Mixed sex toilets

[Pumpkinsarepurple]

Wales Online have published an article about mixed sex toilets in Welsh schools, highlighting research from Lleisiau Merched Cymru that found that girls are missing school or refusing to drink all day so that don't have to use them.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/pupils-missing-school-because-dont-15839558?fbclid=IwAR2uOXMN4LVJ6GaU7jO-yRYJ9D7_RQJvoV6TLnahB2eMdigAxtreVzke6eU

The comments section mentions that the doors can be opened from the outside making the girls even more vulnerable.

From the article link I posted above (German court rules that men can urinate while standing):

"Judge Stefan Hank agreed with an expert's report that uric acid had caused some damage to the bathroom's floor.

But concluding, he said men who insist on standing "must expect occasional rows with housemates, especially women" but cannot be held to account for collateral damage.

"Despite growing domestication of men in this matter, urinating while standing up is still common practice," he added."

The common space with washbasins is also important for girls, a private area. I remember when I was sixteen, I had a MASSIVE period accident and had to run to the ladies' with my best friend. Luckily we were on a cruise ship and she was able to get me a complete change of clothing. But it would have been impossible to get me cleaned up just in am enclosed stall -- I needed the basins, room to change, etc. This is why we need privacy. It would have been impossible in a mixed sex area.

We women have been trying for decades to reeducate men to put down the toilet seat after use. It hasn't worked. It's an inherent laziness

I would say that it is not really laziness. The word I'd use is inconsiderate or even bloody mindedness.

If we can't get people with willies to sit then they should clean up after.

Question: what does a boy do when he needs to s(h)it but one of his mates has just covered the seat in piss and all the others are in the same state?

Just sits in the piss? I bet not.

I've been training DH not to leave splatter on the floor. We're 17 years into the training and he's good 90% of the time.
On that basis, society has a long long way to go before all boys/men are capable of leaving loos in a fit state for women.

Funkyfunkybeat12 Why do you state that mixed sex toilets are a strategy to reduce bullying as 'often bullying comes from members of the same sex' Forcing boys and girls to use toilets together is not a strategy that reduces bullying - there is no research to show this. Most of the alleged "evidence" in favour of this comes from the manufacturers selling toilets to schools and it mainly focuses on easier supervision - which is always a strategy for reducing bullying anywhere in a school.

We know that many girls and boys stop using mixed sex toilets, many girls having periods will avoid school on certain days if they can't deal with their period with privacy. Nobody ever addresses the issues for children of faiths who are not allowed to share facilities with the opposite sex?

Mixed sex toilets are cheaper than providing single sex facilities which is why they are popular but they do NOT reduce bullying - there is no evidence to support this.

Feministfairy that is not what I meant.
I support single occupancy and contained cubicles opening up into public spaces. I do not support shared toilets in the form they now take with stalls and a shared sink area.
I was responding to someone who said that single-sex toilets are a place of refuge from bullies. I was pointing out that, in my experience, they were not. In fact, they can be a place where bullying intensifies, because there is no teacher to supervise. I think that private contained toilets are more likely bullying in that case, although I think the impact will be limited.
To be clear, I do not support what is being done at this school.
I think the argument that women and men can't both use self-contained private facilities is pretty weak and relies on stereotypes of men as disgusting, unhygienic animals who are unable to avoid pissing on the floor. Of course they're capable of decent habits and if not, they need to be made to be.

On that basis, society has a long long way to go before all boys/men are capable of leaving loos in a fit state for women.

I have visited countries where unisex single occupancy contained public toilets are the norm and men there do manage not to leave it in a disgusting state. We have unisex self-contained toilets where I work and ditto. Why do we want to foster a stereotype that men are incapable of not pissing all over the floor? Of course they are- just as capable of women, and if they do, they can wipe it up, same as women do.

"Question: what does a boy do when he needs to s(h)it but one of his mates has just covered the seat in piss and all the others are in the same state? "

IME & NAMALT

Loads of men are really peculiar about crapping
Lots will only go on home turf
And take hours and hours about it
Millions of threads on here about this!

They train themselves to not shit at school / work etc

Something terrritorial about it? No idea. It does seem to be a thing though.

i suspect that the gents are used for crappng much less than the ladies, we don't seem to have the same hangups on the whole

To PP who said men piss all over the floor
That's the least of our worries
They don't lift the seat and then piss all over that and then the girls who have to sit are forced to clean it up

Oh and the toilets where I work that are self-contained have sink, mirror, hand-dryer etc. There is more than enough space to get changed following a leak there. Contrary to popular belief, the floor is not covered in piss and most of the time the seat is left down. There is even a basket of sanitary protection for public use.

Why do we have to pretend that the ladies' toilets is some safe haven of female bonding, especially at school? When I was at school, I got beaten up by girls in the toilets. I was scared to use them and used to go to ones far away, where the cool gang of girls who picked on me weren't likely to be. Fuck knows what would have happened if one of them spotted me cleaning up a period-leak. Self-contained would have been so much better for me and for others in the same situation. I would not be comfortable cleaning period-leaked clothes in a public toilet now either. I just wouldn't and I suspect I would get looks of disgust rather than women strangers rushing to help me.

They don't lift the seat and then piss all over that and then the girls who have to sit are forced to clean it up

In my experience of using unisex self-contained toilets, this is not common. Additionally, i have seen urine on seats in women's only toilets too, and blocked toilets and ones with skid-marks all over them. I have cleaned holiday cottages where used sanitary towels were strewed around the bathroom or randomly dropped on the floor for me to pick up. Women are not inherently cleaner than men- it's just a stupid sexist myth.

Adult men in the workplace and children in a school are not the same thing.

When schools go to unisex they don't have self contained sinks etc they have normal cubicles with shared handwashing outside.

That's how it's been in the primary schools I know about.

They did it at my DD school I had a few questions which they answered to my satisfaction and actually they ended up putting girl or boy signs on the doors one side for each although bizarrely the boys have more cubicles allocated to them? Maybe because they got rid of urinals (which is really really inefficient!!!) and the boys are not used to waiting.

Girls who have started periods are allowed to quietly nip off to the guest (grown up) toilet so that was OK too , my DD was happy with that.

In bigger schools I don't know how they handle the periods thing.

My DD started in the hols before yr 6 :(

I mean adult men in the workplace are probably a bit better behaved in all sorts of ways than boys in school.

And the same with girls and women although pissing everywhere isn't one of the things we do quite so much of!

I've been in the ladies and the gents in quite a few pubs and clubs and the mens have always been way minging compared to the ladies.

That's my experience.

Asked DH who has had to go and sort out public toilets ladies gents from time to time as well and he says on the whole the gents are worse.

Not everyone's experience is the same obv but even just the smell coming out of teh gents is appalling quite a lot - you can smell them when someone opens the door.

Nothing I know- I am not in favour of the unisex stalls ones at all. I just don't know why there is an objection to using a single-occupancy toilet just because a man/boy has used it. That's ridiculous and feeds into stereotypes. Of course boys are capable of hygiene too. Rather than this being a 'boy problem', there are some boys and some girls who will leave the toilet in a state. That's not great, but the school has to ensure the facilities are clean.

Oh and I attended school for some years in a country that has predominantly unisex toilets before I attended school in the UK. We had them at primary school too and guess what? There were no major issues. If you had rocked up there and said that girls were not able to use the same toilet that a boy had been in because he might leave it dirty, they would have looked at you like you were mad. It just wasn't a thing.

I think the argument that women and men can't both use self-contained private facilities is pretty weak and relies on stereotypes of men as disgusting, unhygienic animals who are unable to avoid pissing on the floor. Of course they're capable of decent habits and if not, they need to be made to be.

It's a stereotype with a fair whack of truth to it. Hell, which office building was it (a government one of some sort) where they had to put signs up asking that the men close the doors behind them when using the toilets, because they were peeing, standing up, and leaving the door open behind them.

I don't agree though that girls at school should be the ones who have to deal with these boys while they are being taught decent habits. How about we have mixed sex toilets once men and boys have proven themselves to be a bit better with their aim?

"Rather than being allowed to get away with disgusting behaviour, boys need to be taught and have it reinforced that you don’t leave toilets in a bad state. Presumably they don’t do this at home, where they will often have sisters and other family members that they share bathrooms with"

Right but they do
My brother used to pee all over the place until he was about 10 or something
My mum would clean it up
My husband and FIL both miss quite a lot - they are both well over 6ft and suspect it's harder to aim and not splash from that height
They wipe the seat but they don't wipe the floor

I'm sure lots of poeple will say how minging which it is... For sure in my life I've come across many men who woudl give a token wipe but they don't wipe the floor and even if they did, it needs cleaning properly doesn't it
Urine is strong stuff

The main thing for me in making them share is
Privacy (loss of)
Periods
Sexualised bullying

It's probably got a cultural element to it

Men piss standing up (I have never met one who didn't, that I knew the toilet habits of, obviously!)
It's up to women to clean and keep things "nice"
Girls are much more strongly socialised to be "thoughtful" boys not so much

It mustn't be up to girls to try and retrain british culture for boys?! That won't work and will be shit for them.

Thank you Funky for the clarification.
It's just tedious seeing the continual "celebration" of the joys of mixed sex toilets using all kinds of excuses when both historically and currently we know (from clear evidence and data about rape and sexual assaults) that women need sex segregated washing, changing and toilet facilities to ensure their safety.
Glad to hear that you're not advocating for mixed sex toilets.

Nothing I am not advocating for shared stall-style toilets, so there will be no problem with periods or loss of privacy.

But that is disgraceful that boys/men are allowed to get away with pissing everywhere and having women clean it up. That needs to stop as there is precisely zero reason why a man cannot leave a toilet in a decent state, just as men are perfectly capable of doing housework and looking after children. If self-contained facilities are shared between the sexes, it might mean that boys take more responsibility. If you just say 'boys are too dirty for girls to even use the same room after them', what sort of message are you sending and reinforcing? It's saying 'oh, never mind, boys will be boys. It's totally normal for them to piss everywhere, so we just need to ensure that the girls don't need to see/deal with the piss'. As I said about my primary school experience of using shared but self-contained facilities, the notion of boys as some dirty beasts didn't really exist. And when I think back, maybe there was less of a distinction made generally between girls and boys in other areas- compared to this country at least.

IME ladies toilets are way worse. Way too many of us are precious about the toilet seat and hover, and splash urine everywhere. Also .... sanitary bin can get manky if staff are behind on changing them. Most people who’ve had the job of cleaning public toilets will tell you that the women’s toilets are usually worse than the men’s

However, that’s neither here nor there. Girls (and boys) need their own space, cannot imagine cleaning hands with some menstrual blood on them in front of boys. They are also convenient places to change—we never changed in the stalls, too small.

"Men piss standing up (I have never met one who didn't, that I knew the toilet habits of, obviously!)"

For the past five years or so I have taken to sitting down all the time, because it is far more "predictable".
I am also the one in the house who does most of the cleaning, so I want to make my job as easy as possible.

Most people who’ve had the job of cleaning public toilets will tell you that the women’s toilets are usually worse than the men’s

Really? Because I've done it, and that wasn't my experience, I've also got boys, so spend more time than I'd like loitering outside mens toilets, and they definitely smell worse.

The only times I've heard people say this sort of thing is when this kind of discussion comes up - as a kind of companion to not all men - the 'women do it too' response.

I still think the onus is on the men/boys to prove that they can be civilised in mixed sex facilities (and I agree it shouldn't be beyond their ability) before we leave the girls to just deal with it, because as things stand, you're not putting civilised boys and men in with the girls, but the type that pees everywhere.

DP sits down to wee in the house because he appreciates the sit down!

He says he started doing it after drunken nights out when younger, because then the worst that happens is you fall asleep on the loo.

It is sad that I need to feel “fortunate” that my husband is fastidious and alternates between standing up and sitting down but if he stands he properly cleans up - even if it benefits him most of all since he cleans the bathrooms. I agree this should be the norm, but the reality is from what I have seen and talking to other women living with boys and men, it isn’t. While it may seem silly, this is one of the reasons I cite as why it is important to live with someone before marrying them, ha. Not so easy of course when the offenders are your own children...

I have grown up with brothers, have young nephews, shared military housing with men, been roommates with men, and dated many men, use unisex (single room) toilets at work and at the gym where they are only option, have worked in retail positions where I had to sometimes do emergency cleans in both men’s and women’s, oh, and when I really need to go and there is a line for the women’s room I will go use the men’s single stall room. Ditto when I was young and at the club and just didn’t care to stand in line for the women’s. Oh and been in lots of airport toilets which seem to be the worst of all.

So, after 40 years of using toilets at least a few times a day in my own home, in public, in other people’s homes, I feel confident saying that while time to time I have seen an intestinal or period disaster in a women’s toilet that needed a clean, wondered when the last time the cleaning staff was through to empty the bins, or made me ask myself who taught that woman or girl not to flush, men’s toilets on the whole are far worse on a day to day basis. The stench of urine from seeping into flooring or behind walls (I feel for little boys who go into public toilets faced with a urinal too tall for them or a plugged toilet as their only choices as they are guaranteed to miss if they choose the urinal) is pervasive and foul. I have been house shopping and been turned off by the state of the urine damage visible around the base of the toilet bowls in family homes, homes otherwise that seemed well maintained. When I go in a unisex toilet it is obvious that the person who pissed all over the seat and floor was male as they also kindly left the toilet seat up. For a time we had a male client who seemed to intentionally come to use our washroom and would leave piss all over floor and fecal matter on seat, and until we cracked down the expectation was the women in the office could clean it up. Similar happened with a male coworker who due to being obese not only had poor aim but could not clean up after himself properly. Expectation was female staff - who were not freaking janitorial staff but office workers - were expected to deal with it until there was rightfully so a crack down on that.

And that is all before the topic of unisex/shared showers (such as where you might have unisex single stall showers in certain shared housing) and how it seems many young boys and men are not taught that, uh, ejaculate cannot go down the shower drain as it congeals.

I meant to say “he properly cleans up as I have never noticed a spill over if he has any”. Which is how it should be!