What do others do? Long queues for women's loos....

[loveyouradvice]

I realise I am getting really angry about this....

Wherever there is a queue for the Ladies, there is none for the Gents and they breeze in and out in seconds

I have started just using the men's and telling anyone that asks that I'm doing it for Gender Equality (yup, know that should be Sex Equality but am aiming to be understood)....

Each time I do it I need to brace myself but it is getting easier...

What do others do?

Yes I do think everyone deserves privacy... while believing that direct action makes people think and often change things. It shocks me how unaware or uncaring most men are about these issues

So I am conflicted.

And yes, when busting to wee I just go, what the hell.... so my bladder does play a dominant role....

But you aren't using the gents as a form of direct action. You are using it for convenience. Regardless of the invasion of privacy of the men in there.

So you have grounds to complain when men go into the ladies toilet for convenience.

I’ve used the men’s on a couple of occasions - once when I was very pregnant and genuinely feared I would piss myself, and once when I was tipsy in a club and there was a big queue for the ladies and no one in the men’s....I was promptly escorted out by a bouncer

I read an article years ago (I really wish id saved it!) that said that due to the way women are built the physical process of peeing takes longer - on average twice as long. Therefor to give equal access women should have double the number of toilets. But we dont.

redexpat also the fact that we have to physically drop trew, drop knickers, sit down, do the job, wipe, get dressed again and wash our hands, takes way longer than it takes the average bloke to unzip, whip it out and pee!

I have shot into the gents about 3 times in my life - one where I had to take a desperate (young, male) child and I'd sent him in, but then the cleaner came and got me because he was wailing for help, once at a biker rally when the queues were huge, and the men actually encouraged us to pop in, and once in an empty building when for some reason the women's was locked.

I have also encountered men in a womens more than once - once in an office with barely any women, and this one bloke used to use the women's for a holiday poo, and once, similarly in a University building that was majority male, where the men in one of the labs got used to popping into the generally empty closest toilets, which happened to be women's.

I think that on balance, if the toilets are that busy, I would expect someone to invite some women across - perhaps in shifts to avoid any one's embarrassment - I've definitely seen that happen at a motorbike race.

Slight derail but I've just seen this in twitter. I want some of those stickers.

twitter.com/esjayxx/status/1125813832763564033?s=21

This point needs to be made to architects etc - that equality doesn’t mean equal space that doesn’t take into account the different needs of each sex, nor that women will often be the ones taking children in.

Men can piss in a confined space. Women need room for their bag, somewhere to hang their coat (I can’t piss with a big winter coat on) and a san pro bin that I don’t have to sit on.

But I wouldn’t use the gents after this experience. I was at a children ballet show and unsurprisingly the queue for the ladies was huge. I sent DH into the gents to see if it had cubicles and that the coats was clear. We nipped in and used one of the cubicles (there was a woman and a child in the other cubicle, I could hear them).

When we came out there was a queue of women and kids inside the gents, and an elderly gent standing at the urinal. You could tell from his back that he was absolutely frozen. I daresay when he’d come in he thought the place was empty.

I wait. Men's toilets are for men (and women's for women).

The worst queue for toilets I've been in was sky garden London. Unisex toilets with washbasin in each cubicle. At least normally I'm only queuing behind women who need a pee. I'd rather men could walk freely in and out of their own toilets than have them queuing equally with us.

As everyone else (nearly) has said, I wait. I blame the toilet designers for not realising that more space should be given to women's toilets as women are bound to take longer (due to a host of reasons - no option to use the speedy urinal option/more clothes removal; more likely to have children in tow (2 wees for the price of one); more likely to be dealing with periods and post birth continence issues; requirements for feminine hair/make up checks etc etc) But I don't blame 'men', or expect them to share their facilities. As others have said, the only time I break this rule is for single cubicle toilets.

I'd rather men could walk freely in and out of their own toilets than have them queuing equally with us

In this case I preferred it, i can see where it wouldn't work sometimes

When I was younger I used to cover the loo seat in toilet paper before sitting down or just squat over the loo. You can pick up herpes from a toilet seat ( I've been told). Now i just don't use public loos at all, and certainly never unisex 🚽.