132. Mistaken
Based on this post on Tumblr…
I am baffled by gendered restrooms. Whyyyyyy.
So I have some links for you. This post about the symbols people choose to put on their toilet doors, and this awesome crowd-sourced map of gender-neutral toilets. (Go contribute!)
What do you think about gendered restrooms? What would you do about public toilets if you were in charge of the world?
Discussion (15) ¬
Toilets would be labelled “toilets”. If the distinction is important (for standers in a hurry), they would be sublabelled “stalls and urinals” and “stalls only”. Except if I were in charge of the world you’d have one big room, but y’know, existing structures.
I think symbols are also important, for those who can’t read English for whatever reason. (Kids, visually impaired, etc.) I’ve often wondered if just a simple picture of a toilet would work?
Now that I think about it, it’s not even clear that it’s a toilet from the symbols. All we are really told is that it’s one room for people in skirts and one for people in trousers; we’re not actually told what’s in the rooms. Are there no actual toilet symbols because of delicate sensitivities in times gone by?
Whatever the reason, a simple picture of a toilet (or a toilet and urinal) seems okay to me…?
Sounds sensible.
I think gendered toilets are dumb. And I think it’s especially dumb that even unisex bathrooms are labelled with little man and woman pictures.
Hi!
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<3, a small purple-headed genderfabulous polyamorous vegan-cookie-baking puppet-crocheting singer person creature thing from the east coast of the USA.
My old flat, which I was the main living-in person (others came and went, I stayed for 5 years) had a sign on the toilet door I took from a second hand book shop I helped empty when it turned to a gallery of “Adult DVDs and Videos”. It just seemed oddly right.
it is indeed somewhat baffling. I shall add them to the ever increasing list of things I do not get…
I was on my way out of a public loo once when a patron peered at me and said “What are you doing in here?” at which I, somewhat taken aback, said the first thing that came into my head, which was “Peeing! :S” and then wandered out.
LOLOL what else would one do in a toilet? WE are not the pervs who try to peek into neighboring stalls or do whatever it is they suspect of us….
I much prefer the way one of our local cafes does it – they have two bathrooms, both marked “all-species.” (They also have the standard men’s/women’s signs, but only to comply with local law, and they tell customers to ignore those.)
For bathrooms with stalls, I don’t see the point of segregation, but I must confess a preference to placing the urinals in a segregated locale. (Though honestly, I’m sure I’d rapidly get used to it if they weren’t.)
And of course don’t forget this is all culturally bound; plenty of countries (or regions) have unisex bathrooms. When watching A la folie? Pas de tout (good film), we had to ask our teacher “… Er, is she stalking him or are unisex toilets common in France?”
While not perfect, this was pretty awesome. Women in pants and men in kilts. 😀 Hehe. Kilts.
http://www.utilikilts.com/store/pinfo.php?cPath=16&products_id=28
My brother-in-law has a kilted man bathroom sign.
The deal with toilets is that people are in a vulnerable position and they would actually in general prefer to do their business alone but in the vein of saving money it’s easier to put in a bank of toilets instead of rooms with doors.