Young Vic theatre: gender neutral loos... with urinals

[PotteringPondering]

Others have commented here on venues where the loos are gender neutral, with open urinals. But I hadn't seen it up close myself till this evening.

It was at London's Young Vic theatre. The loo choice is Gender Neutral With Cubicles, or Gender Neutral With Cubicles & Urinals.

Of course, this basically means women's loos and men's loos. Except that's not what it says on the doors. And if With Cubicles is busy, the clear message is that women should use With Cubicles & Urinals.

But in With Cubicles & Urinals, any woman heading for a cubicle has to walk past rows of men standing peeing into urinals.

This is farcical. So much indignity and embarrassment; so much that's utterly inappropriate. All because of a stupid cultural fad. I'm fuming.

She wee anyone?

I was listening to a prostate cancer thing on the radio this morning And wondered how many women would ever feel the urge to paint on a moustache and trot along to a prostate cancer group and splurge nonsense about female prostates in the way periods get discussed.

Email the theatre stating that they have lost your custom permanently because of their revolting rest room arrangements and ask to be removed from their mailing list.

There are plenty of theatres, Vote with your feet and help this one respect its audience or go out of business.

Well they'll NEVER listen to women complaining about it, so the only thing women can do is - walk in to the Gender Neutral With Cubicles & Urinals with a hearty 'Carry on, chaps!' bellowed out as they go through the door, make their way to the cubicles, have a wee, bellow that they're about to exit their cubicle (if they feel like being super-polite), then take their time to wash their hands. Maybe another hearty bellow of 'Bye, now!' on leaving the Gender Neutral With Cubicles & Urinals.

Then - maybe the men will complain about women being in the MEN's toilet, and they'll be listened to. Worth a try ...

I was in a restaurant the other day that had these. Said exactly the same as you...so basically two toilets for men and one for women. You know the people who take long to use the toilet and so often find there's a big long queue.

The toilets were fucking tiny. And lo and behold there was a man in the woman"cubicle only" toilet. Me, him and one other woman all trying to squeeze past each other to use the loos, sinks etc. it was really awkward and uncomfortable. Im not a massive fan of pressing up (multiple times) against strange men in small places.

He was obviously allowed but surely any man with any thought or consideration would just use the "urinals" toilet so they didn't take up the only toilet that most women would comfortable using. I suppose it's a new way of man-spreading.

But that’s the thing isn’t it - women don’t want to go into men’s loos, they don’t want to gate crash a prostate cancer support group, etc, etc

As long as women keep paying to go into any establishment that does not provide single sex facilities then said establishment will carry on not considering the existence of women. Boycott is the answer.

How do they get away with at Christmas time when the pantomime is on? Do they seriously expect little girls to go past urinals?
To be fair, I don't think most men would be comfortable with that either.

If family groups stayed away.they would soon provide for women and children.

I remember when a new build library opened near me, in around 2011. The toilets were unisex, a novel idea at the time. I had never seen or heard of that before. I shrugged and thought Eh, I'll be open minded and give it a go. I did not like it. Washing my hands and men wandering in. It felt uncomfortable and wrong. I was with my preschool aged ds as well.

Urgh, no thank you. It's bad enough when you have to see their flubbly bits flailing around in joggers without proper underwear, nevermind walking past them at the urinal 😬

The Old Vic and the Lyric Hammersmith are the same. The theatre world is fully captured. I've not met a single audience member who likes it, but they don't care.

I'm sure a nightclub opened in Cardiff once with unisex toilets in the 90s. A rounded room with cubicles round the walls and a large sink station for everyone in the middle. Everyone hated it. They changed it back to single sex.

Actually I think this is a great idea. Do everything ot takes yo get the men complaining then we might get somewhere. Lots of 'oi oi chaps' and wolf whistles, slap a few bums on the way past, ooh nice todger etc etc. Basically pretend you're a man in a club/ builder from the 90s. Make them feel as uncomfortable as possible so they complain/ vote with their feet / piss up the walls outside instead.

I think the women might be the ones being told off for upsetting the men, you know, and that nothing else would change. Men's feelings...

The play was Harold Pinter, The Homecoming. It's all about toxic masculinity, and the sole woman in the play is treated like an object and humiliated.

So maybe I've misjudged the venue. Maybe the Young Vic are wittily doing female humiliation themed loos during the run of the play. Clever!

Sigh. Same at the Old Vic. Was there yesterday and spent a couple of minutes waiting for a friend outside the loo area.

During this time I witnessed several people - of both sexes - coming up to the loos, reading the labelling, mentally scratching their heads........ before heading into the loo that would normally/previously have been labelled in accordance with their sex.

Does the Gender Neutral With Cubicles & Urinals toilet have sanitary pad vending and bins?

It's not just for the play they had this when I went there a few weeks ago.

They had a staff member stationed outside.

It was actually quite funny - most people walked up, spent a while processing, and then went in the appropriate toilets.

Yes, I plan to email them today. I encourage others to make their feelings known too.

I see there's a page of Who's Who at the Young Vic on their website – am just working out who to contact.

I hope no schools are using this theatre for school trips any more - I will certainly be on the look out for it at the dcs’ school and asking how they have risk assessed the loo situation (ie lack of single sex provision and the fact that in one loo girls will see penises.

That’s such a good idea. Except of course women would probably be too mindful of the sufferers’ ‘feelings’ ( distress exacerbated by embarrassment) to actually do it.

I’ve emailed them about their loos, even mentioned men’s embarrassment (my husband and sons felt uncomfortable using the urinals in front of a queue of women) I got an email back saying it wasn’t going as intended and they had it under review, but this was ages ago so obviously nothing’s changed.

I don’t want to boycott theatres, I’ll put up with it, but I hate it.

No I don't go along with making men feel uncomfortable.

Firstly, whatever women did, we would not be able to recreate the same effect because we simply do not pose the same physical risk to men as they do to us, and I think pretending we can is not only silly but partly how we got here in the first place.

Secondly I think men and boys are entitled to privacy and dignity too.

Thirdly I think decent men already feel uncomfortable in this situation - the question for me is how the hell to get them to speak up?

There’s an argument for using the ‘gender neutral with urinals’ ones on the basis that it’s better to be among uncomfortable men than those who’ve chosen to use the other one, as some
will be harmless/hoping they pass and some will be getting off on it, one way or another.

I'm not sure that I have a problem with the situation you describe. Have they just rebadged the existing toilets? If so, I wouldn't go into the one with urinals (just as I wouldn't have when it said Men on the door) and if a man goes into the one without urinals, they and I would be in a cubicle so no problem. My local swimming pool changing rooms have been like this for donkeys years. A massive room with a load of cubicles. With naked people in them 😱

Well leaving aside how it leaves women, who already take longer to use a toilet because of pesky biology, now have to share their limited facilities with men, I do wonder why, if you're so cool with the arrangement, you say you wouldn't use the one with urinals?

After all, they'd have their backs to you so nothing much to see, so why not?

From my experience there's always a longer queue for the ladies so sharing facilities should even that out a bit rather than making us wait longer.

I wouldn't go in the one with urinals because I don't want to see strange men's penises. Even if it's unlikely. Having said that, if the queue for the cubicles only was as long as at the theatre (not Young Vic) last weekend, I probably would have and averted my gaze!