To be annoyed at the lack of bathrooms

[Applecharm25]

I have my period. I can feel that i need to change my tampon.

I'm out walking round my city. There are no public bathrooms anywhere near me.

I see a sign for a bathroom in a small shopping centre near me. I walk in. The bathroom is actually in a shop. I'm told that the bathroom is only available for paying customers.

So now I have to get in a long queue and wait further and buy something while I really need to change my tampon.

Surely there should be better toilet services available.

True, but I wanted to err assumptions on the side of the OP. Anyway I realised afterwards I shortchanged her by one period a year (forgot it's 28 days not calendar months... I'm really bad at tracking mine!) so it probably evens out.

Again, I wasn't talking to you.

I asked her specifically why she was angry.

And you butted in.

Do you feel good to get the little insult in at the end.? Showing your true colours. I've reported you.

Thanks for the maths? Nobody here is denying that toilets would be more useful than just a cubicle. Just making a suggestion that cubicles would be sufficient for some. Any extra public facilities would be nice, no doubt!

Really bizarre to see how this might even be controversial. Theoretically, this would benefit ALL women, whether or not you change your sanitary products with a toilet! Since you're so good at maths, tell me how increasing the overall number of women's public facilities might bring harm?

I mean, on top of more toilets, I also want free TVs in there! But no, if I don't get TVs, the toilets just might as well not be built. See, most women watch TVs while using the toilet! Apologies for the weird analogy, but I don't get this logic...

Again I think the speedy checkout lane is the best analogy; all right, you've got 50 items to check out, but why should that stop someone with 1 to go for the speedy checkout? If there were just 10 lanes to start with, and we built 2 extra speedy lanes, why is it not a good thing???

Shock horror, not everyone in the UK calls something- what you call it!

Wow!

Why would you even want everyone to say the exact same things that you do?

It's bizarre! Is it not very controlling ?

My cousin in Newcastle calls things different names than my cousin in London is.

We don't force anyone to say the same words.

To be far, it really sounded much more like amusement than anger. I can see why, too.

Well let's let her answer.

To be fair to @Applecharm25 it is good to be looking for ways to improve things and challenging assumptions. I do appreciate that. And even if this particular idea isn't the greatest, kicking it around might become the seed for a really good one.

Thank you.

Do you have any ideas for how to improve period facilities for women?

At least they are now starting to have free period products in some libraries . Which is great. I've seen them in some libraries.

Speedy checkouts take up less room than the standard checkouts, though (or at least they do most places here as they’re all self-service). So you could fit several speedy checkouts in place of one checkout lane.

Samitary protection cubicles would need as much room as toilet cubicles, and you’d still need most of the same things there e,g. washing facilities, sanitary disposal bins. So what’s the point in having them when you could just have a toilet?

Also, based on the responses to this thread, most women wouldn’t use them. So you’re putting facilities in place that are only useful for a small number of people at certain times. While taking space that could be used for a more universal facility.

Yeah but it's good to at least talk about in theory and suggest how we could improve period facilities for women, right.

I suggested one idea. Would it not be good to suggest other ideas instead of people calling each other batshit.

Like I'm baffled as to why some people got angry about this.

No wonder we can never get anything improved for women in any way. If a woman suggests anything she gets abused

Well, if we could build extra complete checkout lanes, that would obviously be better than the speedy ones. I'm merely suggesting that IF for some reason toilets couldn't be built (maybe funds issue), then it would still help to build cubicles.

Aah I love mumsnet. Most people no longer give a flying fuck about the point of the post.

To confirm we absolutely no not commonly say “bathroom” in UK when we mean toilet. I’ve never ever seen the word bathroom in a pub, or restaurant or shopping centre. It’s toilet or WC.

And 99% of the time when I take out a tampon I have a little wee - or at least try. Also not to be grim but if your period is that heavy of course you want to be sat / hovering over a toilet so any blood drips down! The idea of a tampon changing room with no toilet is ridiculous

The problem is that demanding something that the vast majority of women don't want and wouldn't use doesn't help the cause of women one jot.

What very obviously would help is more and better toilet facilities, but that's hardly rocket science and doesn't need all of us putting it forward as a suggestion.

I’m definitely not arguing against the idea that period facilities need to be improved.

I’d also like every women’s bathroom to have sanpro dispensers like they used to have. (But please include different types of tampons in them)

I didn't think I would comment so much, but got hooked to the thread because women's attitudes towards other women here were just unexpected! People really do try to suggest everything except, perhaps, acknowledging that the society could do better for women?

There's the whole distraction on 'bathroom', the "men shouldn't be peeing in public", the "oh no who uses tampons standing up", the "I always pee when I change my tampons!!", the "are you a man?", the elaborate maths... it just went on and on, while not addressing the core issue... truly astonishing.

No one 'demanded' anything though did they

I wrote a suggestion on a chat forum.

'Demanded'. Lol

You might not use it, but we are (or at least I am) suggesting that if we did have extra facilities, the queues to public toilets would be shorter. Hence improving your experience indirectly, even if you don't use them.

I agree. It is actually quite shocking.

I've honestly never been abused as badly on mumset as I have on this thread where I made a suggestion to help women.

What does that say? That some women hate other women on a deep level and can't even bear a suggestion of how to help them?

It's astonishing

Yes the queues could be so vastly improved.

At present we just have women's toilets. Women have to queue for them to poo, pee or change period products.

Men have two options - urinals and toilets

As I said several posts ago, the reason it's not a good thing is that you'd have to either take spaces from existing facilities, making the provision of ladies loos even worse, or build and plumb in new facilties. But if you are able to raise the money to build and plumb in new facilities, it seems odd to spend it on something that is useful to women 8% of the time instead of taking the one extra step to include a loo that would mean it's useful 95% of the time.

Now what might be worth thinking about is extending your period cabin into some sort of female urinal cubicle. Soil stacks are a big job (ha!) so a facility that only needed standard waste pipes to drain water and urine could well be cheaper to build.

Unlike gents' urinals we'd need to deal with loo roll but you'll need waste disposal anyway for your san pro so something that can hygienicly and odourlessly handle used loo roll isn't a big addition. Maybe combine it with the little wash jets you get in Arabic, Japanese and Turkish loos so the paper is just to dry off...

It probably wouldn't be any faster than peeing in a standard loo but if it meant more facilities could be installed that were actually useful for peeing as well it would be a win. And free up more cubicles for women with kids.

That idea I could get behind.

You know how men pee on the street.

I've walked past so many men peeing outside. We are expected to just see it.

I wonder what men would think if we got she wees and just peed anywhere on the street.

I bet they would be shocked! And probably have us arrested for indecency.

But it's acceptable for men to pee everywhere..

What do you think about warm air/air jet drying? With a foot switch perhaps.
Edit: like Japanese toilets have.

@Applecharm25
I'm not angry at all and you've jumped to the conclusion of that and the fact that I called you batshit! The thread is batshit, your responses to people are batshit!
I have absolutely no problem with periods, tampons or anything else us 'women' have to deal with. My issue is that it wasn't necessary to include that in your original post! What I stated in my previous post would have been sufficient. It's like you're deliberately virtue signalling!

Anyway, I'm going to bed now, to relish the fact that my period days are over and sending sympathies to the ladies on here who are still struggling with theirs.
I've been there, take comfort in the fact they don't last forever 💐

Extra facilities yes. But extra facilities that can only be used for sanpro and maybe nappy changing, not peeing? I just don't think enough women could make use of them to have a noticeable impact.
This thread is full of women saying they would not want to change san pro somewhere they can't pee, and like it or not you have to take that on board.

I get that the OP and one or two others would be fine with it, but given that at any given time women changing san pro are a minority of the people using the ladies loos anyway, and given that the women who'd be happy to change without a loo there are a minority of them, it really feels a bit like "we must do something and this is something!" rather than anything that will actually make a difference.

Nobody answer this. It's clearly what OP is really after