DM: Women avoiding new gender neutral toilets in the home office because men can't close the door

[miri1985]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6065075/Female-Home-Office-employees-refusing-use-new-36-000-gender-neutral-toilets.html

Great job wasting money as usual!

Men will not tolerate snaitary bins in the toilets though I'm sure, as it makes it so difficult to shut the door, and they don't need them.

Probabyl in many gender neutral toilets with these configurations the bins will end up in the communal area, adding further stress for women.

They were demanding that anyone wanting to use the bins showed them what was in her hand

WTAF! What possibly reason would they have for doing this and why would the staff have no power to step in and stop this abuse?!

Just looked at the open air urinals in Paris.
Ridiculous. Don't punish the men, just pander to them and normalise getting your dick out in public spaces.

I can fully believe they wasted £8k on a bloody sign as it would've been 'designed' by a stupidly expensive, trendy design company in London.
People should be held to account for pissing away public money whilst benefits are being cut and food bank usage are increasing.

Yes I'd also like to know why they wanted women to show them their bloody tampons and pads before being allowed to throw them away.

What possible motivation could there be for this? Makes no sense at all.

Suppose you’re right NothingOnTellyAgain might be bigger concerns for cliental than loos.

in many gender neutral toilets with these configurations the bins will end up in the communal area, adding further stress for women

DD secondary school loos are big room open to corridor one side girls one boys mirror between two sinks down middle.

School likes it as can't hide in loos and everyone is visible. Sanitary machines are in middle of back wall visible form the corridor. Children get on with it they don't have much choice.

I image women will adapt by having bags to put them in and dispose quietly later or switch to re-usable where you need to store anyway.

I image women will adapt by having bags to put them in and dispose quietly later or switch to re-usable where you need to store anyway.

You'd hope male architectures and designers would realise such things were needed and do better job of accomodating but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision.

Post-offence reporting is not safeguarding

This, this, this.

"You'd hope male architectures and designers would realise such things were needed and do better job of accomodating but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision."

lol

because they always remember about women's toilets having sanitary bins and make sure there is room to get in and close the door without too much trouble (actually that's an accessibility issue isn't it - I am small and often struggle, a larger or less bendy person might not be able to get in at all, some I've been in) and also sit on the bog without your leg pressed against it!

I mean they've had yonks to work that out and they still seem oblivious.

Who knows why they did it? Immaturity? Power? Apparently there is such a thing as a menstrual blood fetish - some posters on here have linked to tweets /blogs by men / trans women with a thing for that. There is any number of unpleasant, inexplicable and threatening things that men do that mean not wanting to share toilets with them is a perfectly reasonable position.

What's the magic ratio, I wonder.

How many unhappy women are worth one happy man?

10:1?
200:1?
1000:1?

I'm going to call this the MVR
The Misogynistic Value Ratio.

I can rate organisations by their scaled willingness to piss off or endanger many women for the pleasure or benefit of a few men.

Organisations which treat men and women fairly would have a 1:1 ratio.

Organisations that merrily make 500 women miserable or disadvantaged to make 2 men feel 'included' have a MVR of 250:1

Laws like the GRA that eliminate the right of 33million females to legal recognition as a class and rights of their own to benefit say 3000 men have an MVR of 11,000:1

Well looking at society as it is at the moment, with most stuff built for the average adult unencumbered man, and all the shitwork doen by women, I'd say the ratio is pretty high.

Example. Crash test dummies were all male until VERY recently, meaning that women were at a much much higher risk of severe injury or death, even at low speed collisions.

but in real world I image women will have to cope with less provision

I'm not sure.

I think the people producing fig leaves (so far open doors, sanitary products bins) will just keep producing new fig leaves as old ones are raked up.

Because the majority (both sexes) are really uncomfortable with unisex and want to keep single sex. So they aren't going to be mollified with any of the proposed solutions. Because nobody is talking or allowed to talk about the real problem.

Today there are leaves. Further along there might be trees. Followed by a ruddy great forest, rustling loudly in the hope we can finally acknowledge the root of the issue.

Might be considerably cheaper to just let people say what is on their mind and have the TPTB admit that you can't solve a wide spread, cast iron preference for single-sex ...with even the most genius, bespoke, huge investment, unisex solution for all.

Then take the evidently massive budget, pare it down and refit to build some discreet, "single user" extra loos to accommodate anybody who would encounter an issue with single sex/multi-user loos

I agree @gendercritter if it's a lockable room someone could easily follow another person there and push them back inside when their done and lock the door - ok probably not an issue at work or in a cafe but in bars and clubs definitely. It also doesn't seem as safe as just having 'normal' loos because if someone passed out behind the locked door it is much harder to notice and get them out. I've seen this exact situation in expensive bars which tend to have a floor to ceiling door for each toilet (people passing out in there for hours, not being assaulted).

I'd hate to have gender neutral toilets at work - several times I've gone to the toilets crying which I feel is a massive stigma to men as they don't often cry at work, whereas the women's toilet is a safe place where I don't mind so much as many women have done the same. We also have a box of tampons on the window sill in case people are caught short, but I know some women at my work wouldn't take one in front of their male colleagues for fear of them taking the piss when they are all out at the pub or whatever (quite a young workplace full of 'banter')

Why create new problems to solve a perceived issue that in most people's minds doesn't even exist?!

Having cleaned the men's toilets frequently at the place I used to work at, I was utterly, utterly horrified at just their disgustingness. Piss everywhere. Snot on the walls...hurl. These were the adult male teachers and staff toilets as well, not just the kids. I did the boys toilets too and they were about the same! I hate to share on that fact alone, but WHY leave the doors open? Is it a domineering/voyeurism thing? Do they get off on it? Is it habit from trying to solicit some male fun time? Or is it because they're so used to open urinals they just don't think to close the bloody door?

Perhaps the downfall of all this 'gender neutral toilet' nonsense will actually eventually be orchestrated by men who are so outraged that they are expected to shut the door when having a piss that they would rather go back to their men's toilets where they can basically walk up to the wall, piss against it and walk out again, without those pesky women nagging them.

I think the people producing fig leaves (so far open doors, sanitary products bins) will just keep producing new fig leaves as old ones are raked up.

It costs money to deal with sanitary products bins so I can see an incentive to go along with there are not needed and put onus on women to deal with. Historically I believe employers argued it would cost to much to provide separate female toilets.

Clearly Home office employers aren't happy but I expect they won't back down as they've spent the money now.

I think if they have recruitment and retention issues - they might look into changes same with bars and clubs - if it has an economic impact they might change back to single sex.

They are planning to change our work toilets to unisex by simply changing all the signs. I was OK with it because the women's toilet is a little corridor with three toilet rooms off it, proper rooms with full walls and door each with its own sink, mirror, bin.

I'm not sure if the men's have urinals in the communal space, never been in there obviously. But I don't think so, because they clearly said all that would need doing was changing the signs (and I don't think they planned to spend 8 grand on that).

So it should be fine, but it never even occurred to me that men might not close the doors... I don't really think the men I work with would do that. They all seem reasonably civilised. But I suppose you never know. I certainly can't complain at this stage on the basis that this might happen.

NameChangedAgain18, it was @clairetree1 who faced men gatekeeping the sanbins.www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3322488-GRC-and-Toilets?msgid=79857003

men who are so outraged that they are expected to shut the door when having a piss that they would rather go back to their men's toilets where they can basically walk up to the wall, piss against it and walk out again, without those pesky women nagging them.

I don't think it's that's necessarily what's motivating them.

Single sex loos have been the norm for decades. Each sex will have evolved, learned & practiced (to the point of "auto-pilot") sex-specific unspoken rules as per expected norms in the toilets.

I doubt the 2 groups have beautifully matching rules.

If I heard somebody cry in the loo I'd say "you alright love ?" and then either hang on till they came out, or scuttle off and pretend it didn't happen. Depending on exactly how senior the strangled voice saying "yes, fine, it's nothing" was.

Based entirely on anecdote, a couple of men have expressed relief that - on the rare occasion they have shed tears in the bog - the unknown colleague they heard come in (and promptly leave) followed the unspoken rule to go completely deaf with a bladder of steel, in the face of much stifled sniffles.

So I think what they want is basically what we want. The comfort-zone & dignity they get from the familiar, single sex setting. But feel even less free than we do to express that. It would all too easy for t'other side to jump on that and humiliate them with "Ohhhh look at ickle wickle John, he's scared of the GIRLS ,"

The men I am angry with are the ones pushing this, embracing this and picking to bits anybody who doesn't like it.

Some of them want this despite having no inclination to ever go from Mark to Mandy. They just get off on arm twisting women into being really uncomfortable when their knickers are down.

Or worse, they see an opportunity to indulge in unlovely acts of opps didn't mean for you to see that ! Oh well, shit happens. No biggie. No crime. No rap sheet. Just an accidental, belated zipping up of flies on exit.

Those are the ones that worry me. And at the moment, they are the ones with the power to push this through despite so few being in favour.

@MagicMix

the key question there is if the corridors are clearly visible (which they should be, for safety reasons).

a PP says they think the DM are making it up about £8k on signs. Nope. Ever seen how government offices waste money?

Thanks bd67th - I've been trying to work out which thread I read it on and driving myself mad!

No, they are not.. They are little corridors off the main corridor. You have to go through a door to access them (this is the door marked 'women' or 'men').

I think if they have recruitment and retention issues

It'll be women who quit, so the bosses won't care.

I thought it was the law that staff had to have sex-segregated toilets?

I can well believe £8k for signs. I work somewhere where £2k was spent on a label for a work of art.

@MagicMix

I'd be asking for a camera to be put in that corridor!

Schools have to have sex segregated toilets. Elsewhere, you can have unisex toilets as long as they all have floor to ceiling walls and are not just cubicles.