Man in ladies loo (with little daughter)

[CallmePaul]

Hello Mumsnet, 1st poster here.

So I'm the man in question here, my 4yr old girl needed the loo in a big store today, went into the men's, stinky & horrible & the only 1 available cubicle is engaged, the disabled one is locked & my little one is busting.
I opened the ladies door, wow much nicer than the men's! I asked loudly if it was OK if a man came in with his little girl to the loo, got an OK from a cubicle, business attended to.

Washing her & my hands afterwards I got a pretty loud tut & mumble of humph womans toilets, from a lady who just entered, I get it, I'm a bloke in a ladies loos, I really shouldn't be in there.

I've never taken her in the ladies before, always the men's & some pretty nasty loos at times.

So acceptable behaviour from me or was I out of order?

But he asked before entering so his presence was known. If I had changed my mooncup and didn't want him to see blood on my hands I could have just waited in the cubicle a little longer until he was gone.

I was agreeing with you - apologies to you also that my wording didn't make this clear.

I find it weird that so many women here claim to care about women and girls but are perfectly fine with a female child being made to be held to shit over a urinal, wee themselves, or enter a toilet facility completely alone. A female child is far more vulnerable then any adult women in a toilet.

They’re not vulnerable in the men’s toilet with their dad or in a women’s toilet in their own with their dad outside

In all my decades of using using public toilets I have never seen someone come out of a cubicle with blood on their hands. Surely if there was that much blood you would wipe your hands on toilet tissue before exiting the cubicle, so as not to smear blood on the door/handle etc?
Our local shopping centre has prominent notices saying that male attendants/cleaners may be present. That doesn’t seem to cause trauma. I fail to see why a father with his four year old is more of a threat.

Haha.no worries. I'm tired 🙈

Lucky you if you've never had blood all over your hands. It's happened lots to me. I wipe as much off as possible and use whichever part of my hand is clean to open the handle. It's bad enough having male cleaners but there's usually a sign warning you. Very different to opening the doors to all men with children.

You let one in, you let them all in. This is clearly a much bigger issue than one man one toilet.

I'm sorry about the cPTSD. It's a horrible condition, and I hope you've found a way to manage and/or treat it. The issue here isn't about your making the whole world responsible for your trauma and therefore needing to uphold the boundaries around single-sex facilities. I'd be mortified if I thought I was even implying my trauma is somehow the responsibility of others, or that the onus was on them to adjust to it rather than my making ajustments of my own. Like you, my attitude is that my issues are mine to deal with.

But this is a far broader problem. It's about automatically assuming women will cede over their rights, comfort, wellbeing and dignity to men. It's deemed fine for women to facilitate the comfort of others, even when this is at the cost of their own. This isn't about being mean and nasty to a 4-YO little kid. For the past decade there's been a wholesale assault on women's rights and spaces, in which it's been made abundantly clear that women's wishes don't matter. And the more individual men chip away at the safeguarding boundaries that are there to secure our comfort, safety and wellbeing, the greater the risks this poses.

It's all well and good to say 'well, it's only one dad and his daughter. What's the problem?' The problem is that next time it will be another, and another, and if it's deemed okay once this will become the standard routine, and then others will start to follow, and the boundary is eroded before you know where you are. This has frequently been happening in order to accommodate the rights of other groups who are deemed more important than the women who object to their spaces becoming mixed sex.

The type of men inclined to stamp over other's boundaries are not the type of men who are going to keep asking permission to do this. Nor are they going to do it only once. And the type of man who pushes the hardest to be allowed into women's spaces is very often that variety of man who has the least business anywhere near them.

You only needed to read the M&S lingerie review pages around 3-4 years ago to see this. It isn't about an individual's trauma, or an individual's desire for his kid to use the Ladies' as a one-off. It's much bigger than that.

So any man who can't wait is welcome in the ladies? we might as well stop pretending it's a ladies then.

Exactly.

Btw @CallmePaul it's not ok for anyone to be telling anyone to f off, but that's why there's moderators. This is all standard. Not great but women are not an amorphous mass and behaviour will vary!

You made a mistake if you thought everyone here was going to be kind and validate your choice. This is normal. Mumsnetters affectionately call each other vipers and will challenge and say when they don't agree. you're not getting special treatment here one way or another.

You said you were interested in the female perspective but I don't think you are are actually. You've had lots of views where people (like me) have said what you did would be understood as a one off however we can consider wider implications.

People have tried to let you know that we deal with weirdo fetishists all the time on here ( and probably in the real world for many of us). Posters have tried to let you know that women are conditioned to let men do as they please and may not be able to tell you that your going into the toilet was a problem.

I don't think you're interested in any of this. You are doing what many posters have done before you...ask AIBU...and when some people have said maybe you were... You've got a bit shirty and said ,"No I'm not…!" Those posters (male or female) rightly get a hard time too.

So what you wanted was validation. Which is what loads of women are really sick of from men I'm afraid.

And this is from someone who would have said fine and understood for your girl's sake.

I'm not sure. You had a nice and reasonable approach, i.e. you called out and asked...I like that. However ,I can understand how a woman may have felt seeing a man there. Much better that you had a kid with you. Pls dont go in a woman toilet without a kid!

So this little girls choices are
A) Risk being exposed to a mans cock and balls as she walks past the urinals.
B) Go it alone in a woman's toilet and fingers crossed she doesn't bump into a Rose West/Myra Hindley type weirdo.
C) Go it alone and hope she can navigate zips/Buttons/Locked Doors/Hot taps.
D) Poo or wee herself while her poor dad has to decide what option is acceptable to society.
Brilliant, pleased to see we all care so much about keeping 4 year old girls safe.

I don't think it is. I think you think there is some kind of flooding gate of men wanting to go in women's toilets. There isn't. Those that do go in them anyway. No man wanting to commit a sexual assault has been stopped by a sign that says women on the door. These are occasional situations where there may be a reason for a man to enter a womens toilets. I don't think the OP is setting off some kind of bat signal that says "hey I used a women's toilet helping my daughter once" and men everywhere all will suddenly start going on women's toilets when ever they feel like it.

A little girl is vulnerable in a man's toilet with her father, because men's urinals are open. She's literally being exposed to random men's penises, but that aside, there are people advocating her dad holding her over a urinal to do her business. She would have exposed genitalia in a communal part of a man's rest room where any man can just walk in. Yes she is vulnerable and in the latter situation her privacy and dignity is completely breached.

A small girl is also vulnerable in the womens alone. Yes men commit the majority of sexual crimes but there are cases of women committing sexual offences against children. I went into a public toilet once where there was a small girl sat on the toilet with the door wide open alone. Yes that child was vulnerable. She was then struggling to pull her own pants up and I had to go outside and tell her father she needed assistance. That child was absolutely vulnerable and should have had an adult with her.

On trains, don't we all use the same loo? Why would this situation be any different?

I’m not entirely sure which trains you’ve been on, but in my experience, train toilets (and planes and coaches) are all single toilets, so you’re not likely to bump into anyone else of either sex in there.
Hope that helps 😜

A little girl is vulnerable in a man's toilet with her father, because men's urinals are open. She's literally being exposed to random men's penises

a. I’m not sure penises are dangerous of their own accord. Seeing one isn’t deadly
b. Men don’t wander around with their penises out in toilets. She’d have to be up close having a gander to see one
c. Her dad is with her so he can see who is in there in advance, if there is a troop of men careering about waving their deadly penises he could make the decision not to enter

And please people, need to stop fixating upon the ONE person that suggested holding her over the urinals. This isn’t your debate winning point!

Totally agree. This thread has some bonkers posts on it.

My concern too would be, as others have mentioned, that the women's toilet becomes the default 'family' option, so men can accompany very young daughters. As women always have to bloody budge up, instead of these companies/businesses, with massive budgets which they chose to blow on absolute shit like commercials and 'diversity' drives, just providing a much-needed gender neutral 3rd space for people who need it.

My husband never once took any of our three daughters into a women’s toilet, and it never would have crossed his mind to do so. I don’t know any other dad who would ever have done this. I would find it deeply creepy of a man to think he’s entitled to do this - even if he ‘asks’.

How has this become a thing? Is it that men in general have become less respectful of women’s boundaries - likely due to the proliferation of gender ideology and the resultant demand that women ‘get over’ the statistical risk to them from men.

There is ALWAYS another option for men and their small daughters. There are endless coffee shops, shopping centres, supermarkets etc - all with toilets, often individual male/ female cubicles.

Women don’t have to explain, apologise or justify their right to spaces free of men. It’s not just about safety, it’s about comfort and dignity. And the notmyNigels can always go and use the men’s toilets if they’re genuinely so unbothered. Win/ win.

I can't believe you've read all my posts & come up with that conclusion.

I had no idea you had, as a forum, issues with weirdos so on that point I concede, fair enough call me out, but I think that point is past now?

I've not been rude or called out anyone who simply said I shouldn't have been in there that's fine, opinion given. I don't disagree! Some good points raised by many.
But wow this place has a hardcore bunch who enjoy being antagonistic to strangers on the Internet & a smaller bunch of some very twisted minds.

But seeking validation ? really wow! I wasn't happy to be in there you know, I wasn't after acceptance or a pat on the back or anything,

Honestly I'm done, notifications off on this, etc 26 pages so far is more than enough I thought I might get few replies at most.