Old Vic toilets

[adulthumanfemalemum]

Went to the Old Vic yesterday. Christmas Carol, amazing show. Fucking annoying toilet labelling.
'12 cubicles", 'Urinals, 1 cubicle'

I saw an elderly woman emerge from the one labelled urinals looking a bit confused and worried and went into the other one, obviously had not understood that was the mens. Also the cubicles in the ladies (or the 12 cubicles) were not floor to ceiling so I felt quite uncomfortable that there was actually a man standing in there while I was in the toilet. He appeared to be holding his wife's coat, rather than any nefarious reason but I still would have felt happier if he was outside.

The Old Vic sent me a survey to complete so I took the opportunity to complain about their toilet labelling. In case anyone else wants to do the same here's the link. https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/OVpostvisit?promo=36317

Ahh you lot I am all teary now. Thank you.

Regarding what I think will happen. I have written to Kemi Badenoch, Jess Phillips, Wes Streeting, Angela Raynor, Bridget Phillipson, Maria Caulfield and Lee Rowley (the latter two were in the last government). Kemi Badenoch was the only person to get back to me but it was a reply addressed to another person about animal testing.

I wrote to the relevant departments too. The BSR and HSE. It needs the Health and Safety Executive to get on board. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission seemed on board until I got to the bit about gender then they shut me down quickly. They gave me a form to fill in if I got harmed directly because of the new toilet design and had a protected characteristic.

The HSE say I have raised points that are well argued. Charities such as the Stroke Association, Heart Foundation and Epilepsy Action get it.

@Retiredfromthere I completely understand your constraints. I just know the answer is to reduce as many fully enclosed spaces as possible. Unfortunately, as I know from experience, the most important thing is to notice someone is in trouble in the first place because you have a limited time before the brain or body is irreversibly damaged. Both the woman and the child were silent. Being able to open the door outwards after the event is not so important in my opinion. It also has the side effect (also happens in real life) of someone stalking an woman and letting themselves in. Would you raise enough noise in that situation?

One person I spoke to who had a key role in Document T said thoughts were that there should be full height cubicles because she liked the privacy but an attendant always supervising every set of toilets!!! The people in charge don’t live in the real world of schools and public toilet situations. It’s frustrating as you hope officials should have practical knowledge and sense.

I have reports of lots of incidences where women and children have been pushed/forced into private cubicles and sexually assaulted too. I have lists of incidents in nightclubs, schools, hospitals, shopping centres, portaloos and train stations. I wrestle a bit with this as an issue as it’s relatively common and incredibly draining to read through.

The big problem is full height cubicles is it’s always seen as the solution when people complain about mixed sex facilities. It just makes everything much more dangerous for everyone.

What needs to happen is for every incident to be logged and the HSE to look at the problem nationally. No one is collecting robust data as far as I have been told.I think it’s a very quick win for the government to reduce the number of private spaces in public areas which are accessible by chance or design by both sexes.

This is a good video explaining why time is of the essence in an emergency. Going back to the theatre toilets, I did wonder if I should have a ‘sit-in’ to see how long it would take before I was ‘found’! Then contrast it by lying on the floor of a cubicle in another theatre which has a floor to door gap and noting the rescue time there?!

Time to print some "fuck this shit" stickers

It's true that it's quite common for people to collapse and die in public toilet cubicles.
It happened to my dad. I still feel awful for the poor person who found him. Obviously it was too late. Defibs weren't widely used outside of medical settings. From what I'm aware it was the fact the toilet had a gap which alerted them to someone collapsed inside. But it would've been worse if he was 'missing' for many hours and not discovered.
When people are sick the first place they go is the toilet.
Also you do get people sadly overdosing on drugs. Though they often choose the disabled one, meaning no-one can tell what's going on inside, often until it's too late.
So I do think gaps in the bottom of the door is a good idea. I would not want to enter a set of toilets containing urinals though. I can't get my head round men just getting their dicks out next to more than one complete stranger?!

@BobbyBiscuits I am really sorry about your Dad.

I agree about disabled toilets - a lot of my historical info comes from disabled toilets because that’s the ones people more often came to harm as it wasn’t noticed. The pull chord alarm is only useful if it’s pulled and someone responds to it. Certainly for the man who was left overnight in our local supermarket, it was not pulled. And the children who were attacked in stations and a shopping centre.

I have asked government departments, the British Toilet Association and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents but no one keeps a database of incidents and toilet type. I do have limited information on sexual assaults and rapes in public toilets and it’s awful. The onus should be about prevention - making toilets as safe as possible for everyone.

@Keeptoiletssafe Thank you, that's very kind. The stuff you're doing sounds admirable. X

I'm so sorry @BobbyBiscuits

@meloncotton thank you, that's really kind. It was a long time ago but it's still quite painful x

..

I went to the National Theatre recently, I saw Importance of Being Earnest omg its so good that I did think about booking to go again. The woman who plays Lady Bracknall Sharon D Clarke is absolutely awesome.
I mention this because I love their toilets, there are loads and many are hidden with poor signage in very poorly lit areas. I don't go to the National enough to remember where they hide them but if you just try any door with no sign and have a torch you will usually find a empty set of toilets! That's my toilets news. I think they are just male and female toilets, it's hard to say in the darkness.
Also watch Ellis on channel 5 it stars Sharon D Clarke.

I hate the Old Vic toilets. They really put me off going there.

I wish my DH had been able to do this.

What do all of you do in small cafes that have 1 toilet? Coaches? Trains? Airplanes?

And I'll say it again, in case those in the back couldn't hear me when I've said it before.

A MAN WILL NOT DRESS AS A WOMAN TO ATTACK A WOMAN. HE'LL DO IT REGARDLESS. A SIGN WON'T CHANGE THAT.

But isn't it a question of reducing opportunity?

According to your argument, when you leave your car it would be pointless to lock it as if somebody wants to steal it they will do so, regardless of whether it's locked or not.

Same argument applies to the locks on your flat or house. Do you not bother to shut doors and windows and lock them when you go out because you believe that if someone wants to break in they will do so regardless?

A MAN WILL NOT DRESS AS A WOMAN TO ATTACK A WOMAN. HE'LL DO IT REGARDLESS. A SIGN WON'T CHANGE THAT.

Oh come on. It's only in the last few years that it's been acceptable (to some people) for men to use the ladies, and that women are not supported if we complain about it. That's a massive change.

Are you still able to get action if you find someone is in your house? Maybe he just wants to pee.

Mixed sex toilets are designed with full height doors and partitions.

Toilets with full height doors and partitions are less safe and less hygienic for everyone, but particularly when people are at their most vulnerable.

The number of spaces that are private and witness-free need to be reduced as much as possible in public areas.

This will prevent crime and give as much chance of rescue as possible to those who come to harm in a toilet cubicle.

Exactly this. It's a good analogy.

Most people who pass your house or car will just want to mind their own business. A minority will be hell-bent on theft and it will be impossible to stop them. In between these two categories is a much larger minority of chancers who are well up for being light-fingered, but only if it doesn't involve too much effort or risk. They'll try a door or a window, but won't risk smashing it.

Giving men an excuse for being in women's spaces doesn't affect the decent majority of men, who won't particularly want to go there anyway, or the sex-maniac minority, who will go in regardless. But it hands the (unfortunately fairly numerous) sexual chancers their chance on a plate and stacks the odds against any woman they target.

Going in is no risk because nobody will dare to challenge them simply for being there, or enlist help to eject them before they get up to mischief. If conditions aren't favourable they can bail out safely; if they are (e.g. one woman or girl is in there by herself), they can make a pest of themself. Then the victim will have to prove - probably without the help of witnesses - that they actually did something.

Yes, exactly. It’s the fact that any man can go into women’s toilets now and we can’t challenge them that is so dangerous.

Women are high-reward targets for men. We can't really control that.

But we can easily control whether they're high-risk or low-risk targets, affecting how often men will try their luck, and get away with attempts to try again and again. Shifting the risk-reward balance is a great way to make things happen often or rarely.

Particularly for 'scouting'. The main preventative measure is to make it hard, not easy, for men to watch and wait for the opportunity to trap women in private, enclosed spaces.

Public toilet design has that very firmly in mind, or did until recently.

Including single cubicles, where they exist, opening onto busy public areas, and shared toilets not having excessive privacy.

Some of the 'designs' we've seen recently are the antithesis of that - enclosed cubicles in low traffic areas where men are permitted to lurk. Worse on every factor.

Do you want a man to face consequences for lurking in the women's - before he's ever managed to physically harm anyone - or do you want to let him stay there as many times as he needs for the perfect opportunity, because he 'might just want to pee' and/or 'a man will attack a woman anyway, whether or not we let him lurk in the women's'?

@NecessaryScene
Thank you for understanding and putting that so clearly. When I have been talking to civil servants and NGO’s some have this ‘oh’ moment and others say ‘yeah but privacy’.

When I reiterated about assaults in schools (I pointed out in 2016 the government discussed a BBC investigation where 1 rape per school day was reported inside a British school with the assault example being an enclosed broom cupboard) the DfE response was:

• All staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn.
• All staff should receive safeguarding training.
• All staff should know what to do if they have a concern about a child.
• All schools and colleges should have an effective child protection policy that also reflects the approach to child-on-child abuse, including: procedures to minimise the risk of it occurring; how allegations will be recorded, investigated and dealt with; clear process on victim and perpetrator support, clear statement that child on child abuse should never be tolerated or passed off as just part of growing up; and the different forms on child on child abuse can take.

The guidance has been further strengthened for 2022 – ensuring schools have even clearer guidance on how to deal with reports of sexual abuse. This revised guidance now includes the ‘sexual violence and sexual harassment advice ‘which puts it on a statutory footing to give the issue the prominence it deserves.

So when pupil is brave enough to report an assault, because it is obvious from the 2016 data that serious incidents will always happen in schools, there’s systems in place and clearer guidance on how to deal with reports (!).

How about trying to create the safest environment so they don’t happen in the first place? How about doing that in public toilets too? Save on all that investigation and recording paperwork.

What do all of you do in small cafes that have 1 toilet? Coaches? Trains? Airplanes?

Hold my nose, wipe the seat, try not to think too closely about how near the soap, loo roll or handtowel is to the splash zone and basically wish men weren't so grim and selfish. If it's a long flight or train journey, try to pee early before the men have fouled it.

Women's toilets can be grim as well of course, but I'm pretty sure for any given context (motorway service station, office, factory, pub, theatre....) the men's will always be more grim than the women's.

@StMarie4me

What do all of you do in small cafes that have 1 toilet? Coaches? Trains? Airplanes?

Well it could be icky in there, but I'd say the chance of sexual assault in an airplane/coach toilet are nil, and on a train probably fairly low too. And there will be no man in the next cubicle wanking, or peeing with the door open, or peering under the gap, or reaching under the gap with a phone (though I know they could leave a phone in there and try to retrieve it later).

Train carriage toilet incidents are high for rapes and sexual assaults. Usually lone men targeting girls or young women who are ill (drunk or medically ill). Almost always in the train toilets though there was one horrendous case in the carriage last year where people did not intervene.
In the stations there’s been some horrid cases in the disabled toilets.
It’s really depressingly common. I started compiling data of public toilet assault locations as evidence to show the government (who told me they don’t hold data) but decided to stop as it’s so soul destroying. I found the serious assaults happen in enclosed (private) toilets.

Of course it’s daft to say ‘what do you all do’ if you need the toilet. Of course I go. But if I thought something odd was happening in an enclosed toilet cubicle now I am not politely ignoring it.

@Keeptoiletssafe that's awful, I had no idea about the train toilets (though I saw reports the incident in the (tube?) carriage, if it's the same one).

Yes sorry that one was on the tube carriage (no toilet). The others in the last few years are incidents from all over the UK on train carriages. But googling are only the ones that were publicised. Nightclubs and pubs are a big concern. And schools.