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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Are you really that bothered about shared toilets?

491 replies

Beaverdam · 03/11/2019 16:08

We were discussing this in work the other day. I really dont care about sharing toilets with males but some of the other women are really annoyed about the idea.

Are you annoyed about this? If so, what isit that you dont like about it? Do you think that the men will perve?

OP posts:
FizzyIce · 03/11/2019 19:38

Because it’s a place we can go without men , one of the very few places .
I don’t see why we have to share everywhere

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 03/11/2019 19:39

Depends where this is

At risk few colleagues no

Train station that I might use late at night yes

lljkk · 03/11/2019 19:40

I don't want to share toilet rooms with ANYONE at work. Honestly, it's gross and dignity robbing. Their sex is irrelevant for me. It's all just... yuck when you know the other people.

I am more comfortable in an anonymous public unisex toilet area than I am in any kind of toilet cubicles set up (which happens to be single sex) at work.

V1daw1inter · 03/11/2019 19:42

We only have one, used by men and women. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest when I can get in it.

PixieDustt · 03/11/2019 19:43

I just don't feel comfortable with it.
I don't just think it's women who feel uncomfortable with it either.
Imo it's getting ridiculous that you can't have separate men/women's toilets. I think it should be a choice so there are mixed toilet options but it shouldn't be forced on someone to use a mixed toilet.

Wheat2Harvest · 03/11/2019 19:45

Also, as a teenage girl I was always really self conscious when on my period with the noise of changing sanitary towels, using the sanitary bin.

Teenaged boys are curious about periods as it's all very new and not very well understood in some cases. They'd be rifling through the sanitary bins out of curiosity or waiting until a particular girl came out before getting the sanitary trophy out of the bin and waving it around in front of their mates.

Beamur · 03/11/2019 19:45

Because very often the ladies toilet is where you go to get away from men.
Unless it's a fully enclosed cubicle with a sink and sanitary disposal unit that opens out into an area I feel safe, it's a no from me.
Unisex toilets with stalls and communal sinks - absolutely not.

ooooohbetty · 03/11/2019 19:46

Yes. Had shared toilets in a previous office. Hated it. So did all the other. women.

AnneElliott · 03/11/2019 19:47

At my workplace the men wee with the door open in the unisex loos. So all the women walk across to the single sex loos in our other building.

So the men have all the loos in one of the buildings Hmm. They now put signs up telling men to shut the doors while peeing.

Lots of women don't like it, and one member of my team (older Asian lady) said her husband would stop her working here if he ever knew about it.

Tunnocks34 · 03/11/2019 19:48

Personally, as long as the toilet doors are floor to ceiling and the lock can’t be opened from the outside I probably wouldn’t mind.

Iamnotagoddess · 03/11/2019 19:48

Yeah I absolutely hate the idea.

zebrasdontwearbras · 03/11/2019 19:48

I think the push for gender neutral toilets is a very worrying development - which will then come to be used to justify gender neutral hospital wards, changing rooms, etc etc - gender neutral everything.

There is a very real problem with women being perved on, and simply just intimidated by men. By the presence of men. Ask a rape victim, ask a woman who has escaped a violent relationship. Women are uniquely vulnerable to this - and the feeling afraid of a much larger, stronger man, especially when alone with him in an intimate space.

I am a woman in my 40s. I have spent my life batting off unwanted attention from men. It's lessened now I'm older, but it still bloody happens. it's even happened when I'm accompanied by my children ffs. I was with my teen DS, and we were walking across a park to an appointment - a load of men sitting on a bench started shouting stuff after me. THEN as we approached the gate, another 2 men passed us and one of them said "hello gorgeous' where are you off to?" - don't men have any idea how annoying/intimidating this behaviour is to women? said to DS "I thought I'd reached the age where I didn't have to put up with that crap anymore" Hmm

Anyway - the reason I share that story is that a) I don't believe men are harassed like that nearly as much as women, and b) women have always had safe single sex spaces for exactly this reason.

The ladies toilet is a place where women deserve privacy away from men, away from the male gaze - they are vulnerable/in a state of undress/changing sanitary wear - and sometimes it's a great place to get away from that man hassling you in the pub. Only when everything's gender neutral he can follow you in there.

And if my ramblings don't convince you - do a google search for hidden camera porn. It's there - some mocked up - some definitely real - and it's all because there are men around who want to perve on women getting changed/going to the loo. I don't think there are many women around who didn't learn that in primary school - I have clear memories of the boys trying to get into the girl's changing room.

Ninkaninus · 03/11/2019 19:48

The thing is, to bring this back for a moment to your original question, I am not personally all that bothered. I don’t have any trauma in relation to men, for example, and I don’t feel self-conscious about putting a bit of lipstick on in front of any number of decent, average men. I also don’t really ever feel weird changing a tampon or whatever. I have comfortably used unisex toilets at work.

BUT, that is entirely beside the point:

Many, many women have been raped, assaulted, exposed to indecent actions, have been sexually abused as children, violently abused as women, have vulnerabilities (emotionally, psychologically, mentally, physically) and disabilities that make their lived experiences vastly different to mine, but also shared in enough depth, simply by virtue of being female, for me to know, at least on some level, that my responsibility lies with them. I don’t owe men anything on this issue.

I don’t need to share every woman’s exact views, experiences, needs and wants in order to know without any doubt whatsoever, that every woman, whether they think they need it or not, should have access to female-only spaces. Men do not belong in these places - they are segregated by sex for very, very important and serious reasons.

However, that is still taking the justification too far - there is no obligation to justify it. Whatever proportion of women are ‘fine’ with it, the proportion that is not deserves consideration, protection and solidarity.

If you haven’t yet read the current M&S threads on the feminist boards, I strongly urge you to do so.

userxx · 03/11/2019 19:49

Men lift the seat up to piss, I don't want to have to touch a toilet seat 🤮. They also piss on the floor, I don't want to walk in piss.

GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman · 03/11/2019 19:50

Yes, all the stalls had lockable doors, but there was still a man urinating with the door open!Yes, all the stalls had lockable doors, but there was still a man urinating with the door open!
Well, that for a start. And especially not great for teenaged girls (or indeed anyone) going through a self-conscious stage.

And in my limited experience of them, men's loos tend to be utterly minging. Plus, according to DH (a hygiene freak) most blokes don't wash their hands. So that's great, yeah, using the lock and the handle on the door of the floor-to-ceiling unisex cubicle with sink in it, in which you have just washed your hands, directly after someone who has no idea about basic hygiene.

And, of course, unless these loos are well thought-out, it gives an opportunity to the rapey perverts. If this has been considered, and the stalls open into a corridor or similar, you have zero privacy when you have a four-year-old who insists on going on her own and then insists she can't wipe her bum after all, or a teenager who finds she has started her period and wants to tap on your door and hiss, 'Mum! Mum! Can I have a pad?' or you need want to leave the door slightly ajar so that you can still your toddler in the pushchair that you can't fit in the cubicle. I mean, leaving the door ajar for pushchair-watching isn't fab even in the ladies...

econowifey · 03/11/2019 19:53

Yes I am very bothered. How could I not be!

WeWantSweet · 03/11/2019 19:58

How about, if it ain't broke for the vast majority, why fix it?

thunderthighsohwoe · 03/11/2019 20:01

So long as no one - male or female - pees anywhere other than directly into a toilet I really don’t care. Ditto with doing a stinky poo and not spraying the air freshener.

Rachelsfatarse · 03/11/2019 20:05

Had unisex toilets at a previous employer. The loos were terrible so much so the women appropriated the only wheelchair accessible one and made it their own (there were no w/c using employees then). The blokes didn’t wash their hands, left piss and toilet paper everywhere and the loos generally just stank. When the other loo broke and everyone had to use the accessible toilet, guess what? It ended up in the same foul state as the men’s.

Wheat2Harvest · 03/11/2019 20:08

Personally, as long as the toilet doors are floor to ceiling and the lock can’t be opened from the outside I probably wouldn’t mind.

And when someone gets trapped inside because they can't undo the lock or it's faulty? Not good for anyone with claustrophobia either. And if the cubicle's light went you would be in total darkness.

fllinn · 03/11/2019 20:08

I've been raped. I won't feel "comfortable" dropping my underwear with a man/men only feet away from me.

MrMumble · 03/11/2019 20:14

I don’t need to share every woman’s exact views, experiences, needs and wants in order to know without any doubt whatsoever, that every woman, whether they think they need it or not, should have access to female-only spaces.

This.

What I find astounding is that the wants of a very very few people are overriding the needs of so many. In what world is it more important that we pander to people who don't believe in sex differences over providing safe facilities for women. How on earth have we got to the point where men come before, for example, Muslim women. Should they just never leave the house?

PrettyPurse · 03/11/2019 20:17

Went to a new themed dinosaur restaurant recently. Toilets were single cubicle, door floor to ceiling but were mixed sex. The one l got was disgusting. Toilet seat up, floor soaking wet. Just grim.

For that reason alone l won't return to that restaurant

OdeToDiazepam · 03/11/2019 20:17

They make me uncomfortable and add extra anxiety and worry, they leave a horrible smell, a mess and could leave cameras too.

slipperywhensparticus · 03/11/2019 20:20

Yes I am bothered I have articulated why on many many threads but in case you missed it here it is again

I'm a rape victim I don't want to be in spitting distance of a strange man with my pants down

I dont give a shit if your ok with it

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