queue for the mens' was, well, there; and most of them appeared to have missed (since they were mostly buying pints 4 at a time, this is fairly understandable).
It was rank.
But I had to use it.

I think some posters above are forgetting that is us ladies that tend take children of both sexes with us to the toilets, this takes time.
I have even had to breast feed in a toilet once as there was nowhere in the store to sit down.
There should be more thought put into the planning of these services. I agree x

Waiting for the cistern to fill, having young dc in tow, cleaning up mess from a previous user, waiting for the cistern to fill. FasterFaster, more powerful flushing is half the answer.

Some people are playing candy crush, trying on clothes, texting and who knows what else.

Just to clarify

When i say unisex i mean the loos as proud has said. Seperate cubicles with floor to ceiling door with hand washing facility inside

Like Whiteley shopping centre...awesome loos

Must stop saying awesome...new years resolution

treacle I have issues with French public toilets...ever since about 10yrs ago I was in central Paris with DD1 -who must have been 2-3. Just out of nappies. She needed a wee, grotty toilets anyway and the attendant insisted on charging us both for using the toilet...it was iirc 1 euro so not just 20p....and it was a principle thing. I was only going in to help her but the attendant said I either paid for 2 or DD went in on her own. I felt so strongly I had a 'discussion' with her in my bad French and then only paid for one and stormed past her . Surprised she didn't call a gendarme to forcible evict me ...(and then I did have a sneaky wee -I squeezed it out on principle !) But actually maybe I should have let DD go in on her own and then the attendant would have had to mop up the wee on the floor/seat...but actually going by the state of them she would have left it....