Toilet queues

[CaptainHarville]

This isn't actually about toilets but showers but it's the same principle. Just been camping for a sporting event. First morning got up and went for a shower. Enormous queue for the showers for men but no queue at all for the ladies. Same thing following morning. Third morning got up and overnight half of the ladies showers had become mens no queues for either mens or ladies.

Now this was obviously a sensible decision but I was wondering if the same would have happened if it had been a long queue for the ladies? For some reason I can't imagine it would have. Am I being too negative?

I have spent a lot of time over the years queuing for the ladies toilets it's expected that we queue. I somehow struggle to believe that had the queue been for the ladies showers anything would have changed. Am I being too negative?

No, definitely not being too negative. Wouldn't have happened to the ladies. Not sure whether the men kicked up a fuss or whether the organisers were more inclined to listen to their concerns than womens'. Either way, you're not being too negative IMO.

I don't think it would've happened; we expect women to queue, don't we? Because of the way town planning is done - and who it's generally done by, women are consistently overlooked just because they're not the 'norm'. So bus stop seats are at a high suitable for the average male (and too high for the average female), bus routes go in 'commuter' routes when mothers need completely different routes. I could go on. At a festival this weekend, as usual toilets were split half/half between men and women. Cue massive cues for women, very small ones for men. A real example of when 'equality' is not 'justice'.

Takes the piss doesn't it

I can say that cos its showers and not toilets

Oh I thought that was a witty pun Rufus!

I always feel slightly smug when there's a queue for the male toilets whilst I waltz in and out of the female ones. So refreshing. I do a male-dominated hobby so happens at those events; also last night at the cinema, clearly 'Baby Driver' was a boy-film! Just nice to see the roles reversed occasionally.

Obviously the situation you describe Captain - facilities being flexible to suit the population present - is the ideal. I agree it feels unlikely it would have been rectified were the roles reversed. Were they individual cubicles though? Did they need to be sex-segregated if so?

My husband said that he didn't think they needed to be segregated as they were individual cubicles along the lines of a portaloo only a shower rather than a toilet. But they were then in an enclosed space which was segregated with rows of sinks. If they hadn't been enclosed then I don't think there would have been a need for mens and womens. When it was busy it wouldn't have bothered me but if using it at a less popular time I think I would have felt uncomfortable using it as mixed sex. Particularly as loads of people (mainly men) were very drunk.

serendipity

It was supposed to be a witty pun

But then i thought

Dammit its showers

I've seen it happen once, at a biker festival - they had porta cabin showers, and after 2 days (when there'd already been plenty of women going in the mens showers with their partners - in a nice way, it was a nice biker festival, not Sons of Anarchy style) they started having shifts on the mens showers too - where they'd let a group of women in and keep the men out for 10 mins so everyone could have a shower.

But I agree, as a rule, women are just left to sort themselves out (and luckily, whenever I've had this kind of situation, the women have been great and we have figured out ways to streamline it all)

I've used the mens loo when the ladies has been too busy in pubs etc. in the past. At a campsite I think I would use the mens shower if the queue was empty and the ladies was really long.

Sausage, I expect the majority of women have used male facilities in similar circumstances! However we shouldn't need to be 'cheekily' sneaking into male facilities because female ones are inadequate... also, personally I categorically do not want to be in the same room as unknown men using urinals.

My company's head office has beautiful unisex toilets - each is a seperate properly enclosed small room with toilet, sink, mirror and hand dryer. In the vestibule area there are a few more sinks, mirrors and hand dryers. That'd be my ideal for public facilities tbh.

But if we're dealing with thinly-partitioned cubicles and no private sinks/mirrors, then it needs to be sex-segregated and adequate to match how much they are needed by the population using them. It enrages me that time and time again architects, business owners etc do not take this into account and it is the accepted societal norm that female facilities are inadequate and we will just meekly queue, perhaps with our jumper casually tied around our waist as we're worried our tampon has leaked .

I've seen the same phenomenon in a different context. There's a big venue near us that has all sorts of popular exhibitions and events. The main exhibition hall has a lavatory room each with 3 cubicles at each of the 4 corners - 2 men's and 2 women's. As normal at popular and crowded events there is usually a bit of a queue for the women but not for the men.

Then once a year comes the beer festival. The first couple of times we went I found it ironically amusing to see that now due to the different ratio of men:women there was hardly any queue for women and really quite a queue for men (but no worse than women experience regularly in situations like the interval at a theatre show).

Year 3 - and every year since - one of the women's loos has been coopted to being a men's. There are now 3 men's and one women's with roughly equal modest queues.

No of course the venue doesn't switch one of the men's to being a women's loo for events that have more women in attendance so that there are 3 women's and one men's with roughly equal modest queues. That would be ridiculous.

Maybe there should be some of equality design we could nominate venues for who get it right.

AWARD! Equality design award, I meant to type