Slightly different take on gendered bathrooms:
Urinary Segregation
"When I was 25 years old I was in New York’s Guggenheim Museum. As I started walking into the women’s bathroom, a security officer put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Hold on there a minute, you (expletive) pervert, you can’t go in there' ...I literally had to go to the security office to convince him not to throw me out of the museum.All my life, I've used the bathrooms of both genders with impunity (hey, it's more efficient) and that, combined with being both biologically and personally female, has resulted in me never even thinking about the choices people have to make when they choose bathrooms, or the reactions they receive.
This sort of gender policing is extreme, but at a daily level, many people find going to the bathroom a similar ordeal....public bathrooms, a product of modern technologies and anxieties, are no longer built to withstand our postmodern blurring of binaries.
We should remember that urinary segregation is not just a site of oppression, but a site of privilege and people with privilege will fight to keep it. If we look at urinary segregation as symbolic violence, we can see that it will take a lot more than legal arguments to take it away. By insisting that all bodies must divide into “Men” or “Women,” “Gentlemen” or “Ladies,” or even “Dudes” and Dudettes,” public toilets are able to erase the messiness of bodies and gender.
Whenever I bring up urinary segregation in my gender class, white women will say “rape.” When I point out that their bathrooms at home are not segregated by gender and that sexual violence is far more likely to be committed by people we know, they resort to “but men are gross.”"
The section about the female reaction to mixed gender bathrooms, however, was fascinating. Relating back to my earlier bathroom-related post (why can I even claim authorship of two), there is a view expressed (mostly by heterosexual women, as far as I can tell) that male is equivalent to violence, and violence equivalent to rape, and when males are in bathrooms they get violent and rape is the outcome. In no way do I want to discount the very real danger of rape in public restrooms, it's a risk and one everyone should be mindful of, but there is also the danger of associating all men with danger all the time.
The coffee shop down the street from my high school wins points, not only for being awesome, but for their gender neutral bathrooms. I couldn't find a picture online, but but their bathroom signs feature Ken and Barbie dolls with a twist: Kenneth is wearing an extravagantly lacy red tank top, offset by his fabulous turquoise man-purse and floral jeans. Barb has a black tux and hot pink sneakers. Anyone can go into any bathroom. I don't know how either of my bathroom-writers would react to these signs (I'm sure you could have another year long discussion about how the exaggerated differences are non-representative of the behavior of actual gender-neutral people), but I personally love them.
I'll leave you with the lovely Andrea Gibson and her piece, Swing Set:
"Then of course there’s always the somehow not-quite-bright enough fluorescent light of the public restroom, “Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?” “Yes, ma’am, I do, it’s just that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men’s room.”"
Similar to Luca, I never considered the options of choosing between the male or female bathrooms and had not recognized the dilemma of such choice. Of course, I have visited some same-sex toilets and, though not agreeing to what they say, I do understand by what the White females mean "men are gross". The same-sex bathrooms are in comparison much dirtier than the all female ones. But is it truly because of all males and their lack of personal hygiene? Or, in fact, females are the real culprits? Or is it possibly the combination of both sexes? I personally believe that "men are gross" is not a valid, but rather laughable, explanation to reason that the idea of same sex bathrooms is absurd.
ReplyDeleteAs for the equation "same-sex bathroom = rape", I can somewhat construct the reason behind this saying. In same-sex bathrooms, women stripping their undergarments is a very tempting idea that may easily result in men acting upon their sexual impulses, thus leading to rape. But are all men like animals, act without reason? In some sense, I do agree that urinary segregation is necessary for a woman's safety. But who are we to put a label saying men are dirty and rapist?
Thank you Luca for such an interesting post. Meanwhile, the dilemma of same-sex bathrooms will continue baffle me for some time.
WOW I NEVER EVEN CONSIDERED THIS AN ISSUE BEFORE!!!! Thank you for bringing it up and attracting attention this a much-overlooked issue - i feel really silly for never thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteAs trivial as going to the bathroom may seem, you're totally right, it's a serious problem for someone in the liminal space of the gender binary.
----> I mean, really, where are they supposed to pee?????
At the same time though, i do see the safety/rape issue. and then the issue deepens when dressing/changing/showering are thrown into the equation. Take our dorm bathrooms for example. In the stewie ones, they are separated by curtains and all connected so that you literally have to walk THROUGH other showers to get to ones on the end. and in the mornings when everyone is showering, there WILL be "walk-throughs".
----->I'm not kidding when i say that it's inevitable not to see someone naked.
so imagine what would happen if boys and girls were put together in that bathroom. I don't think people would be worried about safety as much as the privacy/indecency issue that arises. I am attracted to men and as much as I'd love to see men in minimal to no clothing every morning before I get my coffee, it's a little inappropriate. Likewise, I'd feel a violated if I knew that the male in the next shower cubicle was aroused by me.
I don't really see a way out. the bathroom dilemma is lose-lose. and right now, those in the liminal space are getting the short end of the stick.
Luca, as you are more knowledgeable and keen on this issue, do you have any solutions/suggestions in mind that i'm overlooking??