What do you use the womens’ toilets for?

[FancyRibbon]

Inspired by recent posts on the Radio 4 thread.
I realised that the whole ‘Why do you even care who is pissing in the cubicle next to you?’ argument against single sex toilets underestimates how I think many women actually do use/need the ladies’.

It’s not just about the cubicle being private to you as an individual woman (though this is really important), it’s also about knowing there is a door behind which there is a women-only space that can be really important. Some of that is specifically about it NOT being a male space.

So eg what I use the women’s toilets for is:

• pissing, crapping, dealing with periods, POAS
• a place to cry especially at work when you don’t want anyone else to see
• a place to go and just sit and feel exhausted because your baby is not sleeping and you’re back at work

-as above washing and drying breastmilk leaks on clothes which involving standing about with some stuff off

• a place to sort out falling down tights and gappy shirts, -against adjusting/taking off clothes possibly while checking in a mirror
• somewhere to talk to other women privately knowing men won’t be around
• in bars and clubs, a place to get away from male hassle

I just don’t want to share women’s toilets with men. Self ID will be making that not my choice any more. I feel that I won’t be able to just avoid gender neutral toilets and look for a women’s any more, because women’s toilets won’t exist and campaigning for them will be hate speech.

Withdrawing. Just like the drawing room of yore. The women's loos are a place to go to get away from a situation (restaurant, nightclub, office) and possibly to find companionship.

To be reminded yet again how damaged my body is because of what a man has done to it. I don’t care if anyone feels hurty feelings. The advert I came across in a bus stop said it nicely for me: ‘All men are dangerous’.

Walkingagain

That's the sort of dynamic that gets lost in translation. But every woman understands it. And men don't.

There's a reason why comedians who practice observational comedy will say that men get out the shower waggling their willies and going way-hay to their partners as they walk past. And women get out of the shower with a towel wrapped round them from under their arms to their ankles.

Not all women, not every man.

Just in general.

Funny that.

I've used toilets for most of the things already mentioned.

Some involved getting partially undressed and rinsing clothes out (Breast milk, baby sick, period stains). I would have preferred to do all these things in private, but at least knew women would probably be sympathetic.

Hand dryers are good for this sort of emergency! It used to be difficult drying clothes when you just had a roller towel.

Is there to be no place, other than one's home, where women can escape the omnipresent male gaze? No place at all?

Just like to point out If not already mentioned. There HAS recently been an attack on a young girl in a public toilets by a transwomen. We need this space for our safety and privacy

Some women will definitely be embarrassed about these things. But that's partly because they are private. Not shameful.

Exactly. I'm basically a fearless person and don't think I'm going to be attacked by men -- I leave my front door unlocked and things like that. But I value privacy, and I think intimacy is a value that is worth upholding. Recently I've felt uncomfortable at following ads on TV:
A few months ago, a young black girl used to advertise a spray for keeping your privates fresh and sweet smelling (if I remember correctly).
And just yesterday, as ad with an older woman for a product against vaginal itching.
I feel these are personal, intimate, women-only issues. I hate the idea of men seeing these ads and smirking to themselves. I've only ever watched them on my own (I live alone) but I feel they overstep a boundary. These are private, personal, female issues. I don't like them paraded publicly for all the (male) world to see and gloat over.

Men should not have access the female toilets - no need.
I live as male, and being intersex, until recently I suffered from heavy periods, and had to adapt when using male toilets - i cannot pee standing up, and YES need to dispose of used tampons, and applicators etc.. BUT i coped - it is insanity for "trans women" to demand to access female only toilets, IF i can cope in male toilets with my biology, they can cope with male biology.
Women do not expect, nor should they expect, to see men in private spaces. I look male, FACE and HEAD, - so i do not use, simple respect -
WHY do these men cross the boundary of common sense and respect?

Becaus it’s a power thing, bit an inclusive thing.

It reminds me of like when you go to a wedding or family party there’s always one child who insists on getting up on the stage and demands everyone claps and cheers;and everyone plays along even though the child is an irritating brat who sings like a car being throttled). It’s having the world play a part in the Film Of You.

• To pee
• To crap
• To empty my menstrual cup
• To rinse out my menstrual cup
• To wash my hands (sometimes they may have menstrual blood on them too)
• To spot clean clothing
• To throw up when I had morning sickness (terminated the pregnancy, but still had two months of near constant morning sickness)
• To check, empty, or re-position my drains or bandages after my mastectomies and reconstructions
• To change my clothes
• To take a breather
• To remove a layer of clothing because I just got too hot
• To add a layer of clothing because I just got too cold
• A place to re-adjust my bra as I realized the strap was twisted or I did it up a little too tight
• To brush my teeth
• To pick something out of my teeth
• To see if the thing bothering my eye is a scratch, a cat hair, or some sand
• To see if my tonsils look swollen
• To sit in the quiet through some particularly painful menstrual cramps
• To ask someone in the stall next to me for some toilet paper as it turns out..my stall has none
• To be sick
• To get away from a creepy male (in public spaces like an airport, in a bar/restaurant, etc)
• To cry after my boyfriend died/my grandfather died/my friend died/my cat died/my mother died, etc.
• To deal with a bleeding nose (I used to get them frequently)

If I also looked around at what my other female friends and family have used toilets for that I have not in particular:

• To miscarry
• To pump breastmilk
• To address breastmilk leaks
• To get away from someone who was sexually assaulting them
• To hide away from someone they did not want to see - usually an ex-boyfriend or something of that sort or a bad date
• To find someone who might be able to spare a tampon, pad, or even an ibuprofen
• To change diapers
• To let their children use the toilets
• To take their insulin shots
• To place a telephone call (or take one)
• To take pregnancy tests
• To check on/fix their ostomy bag
• To regularly change bandages/pads on a large never-healing stomach wound from a botched surgery (she had to do this for three years before she was strong enough to get new surgery which involved the ostomy mentioned above).
• To deal with IBS, Crohn's, Ulcerative colitis, etc
• I am sure there are much more!

If a woman need to deal with some toileting issue, be it removing and emptying a cup or dealing with a miscarriage or intestinal distress or whatever else, self-ID means that a transwoman can be in there with them in the stall over.

Now that transwoman, if he has his own intestinal distress, or wants to have a wank without women around (though some of the AGPs would likely love to do this), and does not want to be around woman, well, he can just pop back over to the men's toilets. How lucky for him to be able to pick and choose based on the day or his bodily needs what toilets he wants to go into.

BBC article about a photographic exhibition about women’s toilets- acknowledges that women use the women’s toilets differently to how men use the men’s.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-47361066

That's a really nice article, and a great exhibition.

I have always felt of the women's toilets that they are a safe space - sometimes even an escape - certainly a female only space.

No man should be able to enter on the basis of "identifying as a woman" - it's just unacceptable. It's invasive, misogynistic, violating. These interesting, beautiful, intimate photos demonstrate why.

Toe Yes- like the lovely shot of the two women talking over the top of the toilet cubicle divider. Put a man in that picture instead and you have a horrific image.

Agree. I'm in my 40s and have always taken private female spaces for granted - up until very recently with the push for self declaration of identity.

I really do feel something is being taken from me, and all women and girls - that we can't rely on private, intimate female spaces anymore. This whole thread is an excellent resource as to why we want and need them.

Those photographs are lovely, and do capture a certain element of female space. Unfortunately, I think it's the element that a lot of transwomen want. The solidarity, the chat, the lippy.

Of course, their very presence would always and instantly change the dynamic. Even if they were friends.

And, as @FeministCat said, there are literally dozens of other, far more intimate, reasons why women need their own space.

The reasonable expectation that if there is a man in there, he knows he is infiltrating and can be challenged, is vital. It's one of the few places where women have the control.

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/the-thing-about-toilets/

This blog says it better than I can.

Crying, doing make up, getting away from a predatory male, making an emergency “get me out of here call” putting my tens machine on when my stomach is bad.

Disposing of blood soaked underwear and changing into clean

Vomiting (from pain at times).

Getting away from everything at work when I feel overly emotional.

Since realising that some males have a fetish for listening to women pee, or change sanitary items, the idea of even risking this seems horrendous. And as the blog (by the excellent HS - I'm just not giving full name in case of search and attack tactics)

"Added to that there are the almost exclusively male types of antisocial behaviour, such as indulging the fetish of listening to women urinate, public masturbation and peeing on the seat.....Men for example pee on the seat because they can. They have a penis to pee out of. Women on the other hand have to sit down on the seat to pee. "

It saddens me that I know that changing and disposing of sanitary wear in a public toilet bin may result in a man fishing it out again, and wearing it. I wish I did not know this. I wish I didn't have to. I wish these fetishes and paraphilias just did not exist, and certainly that the men suffering from them did not have access to women's spaces.

Women deserve absolutely safe spaces away from fetishistic men. Certain types of men have wanted to get into the women's toilets and changing rooms forever - now self ID gives them carte blanche.

I’ll try to do an occasional collecting-together of other threads tackling same issues as this one. These threads have some useful experiences of views of adult women about the female experience of using gender neutral/mixed/unisex toilets (and how it feels when men tell us how we should feel about that.)

Considering they’re not the ones being scared, of sexual assault or being filmed as wank material, embarrassed, flashed at because men won’t close the doors, or having to clear up strange men’s on the floor and seat before they can use it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3577718-Eddy-Izzards-says-women-should-be-forced-to-share-bathrooms-with-men?pg=1&order=

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3572891-Everyman-Cinemas-and-toilets-for-everyone-a-womans-review-AIBU

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3569596-Workplace-toilets-ACAS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3559632-Uniex-toilets-who-likes-them

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3570988-Law-on-unisex-loos-in-places-of-entertainment

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3571591-Asked-to-do-work-survey-on-transgender-in-workplace-and-includes-gender-neutral-toilets-Help-me-respond-in-600-words

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3555187-NZ-Ambassador-on-trial-for-planting-hidden-camera-in-unisex-toilets-of-Washington-DC-embassy

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3554058-Daily-Mail-Dominic-Lawson-Article-on-Gender-Neutral-Toilets

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3553562-A-Day-Using-Restaurant-Toilets

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3550795-Words-matter-unisex-toilets-are-mixed-sex

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3546428--Gender-neutral-toilets-first-experience

This thread has tips for anyone wanting to improve design in women’s toilets:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3548768-Look-at-the-design-of-the-toilet-Some-actually-asked-a-woman

This thread links to a key legal resource:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3577063-The-Louise-Whitfield-legal-document-on-right-to-same-sex-facilities

There are quite a few recent threads which focus on the problems both girls and some boys are having with gender neutral toilets.

Long story short: Women and girls need single sex toilets.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3575919-Toilets-at-childs-school

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3506533-Mixed-sex-toilets-in-schools-childrens-actual-views

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3572220-The-law-on-mixed-sex-toilets-in-schools

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3567313-UK-school-toilets-this-never-happens

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3561963-US-Female-student-expelled-for-kneeing-boy-in-the-groin-while-in-girls-bathroom?pg=2&order=

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3557951-Walkout-at-US-highschool-on-transgender-use-of-toilets

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3557203-New-Debate-Kit-Unisex-Toilets-downloadable-from-the-RI-for-schools

Thread with discussion of opposite side of same coin- why unisex toilets don’t work for women: incl mess, male voyeurism, male flashing and lack of provision for how women need to use the toilet space. (spoiler alert: these are all ways in which men do not need to use toilets, because female biology is a real actual thing.... who’d have thought it ).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3581606-Resource-thread-with-concrete-examples-of-men-being-grim-in-unisex-toilets

Thread that talks about men wanking and pissing in their work toilets and posting those pissing and wanking videos online. Another reason for preserving female only toilets:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3605120-Munroe-Childline-s-first-LGBT-campaigner

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3611447-Potential-Systemic-Safeguarding-failures-in-NSPCC-Childline-illustrated-by-appointment-ending-of-relationship-with-Munroe-Bergdorf-Thread-2

Or perhaps we should also be campaigning for a dedicated wanking space in the work toilets selection as this would be preferable for the work-wankers’ other (non-wanking) colleagues.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3611483-Single-Sex-Mixed-Sex-and-Gimp-Sex-toilets

Just adding this thread to the list (have pasted some of the links above on his thread on to it):
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3708072-Join-the-mixed-sex-loo-resistance-movement?pg=1&order=

This thread ^ suggests some good ideas for ways to practically act/comment against non-single-sex toilet provision.

Women’s toilets are also a place to communicate with vulnerable women (I’m thinking specifically of the posters urging women experiencing domestic violence to ask for help).

Another angle - my mum's partner has recently had to have a colostomy with a stoma bag for collecting and storing poo. He is in his 70s and having to come to terms with it. He's dreading the first time he has to change in public loos and it's restricting his confidence to go out. I haven't discussed this with him but I can't imagine knowing there's a woman in the next cubicle will be helpful.