Women's toilets (lack of)

[SnozzberryPie]

I've just moved to a new office and there are only two women's toilets for the whole building. I'm not sure how many people work there but enough that there is often a queue and the lack of toilets is a common cause of complaints amongst female staff.

The men's toilets are in a room of the same size as the women's, but as well as two cubicles there are (apparently - I haven't actually been in to investigate!) also two urinals.

I should also mention that the office is around two thirds to three quarters female.

This set me thinking about how it is accepted that women will have to queue for the toilet and men won't. Why is this? Wouldn't it be fairer if women's toilets in all public places had the same amount of cubicles as men's have urinals and cubicles in total, even if that means they take up a larger area? Why don't we at least design new buildings like this?

Or am I over thinking this? I am heavily pregnant and spend a lot of time queuing for the loo, so I might be

[TheLynchpin]

@ Pointlessfan

Fully agree with everything said there. Personally I've no problems with the peeing in front of others in urinals, everyone just looks forward without averting their gaze anyway, but I know that some might have problems in this circumstance. A cubicle or two seems to sort the problem.

@PassiveAgressiveQueen

Yep, that's fair enough and I don't think it should be a difficult thing to implement when building or renovating toilets.

[Pointlessfan]

I love going to the loo at football matches as there was always a massive queue for the gents and loads of empty cubicles in the ladies.
I work in a school with over 100 staff, probably75% women. There are 4 cubicles in the ladies and we all have to use them at the same time - our 20 min break. I don't know what the gents is like but this does seem ridiculous.
On the other hand I think it must be awkward for men weeing in front of other men e.g. their boss/colleagues/father in law etc so not sure they have it any better.
Lots of public loos have closed due to vandalism. This affects women and men, I think the problem is not enough loos in general.

[PassiveAgressiveQueen]

I would be happy for unisex loos,BUT they would have to have proper proper cubicles with roofs and reach the floor

[SeaForests]

Our work has unisex accessible loos as well - for some reason people find it quite disconcerting, but I now find the sex/disability divided loos peculiarly inefficient when I'm out and about.

[TheLynchpin]

My work has unisex loos.

A lot of people - mostly female employees - were initially not keen on the idea, but guess what? Everyone is mature enough to get on with it and there are no problems. You most certainly cannot look above or under any of the cubicles, and safety most definitely is not an issue.

What it means is that you don't get one lot of people queuing for loos when there are plenty of others free. Common sense surely?

[VestalVirgin]

In terms of acute problem solution ... how well do you get along with the male colleagues? Could you suggest to establish a rule where you knock at the door of the men's loo and they tell you to stay out if someone is using the urinal, and if it's empty you use one of the cubicles?

If only a quarter of the people there are male, the loo should be empty most of the time, so ...

As for safety being an issue at work, in the offices where I have worked I was alone with men frequently, so me using the men's toilet wouldn't have made much of a difference. (I also think that if you know all your coworkers there's a bit less risk because, well, they'd have a higher risk of being caught.)

[SeaRabbit]

Lack of women's looks in public places is one of my beefs too. Women take longer to go to the loo for all sorts of reasons, so I reckon we should have double the number that men have, and even more when children are likely to be present, since as I noticed at Wisley RHS garden the other week, it is more often women who take children to the loo.

[megletthesecond]

Me and the dc's had this discussion in the British museum yesterday. It's the third time we've been and the queues for the ladies are always horrendous .

DS was able to wander in and out of the blokes loos in a couple of minutes. Me and dd had to wait for 15. So I spent the queue telling dd she needs to be an architect when she grows up so she can design public buildings with far more ladies toilets.

I'm not sure the british museum even has an excuse, the new courtyard had a lot of thought put into it, except for the toilets which are cramped and hidden away.

[ChunkyPickle]

If I think back to reports of men filming women in toilets, they're often work toilets.

I wonder if having the chance that he'd get a bloke on film would put off the kind of man who does that or not though.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

TBF, women get pregnant, suffer post partum incontinence (sometimes for years), stress/age related incontinence and have more complicated biology and therefore faff and time involved.

The provision of female toilets was an issue for me & my friends in the 80s. It is much better now than it was, but old buildings can be a bit of a nightmare.

OP if you don't want to bring govt legislation/recommendations to your boss's notice, bring it to the attention of the other women where you work.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Oh and before someone decides to pick me up on attackers being known to women, there's a difference between a mixed work-place toilet during the working day and a public toilet late at night.

Other than the possible embarrassment factor I wouldn't have an issue with the former but a mixed toilet at say a railway station at night I would.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Why do you think safety wouldn't be an issue at work, Lass? Genuine question btw

It''s a fair question. I meant that in an office where everyone knows each other it is unlikely that there will be a safety issue, but it's not impossible.

[3littlefrogs]

Meant to say that each cubicle contained a small basket on a shelf with wipes, sanitary protection, tissues - so very discreet.

[3littlefrogs]

I went to a conference recently (in a new building in London) where there were about 6 toilets on each floor of the building - each one was unisex and accessible. There were no separate ladies/gents/accessible.

[BarbarianMum]

TBF easy access to toilets is very important for older men, nearly all of whom have enlarged prostates and need to wee frequently.

Beyond that though, yes women's toilets are generally hopelessly inadequate. Service stations, cinemas, theatres, department stores: my dh and sons are always done whilst I am stuck in a queue.

[winchester1]

I'm in Sweden and we have unisex every where but with proper separate cubicles. I'd think less chance of violence as more chance another man can walk in.

[SnozzberryPie]

My work loos are the kind with a big room with cubicles inside (and urinals in the gents) so redesignating so there are more women's facilities would involve major building work. Unless they pulled out the urinals and made both rooms unisex. I'm not sure how I feel about that tbh.

[scallopsrgreat]

Why do you think safety wouldn't be an issue at work, Lass? Genuine question btw.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Not all women would be happy with mixed loos.

It would work at somewhere like a concert hall or a theatre where everybody wants to get to the loo as quickly as possible in the interval and there will be a lot of people around, so safety isn't an issue. Most of them you don't know and won't see again so embarrassing bodily function noises not an issue either.

In an office I'm not so sure. Safety would not be an issue. I think some people might be uncomfortable with the idea that you are in a locked cubicle where it's the style with gaps between the roof and the floor and next door is a colleague of the opposite sex hearing your bodily functions.

Our office has a range of traditional one sex only rooms with cubicles as above and separate "one person" only loos.

I know which I prefer , even with the rooms with cubicles being single sex. I know one male colleague who always uses the one person only loo as he said he couldn't bear the thought of standing with his penis out beside his boss. If they made the rooms with cubicles mixed I would probably avoid them.

[Penfold007]

Winchester whilst on holiday in France with friends we stopped at a service station I came out of a cubicle and there was my friends husband using the urinal, we were both a bit shocked. It shouldn't be an issue but it was :(

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

Safety (lots of sexual assault and voyeurism takes place in toilets) and because far too many men don't aim very well.
A Canadian university has recently gone back on its policy to make all loos gender neutral after two many cases of people filming women by sticking their mobiles over the tops of the cubicles.

[winchester1]

Surely it mixed / women and men separate as men cam use women's loos but women can't use urinals (generally).

I really don't get why we even have separate men and women's anyway, why not just mixed.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Alass have you ever used a she wee? You can wee standing up in trousers. Great for festivals.

No. I don't wear trousers. My skirt/dress comment was mainly due to noticing that on a "comfort break" on a bus in the middle of nowhere in Laos it was considerably easier for me than the women wearing shorts or trousers.

So far as the OP's specific case the answer does seem to be re-designation.

[scallopsrgreat]

Yy BartholinsSister. If only women were more like men. Men being the default and all.