Public toilets were originally unisex and communal
Where was this?
The demand & provision of female single sex toilets outside the home is a key development neccessary for women to safely take part in the public sphere.
Uncommonground Media by Katie Barker
'Flushing Women’s Toilets down the Pan – a Backwards Step'
June 18, 2019
(extract)
"The history of women’s public toilets is the history of women’s fight to be allowed to access public spaces traditionally reserved for men. In the UK, the Great Exhibition of 1851 set of a craze for public toilets. George Jennings, a plumber from Brighton, showcased the first public flushing toilet. By 1852 ‘Public Waiting Rooms’ were appearing, but the assumption was that women would not compromise their dignity to be seen entering a public toilet, so the vast majority of these toilets were for men.
Women had always struggled to relieve themselves outside of the home. Men could, if necessary, simply urinate in a quiet street or alleyway. Even without imposed ideas about women’s dignity, clothing and biology made it extremely difficult for women to enjoy a similar measure of freedom. This was perfectly acceptable to most Victorian men. Women were, after all, the ‘Angel in the House.’ The public sphere was the male sphere, so preventing women from accessing public toilets was a way of ensuring that the ‘urinary leash’ remained short. Women could only stray as far from home as their bladders would allow. Longer journeys had to be planned around visits to friends and family where they would be able to relieve themselves.
How did women respond to this? They organised themselves. The Ladies Sanitary Association was formed in the 1850s and campaigned for public toilets for women. They lectured and distributed pamphlets and made limited progress in securing some of the first facilities for women. The Union of Women’s Liberal and Radical Associations also campaigned for public facilities, particularly for working women. They agitated to have women’s facilities included in existing male toilets, but angry men protested as they did not want women’s facilities to be next to theirs. Some men took matters further, deliberately destroying models of women’s toilets to demonstrate how inconvenient they would be if built.
It was the twentieth century before the need for women’s toilets really began to be accepted. The advent of the department store, and thus shopping becoming more of a leisure activity, meant that it made economic sense for these stores, such as Selfridges, to provide toilets for women. Women could shop, take a reviving cup of tea in the café, and empty their bladders. The longer women were able to stay in the shop, the more money they were likely to spend. The increase in the female workforce, necessitated by the First World War, also led to the provision of women’s toilets in some workplaces and campaigns by women workers for more and better facilities. This was resisted in some cases, as the increase in the female workforce was intended to be a temporary measure to ease the problems caused by male conscription into the armed forces.
In the twenty-first century, the fight for women’s toilets has not been won. UNESCO recognises the provision of single-sex toilets as being vital to overcome the barriers preventing girls from accessing education." (continues)
uncommongroundmedia.com/flushing-womens-toilets/