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?

I'm just popping in again to once again express my personal shock that females are still here on this thread having to reiterate again and again personal reasons of dignity and safety to ask for single-sex spaces.

And pretty much being castigated for doing so.

The 'toilet debate' is just the first hurdle that others are wanting to jump over. And whilst toilets aren't the biggest issue, once you break this boundary, I can see similar arguments used against changing spaces, female-only wards, services, sex (well, to be honest, I know those arguments are already in use, just not so openly sneering patronisingly yet at the females who object as prudish).

It's like the 'cool wife' in porn use all over again, but just with massively bigger implications if current norms are trampled all over by legislation.

Pombear, most agree with you, there are always one or two here obsessed with desperately trying to persuade women to bend over backwards to appease men in all situations.

I'm just popping in again to once again express my personal shock that females are still here on this thread having to reiterate again and again personal reasons of dignity and safety to ask for single-sex spaces.

It is good to be reminded that women's right to say no is considered the beginning of a negotiation by far too many people.
That early childhood training runs deep.

The 'toilet debate' is just the first hurdle that others are wanting to jump over. And whilst toilets aren't the biggest issue, once you break this boundary, I can see similar arguments used against changing spaces, female-only wards, services, sex (well, to be honest, I know those arguments are already in use, just not so openly sneering patronisingly yet at the females who object as prudish).

This ^

Why do some women expend so much energy criticising other women for seeing thing from their own point of view?

Trying to define 'room' when you can't define 'man'. Or woman. Or gender

There is no one definition of room in planning law or building control regulations. There are space, light, heating and ventilation regulations depending on what the room is used or intended to be used for. A room used as a bedroom may well fail those regulations if it is too small or lacks a window but it doesn't stop being a room (or for that matter prevent an owner occuppier, although not a landlord, using it as a bedroom)

Missing the point. Nature or nurture?

"I'm just popping in again to once again express my personal shock that females are still here on this thread having to reiterate again and again personal reasons of dignity and safety to ask for single-sex spaces."

Yes and I hate this fiddly war of attrition, detail by detail. "oh but we need to get over shame about periods." "oh but no one washes their trousers in front of other women either." "oh but rinsing a mooncup is gross no matter what." (put them altogether and it shows how the "you women don't matter" lot can really have everything both ways.) NONE OF THIS MATTERS. Men make us uncomfortable in intimate or vulnerable settings. Some of them do it deliberately; some are physically dangerous; some are psychologically and emotionally intimidating; NONE OF THIS IS MADE UP. Leave us alone. JUST SOME OF THE FUCKING TIME.

I think it's a question of empathy.

The reason people roll their eyes when you try to say that you don't want to share a room full of individual, lockable cubicles with members of the opposite sex is because they can't put themselves in your mindset & empathise.

On the genderquake debate the other night, there was no empathy for the toilet point, whereas there was a lot more for the "women losing to transwomen at sports" argument.

That's where you'll gain allies to the cause, Any brickie down the pub will be able to relate to that and sympathise.

Whilst I understand the concerns about toilets (mostly), I think it's the wrong medium for making a point....

You're right. I'd say half of Australia peak-transed when they saw Laurel Hubbard on the NZ women's weight-lifting team.

That's why they try to make it about toilets. All the time. Bewilder you are knocking it out of the park on this thread.

Is it true Germaine Greer was on the television recently saying that men and women should share the same toilets??.

GG also thinks the tough rape sentences are why juries don't convict all the guilty ones.

And this is why I keep saying that toilets are the thin end of the wedge being used to open the door that can then be used to insert be-penised individuals into pool/gym changing rooms under the premise that, well, it's already established that this is standard practice in toilets...

Y it's why they went straight for Women's Aid. Get males in the refuges and 'there's no reason for not letting them in everywhere else'.

@Onlyinaemergency you will get used to it ☺

IVFbabygirlproudmummy Fri 11-May-18 22:18:47

@Onlyinaemergency you will get used to it ☺

Sure she will. Just like sh has gotten used to street harassment and cat calling.
Had you read the thread you would know that women do not "get used to it", nor do they intend to.

Pps still struggling to grasp that women have reasonable reasons to want single sex toilets? Check.

GG also said we brits have a weird seaside sketch, men leaching outside the toilets culture which Australia doesn't have so unisex toilets make sense there. So she supports unisex toilets but also acknowledges brits have a unique culture that might interact with that reasoning. That was my understanding anyway.

Unisex toilet Seattle. Urinal user gets a view I'm sure he doesn't want when a woman is changing a bloody pad. I'm sure the woman doesn't either, but she's just a prude, so who cares.

The reason people roll their eyes when you try to say that you don't want to share a room full of individual, lockable cubicles with members of the opposite sex is because they can't put themselves in your mindset & empathise

I Googled a few opinion polls. The ones I found showed a majority of the UK population didn't want them. No specific reasons given beyond it isn't something they want- a general this is not a good idea.

I have no strong feelings one way or another (although the most horrible loo I have to use is a ladies at work with paper thin and far too short cubicle walls which I'd be happy to get rid of, not that I'm mounting a campaign ) My husband on the other hand wouldn't want to use a unisex loo.

Where the lack of empathy as you put it is that for me an awful lot of the reasons given on here don't sound terribly convincing or bear much resemblance to my experience of 58 years of being female.

I had terrible periods- real blood baths. I never once had to leave a cubicle with visibly blood stained hands.

I've never changed laddered tights outside the cubicle (wouldn't one fall over trying if not sitting down?) In 35 years of working in offices where 3/4 of the employees are female I've never walked in on someone half undressed in the sink area.

And then there are the "a man might see me washing my hands /a man might see the sanitary bin/ my male colleagues have sexual fetishes about menstruation" ones.

So you (general you ) go from the starting point of most women and men don't really want unisex toilets a list of reasons which sound tbh a bit unlikely and ignore that the majority of men, who are not sexual predators and fetishists, don't want to share toilets with women either.

It is not like minded feminists on FWR you have to convince- it is architects, builders, town planners.

If you don't like all the reasons, how about 'no'. End.

This is a great post from AskBasil in 2014 about changing rooms, but which I think is very relevant:

I think it's partly the male gaze, that sense of intrusion by a stranger who has been socialised to appraise and rate me in terms of my sexual acceptability. I resent it in mixed changing areas (same way I resent men flicking their eyes up and down my body when they talk to me), but as all of us do, I adapt to it and find ways to avoid the intrusion and accept that it's part of being in a mixed changing area. You wouldn't be in the same mind frame if you thought you were in a same sex area, so the need to suddenly start adapting the way you do in the company of men, would be a huge intrusion.

Women's space is different from mixed - ie male - space.

Men are trained to take up space, to own space. If we look at how they sit, stand, walk, where they feel dominant they take up more space and where they do not feel dominant (like being with senior men, older men, richer men etc.) they take up less space. This is probably also true of women. When we are in spaces with each other, we are more comfortable in those spaces as we feel we have an equal right to occupy them. We move differently in them.

When we're with men, we shrink ourselves, we keep out of their way, we defer to them and they don't even notice we're doing it (and actually most of the time we don't either, it's so internalised that it's automatic). When men aren't around, we relax in the space.

Knowing there may be someone around who calls himself a woman but has a penis and has been socialised to appraise me, would mean that there is one less space in the world where I'm allowed to feel safe, comfortable and to own the space on an equal basis with the other users of the space.

The reason women here are coming up with excuses at all is that their "no" is being ignored by others. If those others were willing to accept "this is something most women don't want, so no" then no excuses would be needed. Nor should they be.

People demanding reasons to say 'no' don't deserve any answers - until they themselves have come up with some cast iron reasons for removing the sex specific rules. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Why do we have to keep explaining why girls and women who have been sexually assaulted, raped, abused don't want to be sat on a toilet, pants down with men nearby? And worse of all, having to explain it to other women!?