Mixed sex toilets are terrifying for women but just a laugh for men.

[CrocsNotDocs]

I can enjoy a good fart joke but this “hilarious” anecdote by cricket commentator David “Bumble” Lloyd left me cold. Men really have no idea of the fear women have of mixed sex facilities.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3843028419327926/?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e&fs=e

If the link doesn’t work, it’s a viral, supposedly hilarious account of David going into a mixed-sex loo for a poo and letting off a loud fart. The lady in the cubicle next to him calls out “Is that you Maureen”.

From David’s point of view, (and pretty much every man and “cool girl” on the planet) he thinks that Maureen must be such a regular farter that her friend thinks the fart noise just has to be her.

I suspect most women would read this situation differently- Maureen’s friend has realised she was half naked inches away from a strange man and is calling out anxiously to her friend to make sure she isn’t alone.

I’m wondering what this board’s thoughts would be. Am I just looking to hard into an anecdote or is men’s complete obliviousness a big issue when it comes to mixed sex facilities.

@Catiette great post and I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences.
I was first assaulted aged 18 in an empty kitchen at my place of work. I was shocked that there was nothing I could do to protect myself or to get away from his grip.

The first use whatever set of toilets you like type scenario (signs on the door with urinals, basins, cubicles and cubicles and basins) recreated the conditions in which I was assaulted. A quiet area and closed doors as everyone was enjoying a gig upstairs. As a friend pointed out, good men stay out, so a man entering the 'women's' toilet was even more likely to be predatory and more likely to get away with it than if it was truly unisex.

I'm so sorry for yours, too. Again, so many indications in your post of how mundanely normal this is: the first time, a gig upstairs with everyone just carrying on as before... And the sheer shock of realising your utter helplessness. No amount of mixed doubles or martial arts training or play-fighting with males (all things I'd experienced before) can prepare you for it. And you never, ever forget it. So you take that knowledge with you into every enclosed mixed-sex space, always. You don't necessarily focus on it, or even worry about it, but even as an awareness, it's discomfitting. The space, and the power dynamics in it, are. not. equal.

Helle clarifies how I feel about the various "I don't care, personally!" interjections above really helpfully. I agree, no one should have to qualify their views with explicit acknowledgement of others' feelings. My concern is, I guess, more one of tone and pattern? Like, whether there's the sense of any capacity for sympathy with other women, or rather of a total dismissal of them - and how subsequent posts correct or build on this initial impression.

ETA. My second sentence isn't to say, of course, that it is remotely mundane, or should be normal - just how often and easily it happens. It really is a, "There, but for the grace of God, go I" (or whatever it is, or some non-religious equivalent) thing. Again, I'm so sorry.

The thing is, how would we know? How do we know what posters who write answers like that are basing their answers on? Because they don't engage. There is no discussion to be had, in their opinion.

Example of such an answer: "it's a non event".

Oh. Okay then.

Despite multiple posters spelling out why it is (or could be) a problem for them, others deem it a non issue. A non event. As simple as that. No discussion. Barely any acknowledgement or recognition or willingness to at least consider another perspective. No. It's a non event, apparently. Suck it up.

Yes, people who say this usually are implying (or that is how I interpret them) that men you know are more dangerous than random men that you don't know but I think it's rather that we, until vey recently, put effort into removing the opportunity to assault from unknown men and that skews the data making it look like men you know are more of a danger to women.

@newbluesofa I know several women who have been raped by strangers - while out running in broad daylight, by a masked stranger who climbed into her flat and held her hostage, while simultaniously being strangled in a wood, after being given a spiked coke at a party, being gang raped at a party and on and on it goes. I don't work in the sector by the way. What is your response to that? Is the experience of these women and girls irrelevant in your view? Are they pathetic for being unable to use mixed sex toilets? Please read up on the longterm effects of trauma, you clearly have absolutely no clue.

As a women, there’s fuck all chance I would ever use a mixed sex toilet facility. 🤮

We have a single sex toilet on the floor I work with 3 toilets. It’s quite often disgusting in there, smelly and with skid marks. 🤮

I’ve become relatively phobic about going in there so I use the mixed sex one on another floor, it’s reliably not minging.

Are you male?

Because no one else uses it presumably

I agree with PP that if I were in any position where I felt scared, the last thing I would be doing would be calling out and drawing attention to myself. I would be silent and wait for them to leave.

Perhaps not intended, but the ‘this would be my reaction’ has subtexts of ‘so that woman couldn’t have been scared’. However, projecting your own reaction on every woman and universalising the personal is not a good look.

Doing so feels not dissimilar - in principle - to disbelieving a woman who’d been raped because ‘I’d have fought back but she didn’t’.

Edited to add that this ‘whether there's the sense of any capacity for sympathy with other women, or rather of a total dismissal of them’ is relevant to my view here. Saying ‘I’m alright Jack’ feels like a total dismissal of other women’s reactions and concerns.

It reflects the fundamentalist misogyny of it all.

Men's feelings and needs are incredibly important and concerning.

Women's feelings and needs don't exist. Neither does the woman trying to explain them. A woman exists only in her usefulness to men.

Hence the main thrust here of why women thrilled to be in mixed sex spaces can't just use them and leave women in their single sex spaces alone, just tolerate that space existing for others. But no. Their goal is the man-serving one of 'no woman should be allowed them, they are a bad thing'. With the subtext no one apparently has the guts to openly own; that women who cannot use mixed sex spaces in a way that pleases and benefits men has deserved her exclusion from life and society.

Thankfully it's academic now, the SCJ is there and while it is looking increasingly likely that women are going to have to go repeatedly to court and wait for a government better than the current one - which is not going to be hard at this point - it will happen. Women's single sex spaces are protected in law. Women are free to use them or to choose mixed sex spaces as they will. There are therefore accessible options available to everyone, equally valuing everyone's needs within a massive population, and everyone is included.

That an activist would disagree with this tells you a great deal about their activism.

Is it just staff that use it, or members of the public? Have you complained to your management (re staff behaviour, or more cleaning needed, as applicable)?

I wish there was a thread where I could discuss toilets for women with women. There’s experiences that are so familiar to others on here that you see themes emerging which would be good to discuss as a group with the police ‘design out crime’ teams and architects and the HSE.

The problem is the EHRC and the government seem adamant that adding a mixed sex toilet for wants of the few (I am still not sure who needs this) is the proper solution in every circumstance without looking at risk assessments. It can actually do more harm than good. Toilets are not just used as a toilet.

Men wanting to use women’s are driving ‘we don’t feel safe in the men’s’ but there is little evidence to suggest they want to use mixed sex toilets. Women wanting to not use the women’s want mixed sex. But crucially when women get mixed sex they feel frightened to use them too (or disgusted). Particularly for exactly all the same reasons that are mentioned above.

I would be careful of claims by posters that women's are smelly and disgusting so they use the lovely mixed sex. This goes against the research I have done when people put their names to things. I am very interested in people’s views if they are acting in good faith.

This is not a U.K. problem. It is a worldwide problem. Girls in India would rather go in the open than use a unisex school toilet for the same reasons girls in this country hold on or miss school. Aid agencies build loos and can waste money in doing so because women realise they are not safe when using them. The design and location is critical.

That the government and EHRC think the blanket solution to appease (who?) is to add a private mixed sex space in a public area, retrospectively, shows they haven’t researched toilets.

It makes me cross I can’t discuss this stuff more explicitly because I know there will be people on this thread who get off talking about toilets/toileting/distress.

I’ve been in a major public building in Stockholm that had no single sex facilities and a crowded over used mixed sex loo.

It was a nightmare for my relative when she was on her own with very small toddler and baby in pram. In ladies loo she’d leave the door open when she or the toddler were using loo partially blocking door with pram. But her privacy was limited. She just wouldn’t do it if any risk of a man coming in. She had to use the disabled loo and felt very bad about doing so. Strangely (!) there were not the single user parent and child loos that I would have expected in enlightened Scandinavia. The needs of women and children are so often ignored.

If you’ve never encountered the concept of menstruation fetish, I envy you.

I hate mixed sexed loos too. There is some at my daughter’s uni in the reception area, and even the men look uncomfortable. I’m sure they’d like privacy too to be honest.

But that's the thing isn't it? The only people who campaigned for mixed sex toilets were those with a fetish for invading the privacy of (mainly ) women and girls and those wishing to commit sex crimes (voyeurism and indecent exposure). Ordinary citizens had no wish to invade privacy, make girls and women feel unsafe or ignore the risks posed to women from men in spaces where women undress.
It's been those powerful disordered men who managed to wedge themselves at the top of the oppression hierarchy via intimidation and bullying. And a supine "lanyard class" who abandoned all critical thinking and what society knows about safeguarding and gave them what they wanted - access to girls and women when unclothed.

"Or for parents with opposite sex children who are slightly too old to use facilities by themselves but who may still need assistance."

Did you actually mean opposite sex children who are slightly too old to be in the wrong toilet?

Unbelievably I never have

I went to a comedy club about 2 years ago with mixed sex toilets, there was piss all over the floor it was fucking disgusting 🤮. If you were a woman with trousers it would have been a challenge. Absolute pigs

WARNING: This link is not safe for brains, never mind work: https://kayosflowforum.freeforums.net/thread/157/pad-hunting-period The URL contains "pad-hunting" for a reason. And yes, one of the forum posters is a crossdresser...

Now you know that men with fetishes for used menstrual products exist, can you understand why we don't want men in our loos?

I couldn't agree more, and I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. I detest mixed-sex toilets and only use them if I'm desperate.

That's so true. I've never heard anyone, male or female, saying they prefer mixed-sex toilets to single-sex.

Jesus wept, Self. I need brain bleach after just a quick glance at that link.