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?

Why not have at least two cubicles in women's toilets that have basins and dryers in them for mooncups and fabric washing? That's just for starters.

Architecture is still very male dominated. They still get the entire womens/mens toilet ratio wrong (opting for 50/50, instead of say 70/30). It has been known for years and years, that women do need MORE facilites, including taking in children with them.

So are architects dumb, or just a bad case of penis-blindless?
You decide.

No reason it can't be both.

It was more of a rhetorical question really ... but yes.

So OP, I've been thinking; if this goes ahead and these end up being your loos - and they don't have basins in the cubicles - you could perhaps lobby HR to provide little baskets full of sanpro in each cubicle and a packet of baby wipes for bloodied hand cleaning. If there is not shelf you can get little baskets that sucker to the walls. To be honest, this is the kind of guerrilla action I would take anyway without involving HR, but then insist they keep it up once initiated!

Sounds good rat. I disagreed with your posts earlier in the thread, but this sounds a decent compromise IF this absolutely has to go ahead

If we lose on sex segregation in toilets it becomes harder to hold the line on changing rooms though, so the two are interlinked.

YY.

If we lose on sex segregation in toilets it becomes harder to hold the line on changing rooms though, so the two are interlinked.

I'd welcome unisex changing rooms with floor to ceiling cubicles are described by the OP for her new loos.

I'd welcome unisex changing rooms with floor to ceiling cubicles are described by the OP for her new loos.

Me too. And whilst I really like communal showers and communal changing facilities myself, it's clear there are a million reasons why people would want and need to feel more privacy and security in this day and age.

I'd quite like that privacy from fellow females too though.

Sounds reasonable to me :)

I get all the points about not contributing to the shame and taboo of periods and women's bodies and I hope that I don't do that. We talk openly at home about periods and my DH will gladly go to the shop solely to buy sanitary towels and neither he nor my DDs are embarrassed by that.

Ultimately, though, why is it not enough to say we like things the way they are and we don't wan't any changes to single sex toilets? If other people want a unisex toilet, they can campaign for it, but the majority of females are content with how things are, can see more disadvantages than advantages to losing single sex toilets and haven't asked for this change. I'm not convinced that many men want unisex toilets either. They might care less about using them if foisted upon them but I can't imagine would actively ask for them.

Call me paranoid...but imagine being in a toilet alone with just another man... that would make me highly uncomfortable and I'd probably feel threatened. Even worse in a nightclub, I won't go to any that have unisex toilets. I guess I just don't trust men I don't know very well in confined spaces.

I could cope with floor to ceiling cubicles in an office but not in public spaces. I don’t want to be in a fully enclosed lockable space with unknown men around.

None of these solutions resolve the problem with peeping tom technology. What’s to be done to sort that out?

The appeals to ‘not be prudish about periods’ are another way of shutting down women’s concerns.
It places the blame for not acquiescing immediately onto the women - look we are all just silly embarrassed prudes, not like these modern enlightened people! But the onus isn’t on us to do that - the onus is on those forcing to change to make their case.

And yet concerns over safety are not addressed. And it should be enough for us to say ‘no. I do not want this.’

As always, a woman’s ‘no’ means nothing.

The appeals to ‘not be prudish about periods’ are another way of shutting down women’s concerns.

No it isn't; although one generation's feminism is another generation's patriarchy. Just like women's sexual liberation; once sexual promiscuity was sticking two fingers up to the man, and then it morphed into acquiescing to male sexual entitlement.

I'm of the "get your rocks off for the girls" generation. I appreciate things are different now.

Obviously it's far, far more complicated than that, but I was reading this article the other day for unrelated reasons and it reminded me of the fact.

What if we WANT to be prudish about our periods, and don't want to be open about them? Why should that choice be taken away? I for one certainly don't wash my mooncup out in any toilet that's not my own (I just wipe it out).

I don’t really recognise the blood covered hands and moon cup washing scenarios.

I’ve never seen that in a workplace bathroom.

Is that an assertion that it doesn't happen, tinycitrus? Or that it's so unlikely as to be irrelevant?

No I just suggesting that it is being overstated as a reason for opposing mixed gender toilets.

Yeah, I guess a few women who would not use those kinds of toilets during their period are irrelevant given the advantages and benefits to women generally from having unisex facilities.

What if we WANT to be prudish about our periods, and don't want to be open about them? Why should that choice be taken away?

Ahhh, do you identify as a liberal feminist?

You should :)

Extreme liberal femism holds that any choice a woman makes is a feminist one.

I'm a libfem myself, but I don't put much stock in that extreme view. One has to consider what impact one's choice has on women as a class (and that in its extreme is pure radical feminism). So if your period behaviour makes periods more shameful and difficult for all women, it is not a feminist behaviour and it wouldn't be supported by a pure radfem.

That's assuming it was in fact bad for women; I'm not saying we've shown that it is or isn't on this thread.

No it isn't

Yes it is. And megafat I agree - we shouldn’t need to be justifying ourselves. No means no.

Because the argument should be:

Men‘We want to make a change to something that affects your safety dignity and privacy.’
Women: ‘Not sure about that, why should we? You’re going to have to make a very good argument for that’

But what’s actually happening is:

Men: ‘will WILL be making a change that affects your safety dignity and privacy’
Women;’ not keen on that. What about safety/periods/mooncups/changing clothes?’
Men: ‘you’re all prudish, real feminists are cool with periods!’
Women (now on back foot, frantically justifying selves) ‘but...but’

There shouldn’t be an argument past ‘no actually, some of us are not ok with this.’ We are now JADE-ing (justifying apologising defending and explaining) which puts us on the back foot and recasts the argument that we are wrong.

Once again, no means no, except really it means ‘try harder/maybe/keep pushing’. This doesn’t happen to men. Men’s opinions are listened to. Women’s are not.

Once again on this thread I agree with bowl. And many other posters have stated they wouldn't want male colleagues to know about their periods as it could be used against them. Then another poster says that would never happen in their work place forgetting they have no idea where poster A works and with what type of dickheads to boot. Some women want privacy from males and there's nothing wrong with that, it's not conservative, lib or radical it just is. Women have a right to say no and as a society we have to start listening and do some decent prosocial modelling for a change.

Haven’t remotely rtft but I agree with the OP. I had my period today, and the cramps that come with it, and opted to climb six flights of stairs to get to a ladies loo so I could go, deal with mooncup, refresh my deodorant and do my hair. My male colleagues are lovely but I just don’t want to do that in the unisex loos, which is frankly “their” space because only a few of the really right-on women use it.

Well I agree I’m not fitting the ageeed narrative here ... but I think gender mixed toilets would be fine if handled correctly. This means seperate cubicles with sinks. Many pubs and clubs have this type of toilet now.

@The3, that sounds utterly grim. I'd have done the same.