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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder how I was supposed to use this toilet?

387 replies

sleepingdragons · 29/05/2018 23:42

DD and I got drenched in the rain today, proper torrential rain! DD's skirt was soaked through.

We were on our way to meet family for lunch, so we headed there and I took DD to the toilet.

DD was freezing. My plan had been to strip her bottom half to her pants in the ladies and hold her skirt under the hand dryer for as long as I could.

But when I got to the toilet I found it was unisex. There were a bunch of cubicles coming off a busy communal sink area, with a couple of middle aged men in there when I got there, and more men coming and going while we were there.

What would you do in this situation? What do you think I should have done?

Also - AIBU to think that restaurants and cafes are going to use the new trend for unisex facilities as a cost cutting measure, so we're going to see loads more of this kind of thing?

OP posts:
Ninchninch · 30/05/2018 08:22

Maybe the men in the toilet looked uncomfortable because you were looking at them like they were a pedophile. Or they were uncomfortable because they didn't know where to look just in case they caught your 5 year olds eyes while drying their hands and you thought 'pedophile

PeakPants · 30/05/2018 08:22

They are a specifically female trait. I don't want men in the cubicle next to me when having to deal with heavy period, perhaps having to stay in toilet for a long time, the associated pain / diarrhoea etc. No, I'm not ashamed of periods.

I am not sure how this is apparently such a big concern. I don't think it represents the feelings of the average woman. Nobody wants to use a public loo when they have diarrhoea- including men who have it. No woman wants to see another woman tipping blood and mucus down a communal sink, so everything to do with your period is done behind locked cubicle doors. If it's not, it really should be.

Sometimes people do have irrational fears of someone hearing them when on the loo. Fair enough, but they will need to deal with that fear themselves. The other alternative is to have self-contained cubicles with a sink inside each one, which I would personally prefer, but they tend to take up more space.

Juells · 30/05/2018 08:23

Wow, so many of the posters on this thread seem to have an agenda.

"Women should be comfortable with men in their spaces. End of."

FFS

Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:23

they should have all stripped to underwear in the street as soon as the storm started (like at the beach!) and then put their dry clothes back on when they arrived hmm

This is my favourite solution so far Grin

OP posts:
bluerunningshoes · 30/05/2018 08:24

yanbu
single sex toilets are not ok imo

I also use the big mirrors to adjust clothing and make up/hair and loke to do that with males peering.

PeakPants · 30/05/2018 08:26

I'm sure the men will be delighted they now have to queue as long as women do.

Yeah well... We're not talking hours are we? Depending on where you are, most of the time there is no queue to the ladies anyway. And how can you have a urinal in a unisex toilet?

As I said before, unisex toilets are a great step towards making it easier for dads to care for their kids and take them to the bathroom without issues.

Butterflykissess · 30/05/2018 08:27

I can't get the whole standing there in her knickers as well i must admit. My daughter would be mortified and she's only 7.

Although you said the shops were 10 minutes away. To most people that doesn't mean there wa s no shops. I would hAve walked the 10 minute s you were already wet so 10 minutes wouldn't have made much difference.

pigmcpigface · 30/05/2018 08:28

"I’m surprised people think the daughter should just stand in her knickers in front of all and sundry because it’s “no different to being at the pool”. Surely context matters. Should OP stand in her knickers in a communal area because it’s “no different to being at the pool”? "

Er, yes. When did a child of either sex getting wet become an exclusively female concern? Every child has a father too.

TheGrumpySquirrel · 30/05/2018 08:28

@Juells exactly.

FallenSky · 30/05/2018 08:30

It's not nonsense at all. I'm well aware of the figures and I'm also well aware that the majority of sexual assaults are by men having been sexually assaulted as a child and adult. What is nonsense though is acting as though every man in a unisex toilet is a threat. Thinking that a 5 year old in a t shirt and underwear is somehow dangerous in a place with men in but not women.

Incidentally I have a 5 year old daughter, when she is out with her dad he takes her in to the mens toilets with him which I don't particularly like. I would much prefer there to be unisex toilets, all with cubicles and no urinals.

PeakPants · 30/05/2018 08:31

Although you said the shops were 10 minutes away. To most people that doesn't mean there wa s no shops. I would hAve walked the 10 minute s you were already wet so 10 minutes wouldn't have made much difference.

Not to mention of course that there are single sex toilets available right by the restaurant and they probably even have hand-dryers.
But no, the OP was basically trapped in a real life version of the Handmaid's Tale, subjected to the male gaze while she tried desperately to dry her daughter's skirt. Actual men looked while she used the hand-dryer- they gave her funny looks, probably while plotting their next assault.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 30/05/2018 08:34

Except if there is no alternative single sex facility, that is a problem.

Why?

MN has a really strange issue around shared toilets. I can understand it from the women's spaces perspective; but I'll take OP at her word that this isn't about that.

So, it's a toilet with men and women. I have genuinely never seen anyone with a mooncup at the sinks in any toilet; ever. Ive never seen anyone come out of a toilet covered in blood. If it's happened; it was so subtle that I didn't notice. I don't stand and have chats in there; nobody gets changed outside of a cubicle.

I don't think it's that commonplace to chat in the toilets anymore, or do your make up, or just loiter. It's much more functional. Get in, use the toilet, get out. If the person in the cubicle next door is a man; as long as they're hygienic and well behaved, I don't think it'd be a massive issue. And I'd expect the woman next door to be the same too!

Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:34

would hAve walked the 10 minute s you were already wet so 10 minutes wouldn't have made much difference

No way. That would have meant leaving DD in freezing wet clothes for the best part of half an hour, and me getting drenched through also. Or taking DD out and getting her more cold and wet.

Not an option.

Cold wet clothes need to come off ASAP.

OP posts:
Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:36

What is nonsense though is acting as though every man in a unisex toilet is a threat.

Who's doing that? Not me.

OP posts:
Chocolatecoffeeaddict · 30/05/2018 08:36

Haven't read whole thread, but I get where you're coming from. I think toilets should be completely stand alone unisex toilets with their own sink or just keep to the separate ladies'and men's, not what you're describing.
I don't think I would mind personally, but I know other women would feel strongly about this. Sometimes it's nice not to have men around while you're doing private things.

Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:38

And how can you have a urinal in a unisex toilet?

Upthread a poster said exactly that - women had to walk through the area with men's urinals.

If we're all so cool about unisex - why not?

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 30/05/2018 08:39

I think you are massively over-egging how wet the skirt was

Were you in theLondon area yesterday? I drove to pick DS up from school and the hill was like a river. You know how helicopters dump shed loads of water onto forest fires? It was like that only continuous. Good luck not getting wet in that. An umbrella would have been as much use as a paper bag against the force of the water.

As for the toilets, it wouldn’t have bothered me. Maybe ask at the restaurant if they had a tea towel or something for a makeshift skirt. My Waitrose sometimes has towels and has an individual toilet cubicle anyway if you really can’t thinkof a way to make a unisex area work.

thegreylady · 30/05/2018 08:40

I don’t think most men would be remotely interested in a five year old in her undies. I would have taken off one of my own upper garments if possible and,put that on her.

Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:41

Every child has a father too

Not sure what your point is. Biologically every child has a father, yes, but not every child had that father with them at all times - many effectively have no father.

Yesterday my DD's father was 60 miles away.

Why is this relevant?

OP posts:
thegreylady · 30/05/2018 08:42

If you were meeting family did none of them have a tshirt or cardigan that you could pop on to your dd?

Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:42

Were you in theLondon area yesterday?

Yes, the rain was insane!

I drove to pick DS up from school and the hill was like a river. You know how helicopters dump shed loads of water onto forest fires? It was like that only continuous. Good luck not getting wet in that. An umbrella would have been as much use as a paper bag against the force of the water.

Yes, this!

OP posts:
Original poster
sleepingdragons · 30/05/2018 08:42

thegreylady everybody was wet.

OP posts:
Mistressiggi · 30/05/2018 08:42

A threat is at one end of the scale - embarrassment and a right to dignity is at the other.

SoupDragon · 30/05/2018 08:44

Upthread a poster said exactly that - women had to walk through the area with men's urinals.

If we're all so cool about unisex - why not?

I have no issue with unisex facilities. That doesn’t mean I think having open urinals in them is acceptable.

Sleepyblueocean · 30/05/2018 08:45

If a 5 year old was with a male carer she would have to go into the men's.