Yay - a solution to the queue for ladies - urinals

[HDDD]

The Peequal: will the new women’s urinal spell the end of queues for the ladies’?
Designed by women for women.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/07/the-peequal-will-the-new-womens-urinal-spell-the-end-of-queues-for-the-ladies
Not for me. Ever.

Peequal? Piss off.

I tried to use a squat toilet in Russia once. Could not do it, decided to wait for the train and use the train toilet instead.

So in the picture someone has kindly posted, one is touching the floor (presumably balance? ) If this was at say the great Yorkshire show or a big muddy festival you wont want to touch the floor. Or as is very likely everyone has already pissed all over the floor, you definitely dont want to touch the floor at all. Add to zero hygiene like handwashing or period related facilities and i would prefer to go pee in a bush.
Add to that you are visible from the waist up and i cant see more than a few young women who are already drunk using it. Wont make much of a difference to the rest of us with dodgy knees, kids, prolapse, period, and dignity to name a few. We'll still be bloody queuing.

I think it's a reasonable idea.
The reason men don't have to queue as much is that if they need a cubicle, they queue for one, but if they need a quick wee, they have the urinal option.
As long as this is in addition to cubicles, which are there for poos (same as men), tampon changing, disabled, or those that want them.
There's obviously some women willing to use these, as the inventors held a focus group.
It's another option for women, which is all good.

How are those practical on a heavy period day?
Or at 8 months pregnant?
All we need are a decent number of toilets, with decent handwashing facilities.

As to handwashing. We rented some men's urinals for a local village festival which had no hand washing, but there are separate handwashing things you can have like a tap nearby.

@BrownTableMat

Most of us have the experience of squat toilets in other countries (Italy and Egypt, for me). It’s not generally a good memory, and tends to be a ‘last resort’ situation.

I don't mind a normal squat toilet because at least there isn't a big high wide thing stopping me squatting down properly and getting clothes and undies right down and out of the way. This peequal is just bizarre ....

How are those practical on a heavy period day?
Or at 8 months pregnant?

You wouldn't use them in those situations, just as men wouldn't use a urninal if they needed a poo.

@deydododatdodontdeydo

*How are those practical on a heavy period day? Or at 8 months pregnant?*

You wouldn't use them in those situations, just as men wouldn't use a urninal if they needed a poo.

Which is fine if there are adequate normal portaloos as well - the worry is that these will mean there won't be

I posted this on the chat thread but it's a feminist issue imo:

I can't work out whether I should actually feel sorry for these young women, who have so internalised society's lack of respect for female biology that they now accept and even celebrate this kind of thing as the pinnacle of equality. Equality does not mean apeing men. It should mean being equally respected as we are.

Is there any chance whatsoever that drunk men won't run in because they think it's hilarious? And that's before I ascribe anything more sinister to what a man might do to a woman with her trousers down.

Of course not. We have lockable toilets for a reason.

They seem to be a type of 'invisible women' version of men's urinals. If you were able to walk in, back to the opening, open your fly and wee like a man, you'd be fine. Zip up and walk away.

Not designed for women's bodies, positioning and how that means you have remove /bunch up your clothing.

The bottoms of your trousers would be sodden from misdirected/splashed pee at a festival. Again, men don't have to drop their trousers onto the ground to use a urinal.

So how do we feed all of this back to the designers?

If they marketed that to that user group, I wouldn't grumble. Festival goers tend to be younger and could statistically therefore be thought not to have age-related issues. Or children in tow.

Some festival goers will be older and have their children. I know lots of older couples that go to festivals and take the kids. I would hope there would also be suitable provision for post childbirth or older women, or surely that's a possible indirect discrimination claim? And there would need to be enough, or all the younger women who wouldn't want to use this (like I wouldn't have) will make the queue massive.

So the design brief seems to have been "invent something that is marginally less grim than a portaloo at the end of a 3 day festival which has run out of bog roll and handwash, is ankle deep in mud and piss, and has a teetering mound of human excrement looming above the seat as the flush has broken".

Not sure they fulfilled it...

@Grellbunt

So how do we feed all of this back to the designers?

The feedback will be not many women using it, which could be interpreted as:

The design is flawed and needs rethinking
Or
Women's attitudes to privacy and hygiene are wrong and need rethinking.

No prizes for guessing which will prevail.

Then of course there's secret option 3. Women don't use them and other women's loos are cut. Women either make do, by holding it, or travelling further for a proper toliet or stop partaking in public life.
No one noticed or bothers asking, they are deemed a roaring success and rapidly replace normal loos. No one ever links their introduction with the various obstacles they bring to taking part in public life, but lament why later down the line. No doubt coming up with another poorly thought throughout 'solution'.

I must be missing something. I don't understand how it is supposed to work.

Maybe if you weren't wearing underwear and had a skirt you could hoick up and didn't mind about not wiping?

@Grellbunt

I posted this on the chat thread but it's a feminist issue imo:

I can't work out whether I should actually feel sorry for these young women, who have so internalised society's lack of respect for female biology that they now accept and even celebrate this kind of thing as the pinnacle of equality. Equality does not mean apeing men. It should mean being equally respected as we are.

I totally agree Grellbunt. The issue with toilet queues is that female biology generally makes it take longer to use toilet than male biology. Female toilets are usually allocated the same space as male toilets which means fewer women can wee at a time than men and they each take longer than the average man. The clear solution is more female toilet facilities. This seldom happens and we are told it is because of space and money. Instead we are duped in to thinking that the solution must involve making women more like men. But we do not have male biology so these 'solutions' don't tend to work.

If it's really true that providing adequate toilet facilities for all is too expensive and would take up too much space at events etc then another idea would be for everyone to be asked to wear heavy duty incontinence wear. I have suggested this in real life arguments and been told that it would be uncomfortable, smelly, impractical and a breach if human rights. In my view the same can be said about failure to provide sufficient clean and comfortable toilet facilities for women. [Just to be clear- I am not seriously suggesting incontinence wear as a solution- just a way to illustrate the point!!!!]

They don't seem to have factored in how a gang of boozed up men are going to react to these at a festival. They're going to be a target to see how much they can humiliate women. If they're not trying to get into them, see into them or push them over, they'll be singing or shouting humiliating things at the women using them and trying to take photographs. I think with all these kinds of things the inventors need to ask, 'How are the kinds of men who harass women in public going to behave around them?'

See, all this is why I never go to festivals...

@Sexnotgender

This is from their website. So I guess how they envisage women will actually use it. So you have to fully squat over it by the looks of it. Grim, impractical and physically impossible for a lot of women I’d think.

Her scarf is dragging on the floor!

Which is fine if there are adequate normal portaloos as well - the worry is that these will mean there won't be

Like I said, men are provided with urinals and cubicles, so I would expect women would be provided with these and cubicles as well.

@deydododatdodontdeydo

Which is fine if there are adequate normal portaloos as well - the worry is that these will mean there won't be

Like I said, men are provided with urinals and cubicles, so I would expect women would be provided with these and cubicles as well.

But presumably there will be less cubicles. I mean, festivals, theatres etc. know they need more women's toilets yet I've never yet seen it happen. They'll be the presumption that x% of women can use this so less cubicles can be provided. But clearly most women apart from the very drunk, in dresses, very flexible and fit won't use them. The obvious solution is more loos for women. Somewhere like a festival that's.perfectly achievable.

@Sexnotgender

This is from their website. So I guess how they envisage women will actually use it. So you have to fully squat over it by the looks of it. Grim, impractical and physically impossible for a lot of women I’d think.

Still mystified - what is supposed to happen to her dungarees?