To not feel comfortable using work's unisex toilets

[Whatafustercluck]

My employer is moving offices into a different building. All the toilets are unisex. Most of the men seem fine with this (those who made the decision to move there are men) while the women I've spoken with don't feel comfortable about this for various reasons, from cleanliness to embarrassment about male colleagues knowing they're on their period or whatever. I'm really not happy with this, but feel like it's expected to just get on with it and it's considered somewhat old fashioned to think/ feel this way. Aibu?

Shared facilities are not ok. Self-contained facilities are fine (in my view).

Your employer needs to rethink this OP.

What you do at home is irrelevant to public toilets/workplace toilets. The environment is not the same at all.
I work on a site that has 95% male staff. There are separate toilets as per the law, even down on a dockfront. However, those dockfront loos are abused by men - they have decided that they will pee in the block assigned to them but they go for a shit in the one designated as the female loo. There's no way that would occur the other way round. So no, I don't want to share with them. Men always expand to fill any space...

The hotdesk offices whre I work is on two floors, one disabled loo on the ground floor, half a dozen in the basement - everyone uses the one upstairs, apparently without giving it a second thought.
The downstairs ones are all unisex though - but all self contained cubicles too.

I have seen several in restauraunts and theatres recently though where unisex cubicles and shared sinks. Was just appalled that in a longish theatre interval queue, not a single man stopped to wash his hands - grim.
On the plus side, they wouldn't be hanging around the sink area

It's very clear that some of the "doesn't bother me" brigade are younger women who have never experienced flooding. It really isn't possible to clean yourself up without getting blood on your hands, believe me.

It's disturbing that some posters lack the empathy to see that "I don't mind" doesn't translate into "nobody should mind". You don't actually have the right to sign away someone else's right to privacy and dignity just because you don't personally value it (yet).

@StopStartStop
'
No man needs to know when my knickers are down, when I piss, shit or bleed. Compelling me to make those things public is a humiliation, a denigration, an abuse, a denial of my right to dignity.'

Do you feel it's 'public' for a woman who works with you to know those things? Or it only feels public is a man you work with does?

Also, I must be missing something. If you're in a cubicle with the door shut how would anyone else notice what you're doing? I've never been in a work bathroom and been conscious of whose knickers were down or who is 'bleeding'. Your privacy is behind the cubicle door, not the whole bathroom.

Shared facilities are a cost cutting exercises and come at the cost of women's well being. They should be seen as such.

They can try to mitigate by having fully enclosed cubicles with sinks but that saves less money so organisations will push to fully shared facilities.

OP: ask for the equalities impact assessment on this change - there should be one.

Parents should challenge this in schools where facilities are changed to shared - there is something you can do about it but too many people just accept it as a done deal, especially when the SLT just implement over the holidays (as happened to two schools around here - now reversed).

[quote offersoverr]YADNBU.

I find this baffling. Why do firms do this?

According to the BBC, it’s unlawful:
“ Since the 1992 Workplace Regulations Act, failing to ensure that men and women employees have separate toilet facilities is unlawful.”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59785477[/quote]
Because they are allowed to? Its not unlawful as long as each convenience is in a separate lockable room.

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/3004/regulation/20/made

"separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside"

I am not one who would be happy for my male colleagues to sit in the cubicle next to me and hear me rustling around with sanitary products, dropping them in the disposal bin etc. I can hear it now "ooh, fustercluck is being very assertive today - mind you, she's on her period which probably explains it"

Seriously, how many people do this? Having, obviously, used women's toilets all my life, I can honestly say I've never sat there thinking about what the person in the next cubicle is doing (apart from the colleague who used to have loud phone conversations). If someone is inclined to do that, they're just as likely to be female as male.

@3scape

The men haters having a good old go again.

You think not wanting to share personal space with strange men (and acknowledging that lots of women will find that difficult) equates to hating them? Or is it that you lack the comprehension to form any other argument?

You think not wanting to share personal space with strange men (and acknowledging that lots of women will find that difficult) equates to hating them? Or is it that you lack the comprehension to form any other argument?

You do have to wonder what they get out of it tbh. If they are male then the men/males who see no need for the boundaries are probably the kind of men/males that the boundaries were meant to keep out.

If they are female, well there's absolutely no benefit to women in mixed sex toilets ( especially in the work place where the needing to take opposite sex child to the toilet isn't an issue)

There's no special protection or appreciation from men/males for assisting them removing women's safe spaces. Once your vote has been cast there's no further need for you. So why do it? When there is no benefit to women. Only risk.

Would they get into a male strangers car if they wanted a lift home ?

Do they open their home toilet up to the public?

Somehow I doubt it

Bit awkward on bring your daughter to work day

3scape

The men haters having a good old go again.

I don't hate men at all. I'm married to a perfectly lovely one and have some great male friends. But having worked in a male dominated profession, there is a hard core of deeply unpleasant men who will get a kick out of humiliating women. Other men let them get away with it.

Someone said they had never had experience of men commenting on them having their period - I used to get it frequently, I got to the stage of keeping unwrapped tampons in my bag and flushing, not using the bin. I was actually glad of the fact that my periods weren't regular.

@BashStreetKid

I am not one who would be happy for my male colleagues to sit in the cubicle next to me and hear me rustling around with sanitary products, dropping them in the disposal bin etc. I can hear it now "ooh, fustercluck is being very assertive today - mind you, she's on her period which probably explains it"

Seriously, how many people do this? Having, obviously, used women's toilets all my life, I can honestly say I've never sat there thinking about what the person in the next cubicle is doing (apart from the colleague who used to have loud phone conversations). If someone is inclined to do that, they're just as likely to be female as male.

There are many men on record saying they have a fetish for hearing women peeing. Also some men have a fetish for menstruation.

Paraphilias are much more common in men.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1079063214525645

Only someone very naive could believe there is no difference between male behaviour in public toilets and women’s behaviour.

Our office has switched to these since we returned after lockdown so that people are meant to use the ones nearest to their desk rather than traipsing across the office to the ladies / gents.
I'm not keen and if the office was back to nearly full capacity I think I'd be less keen because I've seen the state the gents toilets used to get in. Our cubicles are floor to ceiling with sinks in them so as private as you can get. But I don't like having to put the seat down after a man has left it up and I usually keep sanitary products in the communal area outside the cubicles and having the men potentially walking in on me accessing those feels like a bit of an invasion of privacy. We've also got the main door into the toilets propped open to reduce "contact points" and this really makes me feel uncomfortable as I have IBS and I'm really conscious of people at the desks outside hearing me poo!

@3scape

The men haters having a good old go again.

That's what you took from this? Not that some women are uncomfortable with sharing toilets with males. I wouldn't be happy and luckily in my work, they'd have no hope of this as there would be so much backlash. I don't hate men, but I don't want them in the same toilets as me. And just because something wouldn't bother you, doesn't mean everyone should or will feel comfortable with it. Separate toilets for male and female should be in all places.

Doesn't seem to be an issue in France.

wow so many men haters , just had to share with DP. He says the women in his work are always complaining about the disgusting women's toilets at work, and confirmed that he has never had a shit or a wank at work

Your Nigel might not, but other Nigels do. And I bet the women would complain more if they had to share with men.

"separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside"

A stall toilet is not a "separate room".

YANBU. Mixed sex toilets are not acceptable to many women- it’s not old fashioned to think so. I’m 35 and wouldn’t use them.

I think under the Equality Act you need to be provided with single sex toilets as an option. Take it up with HR and email them to let them know you’d like single sex loos in the new office. You won’t be the only woman to have concerns.

I would hate this . I'm the only woman and whilst everyone is lovely to me and they're mostly all military and used to bunking in, I don't want to share a bathroom with them/I wouldn't phase them! I can sometimes smell it from down the hall when I go in the ladies and I know some people aren't clean; one of the clean men put an angry sign up telling people to clean up better.

I get stomach upsets and not quite diarrhoea and awful wind pretty easily, I get really bad period guts and also huge clots. I've had to hunt the clot round the cubicle before and wipe up lots of blood drops. Obviously I clean up after myself but knowing they'll all see/hear/smell is extra pressure somehow.

They don't respect the sanctity of the ladies anyway. If I'm not in they can use that bathroom and they know it. I've gone in for a pee as soon as I get to work and smelt very fresh shit smells and full, new loo rolls have gone walkies over night. I keep my loo roll locked in my desk now.

I don't think they'd enforce this though because both loos also act as shower and locker rooms- hopefully the inappropriateness of that, given that they do get used as such, would kill it stone dead.

@Grantanow

Doesn't seem to be an issue in France.

People keep saying this but unisex toilets really aren’t very common in France in my experience.

@belowaverage

wow so many men haters , just had to share with DP. He says the women in his work are always complaining about the disgusting women's toilets at work, and confirmed that he has never had a shit or a wank at work . Also niece has started a job on a building site and bosses got a portaloo with key just for her as the only female so some employers do care.

Genuinely would like to know where you got "men haters" from? Do you seriously think, women having boundaries or not feeling comfortable sharing certain spaces with males equates to man hating?

It sounds like your husbands work need to do a better job at toilet cleaning..nothing to do with other women not being comfortable with mixed sex facilities. It's also not about what your husband does, it's about what other women feel or need.

Here are the workplace regulations. Click on download free copy, the section (Regulation 20) relevant to toilets is on page 37. There must be separate facilities for men and women, although I believe self contained unisex facilities would meet the criteria.

www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l24.htm

I would not be happy with shared facilities if they were ordinary flimsy cubicles with shared hand washing. Why do women need to justify their desire for privacy and dignity? There has been an increase in secret cameras being placed in "public" toilets in recent years, always women's loos, I think separate facilities reduces opportunities for people (haven't seen any cases where a woman has done this although I'm sure there must be some) who are inclined to secretly record strangers using the loo.

If the current set up is separate facilities then I would ask how they intend to accommodate women who may not be able to use shared facilities for religious reasons.

The desire for separate toilets is not man hating. Women campaigned for publc toilets and separate toilet provision in the workplace so that we could participate in life outside the home, I don't think we should accept shared facilities without questioning who benefits, it's never women.

I worked in a male-dominated sector for years and had to do site visits where there were no women's toilets, so I've used a fair few mens' loos and the smell and the pee on the seat and on the floor are disgusting.

At least when men have their own urinals women are spared the seat, floor and wall spattering. Evidence shows that male wee hitting the porcelain of a loo can scatter minute droplets for some distance. You should never hang towels anywhere near a loo where men will stand to wee.

priceonomics.com/why-cant-we-build-a-splash-proof-toilet/

OP, I would gather some more evidence, take photos of the state the loos are left in when there's pee on the seat or floor, and insist on H&S grounds that steps are taken to make lavatories safe for women to use.

i wouldn't have been bothered by this years ago, having only experienced normal loo setups

then i worked in an office building for 3 months which ONLY had (enclosed, floor to wall, sanitary bins in all) unisex toilets. it was fucking grim, disgusting on a daily basis, the whole office block had been designed with them on every floor, and i used to nip across to the "old" block to get a proper semi-clean toilet to use without piss on the seats or public hair or shit stains everywhere.

it was surreal, by about 11am each day despite the cleaners having them in a good state every morning, the same grim fucking setup.

it was horrible, and the number 1 reason i was glad to leave that project and not have to go there again!!