To be pissed off with the queues for women's loos?

[Bambambini]

Aibu to get pissed off? This is an interesting article on womens loos vrs mens. I get quite irate about this. From getting off an aeroplane to see the huge queue at women's loos, same often at service stations, nightclubs, concerts. I was at a recent posh sporting event and it was bad enough going in that the women had a longer wait going through security but once inside going to the loo ended in a 20 minute wait whilst the men just walked in and out, glancing over at us as all the women just stood quietly. Now some venues are changing the women's loos to gender neutral so open to all but still keeping seperate loos with urinals for men which is making women queue even longer. Why do we just queue, say nothing and accept this? Is it just me that gets annoyed (mild) at this?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/11/edmonton-oilers-womens-bathrooms-female

"Has anyone used a shepee? I have at Glastonbury and it was ace, would be more than happy to use trough / shepee set up at concert / sporting events."

Might give it a go on centre court at Wimbledon.

Sorry that was aimed at Oblomov17

OP what would you propose as a solution?

Women take longer not because they are silly frivolous beings who can't do the job efficiently, as some posters here seem to think, but because the mechanics take longer (squeeze into cubicle, hang up coat and bag if hook so as not to trail them on disgusting floor, etc etc) and because 25% of the time women will have sanitary pads/tampons/mooncups to change and clean up after.

Women are also more likely to be the ones taking small children (of both sexes) into loos, which reduces the number of cubicles available to adult women.

Women's loos are often an afterthought in older buildings, and in best-case scenarios are only 50/50, when the proportion needs to be skewed towards women.

The current ghastly trend of making women's looks "gender neutral" (ie available to both men and women) and leaving mens loos as for men only, will just make matters even worse.

At Wembley Stadium during Take That and One Direction they re-signed some of the mens loos to be women's loos. During most sporting fixtures there the women's queues are actually shorter.

I have just marched into the gents before to use cubicles saying "Not looking" and no-one has ever stopped me.

CatThiefKeith The stewards' behaviour was disgusting.

I agree re: architects. Even if the designers are not always male, design standards for hygiene facilities were probably once designed by male architects with no care responsibilities and that's what's taught in architecture schools and practiced in architectural practices around the world today. A paradigm shift is needed.

Proportionally more toilets designated for women?

Agree that a straight 50/50 split isn't 'fair' by any logical or practical measure.

Also add in periods and the many women who continue to have urinary problems following pregnancy and childbirth, and there are many good reasons why women take longer in toilets - not that I think we need good reasons

Unisex loos are not the answer. Then everyone would take as long, and they would be as dirty as the men's loos are.

Most Architects ARE men, and they don't understand that ladies need longer. There should be more ladies loos.

There are some modern venues that are adequately provided for by way of women's toilets so it can be done.

I went to one at a recently built sporting venue where there were so many women's toilets that a man came into the ladies to avoid the queue for the mens! It's normally the other way round.

I think a big problem is that a lot of places are older buildings designed by men AND men are quicker. So you do need more physical cubicles for women; if a company buys an existing entertainment building (whether that's a bar, restaurant, theatre, sports venue) or is carrying out a refurb, it is likely to be a major project involving loss of significant floor space to change this. so path of least resistance.

Crickey, nice sarcasm bam. What I didn't realise I had to point out was people don't just piss on the floor at festivals (well some do, but that helps us cubicle goers out anyway).

There are designated 'shepee' toilets. in a similar way to the men's, there is a trough section, and you are handed a cardboard shepee. You then use it to wee in the trough, dispose of shepee, wash hands and off you go. Much quicker than faffing in a cubicle.

As a female architect, I can tell you that we don't give men more toilets.

Men usually have fewer cubicles because they all stand at a urinal to pee, these take up a lot less room than a cubicle and take less time to use.

Also, every commercial client counts every square millimetre and they will usually only put in the minimum number of loos as recommended for the number of people anticipated using them so blame them not the architects!

I am often standing in queues for the loos and would love more cubicles available but women do seem to take forever to have a wee! They can't all be pooing and changing SP at the same time!

Sorry, wasn't meaning to be sarcastic - not viciously anyway - just thinking of reactions and logistics. Just that i've never been to Glastonbury but have been to Wimbledon.

Funny thing with airports is that there are usually plenty of loos in each area as you pass through. What I find hilarious is that the first loos off the plane are usually queued, but if you go through passport control, there'll be another set of loos (usually smaller queues) and then when you get into baggage reclaim, more loos that are completely empty. Is everyone really so desperate that they have to stop at the first loo they see, even though it's obvious they'll be waiting 5/10 minutes, when they'd actually be quicker going through to the next area where there is no queue at all?

The issue is here in the article
When men have to wait in longer lines and they make enough noise about it, the rules change.

So when something is done so that queuing times are similar, men shout and then the rule is changed. But if women shout, they get ignored...

There is a need for some legislation change there (along with more space to fit a sanitary bin too).
I'm not sure this will mean that we will have the same waiting time. Men will still go to urinals and go quicker. This won't change the issue with clothing and menstruation. But not having to queue for 10mons will be nice....

Completely agree with you OP - there should be twice as many women's toilets as men's.

Which posh sporting event?
I go to Silverstone every year and the situation is reversed - men queuing for miles and the women's relatively quick, apart from the odd rush after an on track session has finished.

Maybe they should install urinals for female? But don't think a lot of female would want to do their business in front of other female though.

Should say, that's Silverstone for the Formula 1.

The argument that women take such a long time is one, IMO, that is deeply rooted in sexism and coming from men.
Yes from a male perspective, we probably take a long time. There are some reasons for that (explained in the article, amount of clothing, periods, clothes are tighter - much harder to out the guts back on than a pair of trousers!- etc).
I'm :( that women have bought into it.
Because now, it's all our fault as women that we take so long so we don't have a leg to stand on if we want to change things so there are no queues.

Was good to see at the handcrafted Fair in the midlands recently - 5 ladies loos and one gents. Just common bloody sense really - but noticeably my 11 yr old commented and said how sensible

Maybe we should go unisex with cubicle options only (no urinals). I might have to queue (as usual) but watching the mens reaction to their new queueing experience and sandwiched between mums with grumbling toddlers could be a satisfying revenge.

There is also a density thing - I mean a row of urinals takes alot less space than 5 loos - they should just use their common sense - who is coming to an event - and divy up or order in the loos accordingly

What frustrates me is that even in relatively modern buildings with the same number of toilet spaces for men and women, men actually get more toilets as space gets allocated evenly and urinals take up less space. So men may get 2 cubicles and 4 urinals in the space that women get 4 cubicles.

To my mind, if you were going for equality of provision you'd at least change it to 5 and 5 each, and if you truly wanted equal access then you'd switch to 6 cubicles in the women's toilet with only 1 cubicle and 3 urinals for men as apparently they're just so super fast.

Funny how they're super fast at a football match but take an hour in the loo at home.

BluePeppers, I judge how slow a queue is by how quickly it takes me to go for a wee (obviously some people will have other things to deal with) not because I've bought into a man's idea of how long it takes to go.

I also have to hang up my bag move my coat, pull down my skinny jeans etc.