Uncomfortable about unisex toilets at work

[Onlyinanemergency]

My workplace is moving to new premises and all the toilets are to be unisex. Apparently the bathrooms consist of several floor-to-ceiling cubicals opening out onto shared sinks. There is then a large window onto a public corridor so that the sink area can be seen from outside the bathroom. There are 3 of these bathrooms, one on each floor of the building, as well as 3 single disabled toilets. The architects have obviously put a lot of thought into creating toilets which are unisex but also fairly safe and private, yet I still feel really uncomfortable about the idea. Particularly about not being given a choice. Am I wrong?

having worked in a male dominated industry I would never ever want to let on that I was on my period. No way.

They know already, the handbag is a dead giveaway! Unless you're lucky enough to have pockets....

@Bloodmagic Nope, I've done this. I have one day a month where I have a very very heavy flow.

Last summer, I got blood on my trousers, my cardigan and my top. Don't ask how- I was like a fucking toddler with an ice cream. So in my work toilets I striped down to vest top and pants and washed all my clothes in the sink.

I was a bit self-conscious doing this in front of my female colleagues but all asked "are you alright?", most laughed, some shared similar horror stories, many offered spare clothes.

If there was a chance that a man would've walked in, I couldn't physically have done it.
So what then? I have to undermine my professionalism in front of everyone with blood drops and smears all over my clothes?
Or go home and miss a really important meeting?

Fortunately this wasn't a situation I found myself in because there wasn't a chance of any men coming into the toilets.
Seems like a simple solution really!

To be fair, I'm sure that once men get fed up with having to queue for hours just to have a pee, there'll be banks of urinals set up elsewhere....

Another one for having managed to get blood on my top at least once. I was at home luckily.

I was at an event at the weekend, the queue for the women's toilets was huge as always, so there was a mixed queue for the cubicles in the male toilets - going right past the urinals. No one seemed bothered

I fucking hate this argument. Of course men weren't bothered about women in their private spaces because women aren't a threat to men. Women don't rape men. Men aren't being killed by women. Women don't perpetrate the vast majority of domestic violence.

And, ultimately, I think men who see women in men's space still see them as men's spaces, it's just that occasionally women flitter through. Men in women's spaces is not the same at all- these spaces will also become defined as men's.

@bloodmagic When I had a copper IUD or no birth control, I had heavy flow. I'm also sensitive to something in disposable towels that makes me itch and come out in a rash, so I end up using cotton pads (in case of leaks) with a cup or tampons. I can't use just pads, I'd have a sack of used ones by the end of the day to take home and put through the wash. But I need, like many women, to change that cup or tampon mid-day, which means I need privacy. Yes, I have washed blood out of my clothes, the first time it happened was at secondary school.

A poster up-thread hit the nail on the head too. There's been no consultation about this (in general but also within particular organisations). As women we were just told we had to start putting up with men in women's spaces and if we complain we're "transphobic" and "TERFs" and "old-fashioned" and "hysterical"

As regards spare clothes -- I have to move between buildings, what am I supposed to do, always take a suitcase along with a change of clothes as well as the laptop/folders etc............

OR just make sure that there is always a female-only space where I can partially undress and rinse stuff out if I need to. I'd rather not, but sometimes it is unavoidable as many of us know, from when we were 11 upwards...............

As regards 'having a cry' as I've discovered with menopause, hormones etc mean that sometimes this just happens and at least when I get all wibbly in the ladies the other ladies might have some idea what the feck is going on. Thankfully they're not the hard-hearted bastards that they seem to be at your workplace!

Anyway, the point is I should not have to explain any of this, it should be enough that those of us who need and appreciate that little bit of privacy should be able to say we value it and don't want to lose it (whilst gaining nothing at all), and that is that. Except it is being taken from us without any consultation, and our supposed reasons for wanting it are being derided...................

@IIIustriousIyIllogical Keep a spare set at work?

Assuming that you have a locker or desk drawer that locks and is big enough to hold a change of clothes. Many of us don't have that luxury.

Assuming that you don't wear a uniform to work and therefore actually have "a spare set" of approved clothes. When I worked part-time, my tight-fisted employer only gave me one pair of trousers so I literally had no spare.

there'll be banks of urinals set up elsewhere

Places like Belgium already have this, many more than proper loos, and they close the women's loos at night leaving the men's open. I was glad of my shewee when I was over there, I can tell you...

@illustrouslyillogical As for "having a cry" - sorry, but pretty sure your colleagues don't want to hear that no matter what sex they are.

They may not want to hear that but sometimes they have to. Last time I cried at work was because my grandfather had died. Time before that, I was suicidal and was signed off sick by my GP the following day. We don't, contrary to popular opinion, cry because the boss told us off for something, it's because of something serious happening. Telling anyone to suppress their emotions is outright harmful, men are pressured to do this and it's why they are so much more likely than women to kill themselves. It was protracted attempts to suppress my emotions in the face of chronic stress that made me suicidal in the first place.

@illustrouslyillogical: I was at an event at the weekend, the queue for the women's toilets was huge as always, so there was a mixed queue for the cubicles in the male toilets - going right past the urinals. No one seemed bothered

@bubblesinthetub: I fucking hate this argument. Of course men weren't bothered about women in their private spaces because women aren't a threat to men.

And the women entering the gents probably aren't sexual assault victims so don't have that fear. £50 says that every rape victim in that festival was queuing for the ladies.

Also @bubblesinthetub, you're not irrational for fearing men after what you've been through.

Lemonjello Wed 09-May-18 14:47:38

In other countries, girls aren't going to school when they have their period because they only have shared toilets.

UNESCO’s 2018 gender review states that single sex toilets are desperately needed to address girls concerns over privacy.

I would really love to see the impact assessment undertaken and evidence collected which shows that girls in this country don’t have these concerns. (Spoiler: there is none)

In Canada where they say there are never any dissenters there was a uni that went unisex toilets for a few weeks. They had so many complaints about men taking pictures of the women that they reinstated single sex usage.
Two years later they mandated unisex by law and made it a crime to complain.
Having complained for years that girls do better in school than boys and there are many more girls going to uni than boys I expect to see the enrollment rates shift over the next few years when people learn the cost of higher education for girls.
I do not know if driving half the population out of the public sphere in the name of equality is the intended or unintended consequence of these laws. I do not think it matters since the result is the same.

I don't think you shackle all women's progress in society to the boundaries of the least empowered - not least because that lack of empowerment is because of the patriarchy. How the bloody hell do you overcome the patriarchy if you uphold it's negative effect on women - all women - all of the time?

The frame women's hard fought rights to safety privacy and dignity in a hostile environment as a negative effect of patriarchy is shockingly disingenuous.
Men burned to the ground the first women's public toilet in London because they knew what it meant for the least powerful.
Empowerment is the illusion of power not the thing itself.

I think I finally understand Rat to be an "egalitarian, so that is something.
I have a quote for that, and it just so happens to coincide with the period of time when women were making a fuss over the lack of "halting stations".
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)

Keep a spare set at work? I do, as well as underwear & socks in case my stuff gets soaked on the ride in.
It's not really an analogous situation. Flooding can happen at any time, so unless you want to carry a bag of clothes round with you all day just in case then that suggestion isn't a goer.
I do usually have spare knickers in my bag but trousers are not possible.
I couldn't give a fuck if men know I'm on, I just don't want them seeing me trouserless. And I don't see why I should change to accommodate them.

I've never walked into the toilet anywhere to be encountered by a trouserless lady... Thankfully.
I'd probably be more offended by that than a encountering a man with his trousers on. But that's just my opinion.

I gag every time I go anywhere near the men's loo. The smell just turns my stomach. I absolutely hate mixed sex loos with a vengeance. Men are fricking gross. I also use a mooncup and don't want to deal with all that with blokes around

Really lichtie? I was mortified to have to wash my bloody trousers in the sink, luckily for me the women who came in to use the loos were sympathetic. One of them said "we have all been there"

@Lichtie If you flooded your clothing where would you go and what would you do?

Off topic, I am always taken by how diverse our world views and experiences are when I read the comments on this sort of post.

This thread, on top of so many others, has given me a bit of a 'step back' moment. I'm still not well-versed in this field, so forgive my clunky words below:

I've had conversations in real life over the weekend with friends and family who had no idea what was going on. They're all pretty shocked.

And I can see why.

If you had sat me down and told me a few years' ago that females here on Mumsnet would have to give numerous reasons why 'female loos', 'female changing rooms' should be justified. That they would have to drag out examples of periods, miscarriage, even just basic comfort levels of being in same-sex spaces and go hard in justifying their reasons.

And then be pretty much sneered at by others for doing so and their feelings and experiences denied.

That lesbians would have to justify their attraction to solely other females. That this justification would be flying in the face of 'progressive and forward-thinking people' who all seem to agree that females can have penises and the people with penises can be lesbians too.

That NHS doctors would be slapping themselves on their backs for labelling females, who just wanted to check that the doctor based their medical practice on biological sex definitions, as TERFs and use words to refer to them that are analogous to witches.

I could go on and on with examples.

Occasionally I just sit back and wonder 'how did we get here'.

And then I get back up again, and go and have these conversations in real life, one by one, to make sure as many people know what's happening.

Ask yourself - in what world should females have to explain themselves in graphic detail as to why they need a female-only space?

My answer - a world where someone else is pushing boundaries hard.

Good post, pombear.

One of the things that always strikes me when women are comparing notes about menstruation is that some women have been very, very lucky and don't seem to have any problems with periods - they're regular, light, not all that painful. And yet instead of thanking their lucky stars that they have got off so lightly (so far - some of them may have less luck later in life, as the perimenopause brings many changes), instead they cast doubt on what other women are saying and try to make them feel even worse about themselves than they do already for having this entirely physical problem which is in no way self-inflicted and yet absolutely loaded with shame. Not very sisterly behaviour.

pombear you have expressed my thoughts so much more clearly than I could.

We had one female/disabled toilet on our floor at my old job. Men had 4 cubicles in their loos. It was 50/50 men and women. They refurbished the toilets and asked if people would be happy with unisex loos. There were only communal sinks and it was in a completely enclosed space. Unsurprisingly it was rejected, so they reassigned the men's loos as women's ones

In my current work place the loos are unisex and it is fine, they are like tiny bathrooms with sink, sanitary bin, toilet and, for some bizarre reason, plastic cups and drinking water (actually v useful for morning sickness!!). And they back on to a wide, clearly visible corridor.

I think basically what I'm trying to say is it really depends what the design is like. I actually prefer the new unisex ones to all female ones, but this is only because the new ones are swanky beyond belief.

so unless you want to carry a bag of clothes round with you all day just in case then that suggestion isn't a goer.

I'm not sure how going back to work in wet trousers is "a goer", especially if you're in a job with shared seating (tills, driving, hot desks,reception etc)