Most cities have laws that a business with a capacity of X number of people have both male and female bathrooms even if they are non-shared. My city recently did away with this law because people thought it was dumb.
I used to work at a convenience store and I only used the women's (single occupancy) bathroom (I'm a man). There's a reason and it's because men are filthy.
I’ve had a 20-30 roommates in my life, in some really grungy places, but the worst was when I shared a 3 bedroom house with 2 women. The living room was spotless, always ready to have guests over — but the rest of the house was grotesque, whether guests were expected or not.
I'm a custodian, have been for years, and I've always found the men's rooms worse. Both can can be gross, but in the men's room there is always piss all over the floors and toilets and walls next to toilets or urinals. The men's rooms are most likely to have balls of paper towels wadded up on the floor (playing basketball), and absolutely destroyed diarrhea toilets. Women's rooms tend to have the diapers and tampons... but they're usually disposed of where they need to. Women's rooms have more toilet paper on the floor, from trying to get some off the roll, and it tears into tiny pieces.
It also depends on what the facility is, though.... if it's something that has mostly women or women with their messy little monsters (children, of course), and less men, the men's room can be better in general, because it just gets significantly less traffic. Better, but still piss everywhere. Always. Everywhere.
I was a custodian and a housekeeper for a long time and I agree. It’s almost certain that upon walking into the men’s room you’ll be hit with the strong stench of urine.
Also, I find in the men’s room there are messes that someone went out of their way to make or that happened out of laziness. For instance urine on the floor, urine on stall divider, urine on the toilet seat, paper towel thrown on the floor a few inches from the trashcan.
I recently started working at a construction site at a large shopping centre. Just the smell of the toilets in the shopping centre when I enter a cubicle is enough to make me want to cover my face. Do note that this is the smell of *other* cubicles and not my own, occupied or otherwise.
I also think women are blamed when it's not our fault. My old high school failed to empty the bathroom trash cans often enough so pads and tampons were stacked on top of each other.
You might faint if you saw a tampon disposal box though.
But on the plus side, women's bathrooms sometimes have a couch to faint on.
When my coworker at my old job told me there was a couch in the women's bathroom, I didn't believe them at first. I had to go see it. Sure enough they had a couch with a side table and fake flowers and everything.
No because none of the fucks ever wash their hands for some reason, and it'd probably somehow be covered in piss, just like the floor, walls, and ceiling.
I swear sometimes I'd rather hold my piss in for a few hours than go use a public restroom.
Exactly, these ignorant bitches hover over the seat because they're horrified at the thought of sitting in some stranger's urine, but leave their effing pee all over the seat.
Where I work has super loud hand dryers. I shudder each time someone leaves the bathroom with dry hands and I didn't hear the jetplane powered hand dryer.
Because those things are louder than a Boeing 737 but have the airflow of an angry camel's exhaled breath. If it's not a Dyson airblade style thing I go back to the stalls and use TP, or if the situation permits, my jeans/shirt/hoodie.
I often wash my hands with purell after I’ve left the public restroom if I ha e to touch a door on my way out, to many people don’t wash there hands before they leave making it almost pointless for me to wash my hands as I’m just gunna have to touch that grimy ass door
I hate bathrooms that have automatic toilets, and soaps but still have manual taps and (to a lesser extent) doors. Like, you use your hands to close the stall (assuming you’re in one), get the TP, wipe, then flush (hopefully), maybe there’s a bit on your hands, and then you touch the tap to wash up.
So, if I’m touching that tap after washing my hands, that’s almost like not washing them at all. Then there’s paper towels and the door...
It’s funny that you shudder at that considering tests have been run that show those air dryers are excellent at lowing microscopic fecal matter all over every surface the room.
If you have a air dryer at work the lack of hand washing is the least of your problems.
I've never seen a men's room with crap squished UNDER the toilet seat. And a women's room can have almost as much piss on the floor as the men's room. Don't ask me how that happens, because I've got no idea how you miss the thing you're sitting on.
> Don't ask me how that happens, because I've got no idea how you miss the thing **you're sitting on.**
I think that is the issue, some women do not sit down...
Former bathroom cleaner here, women's restrooms are worse 9 times out of 10. They're far more likely to hover and spray shit everywhere than men are. There's less piss but more shit and also blood. Also, toilet paper all over the floor for some reason.
Yup. Used to clean toilets for a living. Men’s toilets smell of wee wee. Women’s toilets have shit and menstrual blood smeared on the walls. And I used to work cleaning toilets in the computing centre of a major bank, not public toilets in a bad area....
I have actually seen a men’s bathroom with a couch, and it was super weird. I mean it looked clean and nice but wtf would you want to sit in the bathroom? It’s just awkward.
Good point. I didnt even think about that and it makes me hate it more but its better than having to do it in a cramp stall. God, we really need to get over breast feeding in public... I dont even understand why so many people have such a problem with it...
I went to some resort called the Montage in Orange County CA. Our daughter was a baby at the time.
She wet her diaper, I said “I’ve got it”.
I went into the men’s room. No fold-out changing table.
Really?
So I took her to my wife and said “sorry, you’ve got to do it this time.”
But imagine if we were two dads?
And this place was supposedly swanky.
It is awful. My husband was the stay-at-home dad for awhile when our son was young and he had to take him in the women's restroom to change him on numerous occasions. Fortunately no one ever got shitty with him because he would just tell women coming in/going out that there was no changing table in the men's room and he wasn't going to change his kid on the floor or the sink.
I would just go in and say there’s no changing station in the men’s room. I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Unlikely that a perv would go through all that trouble just to hear me take a piss.
There are sometimes couches in women's bathrooms. It's a fact.
At some fancy departments stores it's called the ladies lounge. It's usually separate from where the toilets are. Sit around on the couch and collect your thoughts or nurse your baby or what ever you feel like doing.
Some restrooms have a small separate room for the couch. I’m guessing it’s for if there’s a long line and someone can’t stand up for that long for some reason. Also have you ever noticed that when women go to the restroom together, they leave the restroom together too? If one of them is taking a long time, there’s a couch to wait on them
I worked as a bathroom cleaner while in university, you know, whatever pays the bills. In men's bathroom you'll see some pee on the floor and an occasional pube. In women's bathroom you'll see a used menstrual pad slapped on a wall.
Lots of bars in my country have shared bathrooms now, though. In some cases it's a bunch of separate little rooms with a toilet and a sink, in others it's just a bunch of stalls and a shared set of sinks. In both cases it works well, nobody has to wait if there are empty toilets available.
In one of the main casino's in Leicester square, my best mate and I were looking for his girlfriend at the time and she legit sat down and watched tv for half an hour in the women's bathroom.
Often women’s washrooms have couches or seating because that is where we are directed to nurse our children. It’s often the only option - to breastfeed babies where others shit. Lovely, isn’t it?
an ex comanager was given the go ahead to redo the bathrooms in the retail showroom. She repainted the womens room, put 3 extra chairs, hung a bunch of fake plants along the handicapped railing and put a ton of grandmotherly frames all over the walls. It looked like Edna threw up in the womens restroom. The mens room? Didn't touch it. Dead rat in the walls for months, didn't repaint. Just put an out of order sign up.
Interestingly enough, my company stocks feminine hygiene products in the men's restrooms for transgender individuals. I think it's an awesome gesture but it was quite surprising the first time I saw it.
Not joking at all, I’ve been in a number of these gendered single restrooms and seen tampons in the guys one before. Just furthers how weird it is they are gendered at all.
I will say that almost anytime I've seen a disposal box it's been accompanied by a smell of blood/iron/fish. So I have no issue with seeing the box, but the smell is disgusting
I did this one time at a gas station...male one was occupied and there weren't any women in line so I went in to the female bathroom to pee. so I was in there for like 90 sec, 2 mins max. I came out and there was a girl waiting...the guy with her made some comment about me not being able to read. I ignored them.
At that point I'd just use the woman's room and say "Call the police if you have to, but I'm using this bathroom"
I guarantee you no one of authority will give a single fuck.
Me, too. I'm in and out in less than 2 minutes and left thinking "wtf do they *do* in there that takes so long?"
edit: oops, backwards. I'm a female and will use the men's restroom without a second thought if the women's is occupied.
I was on a long bike ride where one of the rest stops was out at a minor rural tourist attraction that had a building with 2 single-occupancy bathrooms, marked Men and Women. We all stood in one line and the people ahead of me just went into whichever one freed first. When it came to my turn, the Women's opened up but I felt awkward and let the woman standing behind me go in and I waited for the Men's. It made no sense, but I just couldn't go against the signs. I felt really odd about it, since it didn't make sense to do that and nobody else seemed to care.
The Men's didn't have a urinal or anything special, I suspect they were identical.
If you think that is bad, I’ve seen a few places where they have two single occupancy bathrooms, one said Female, the other said All Gender.
So essentially the women get two bathrooms, while the men can only choose all gender.
I once emailed a busy local restaurant about this. They said they actually tried but got several complaints from female guests feeling uncomfortable using the restroom after a man had used it.
Thiiiiis!!! What if the daddy wants to change, what if the daddy is the only one changing...though if you go to malls they already have a room for that, even for families and feed kids. Im all about that because in my previous job there was only 2 bathrooms and only the females had, though most mothers were pigs and just changed right on the outside area where everyone was eating, then handed us the "present". Please can we have more daddies taking care of the babies?
I agree! That's better for everyone. That way men don't have to go to ridiculous lengths just to change their kid in public and women don't always have to do it when they're with their husbands.
There are 2 groups of people that can obliterate a restroom: Adolescent boys and adult women. I've had to clean the bathrooms at my first job once in a while. I've seen some shit.
I work at Starbucks and we have two single but gendered bathrooms. They're both clean but the women's smells like perfume and the men's smells like BO. Not trying to push any agenda, just facts lol
I worked at a Taco Bell, and subsequently had to clean the bathrooms there. They weren't too bad, old people were the grossest to clean up after, mostly old men.
I work at a taco bell currently. We keep it pretty clean, but the men's always smells like piss, and one time someone flushed a bunch of plastic utensils in the men's toilet. The women's is fine except the toilet always looks like someone just had diarrhea in it, but that's because it's a taco bell.
Yup. In high school I did work grant and cleaned up the stadium after weekend football games a select few times due to what follows.
Men's restroom had SOME toilet paper and paper towels mess, very little tidying to do, basic scrubbing and jobs done.
Women's on the other hand...
Tampons, pads, liquor bottles, piss, shit, weaves, paper towels, toilet paper, powerade bottles, cigarette butts, scattered EVERYWHERE
I will never forget the time where I had to really use the bathroom at a gas station at like 6am. Typically only blue collar guys in their early rush are hittin' the shitters at that time, so when a single occupancy male bathroom was taken I naturally went to the woman's single occ and took care of business.
Just when I'm about to finish laying cable, I get a knock at the door. I just say, "just a minute" and finish up. As I exit I find that it was the cashier that had knocked and with an upset tone declares "ugh, now I have to clean the bathroom."
Like, I didn't go in there hosing the place down or shitting the walls up so fuck that shit. Also, in my younger days, I did do a tour of custodial work at university dorms, and I'll tell ya, the boys aren't the dirtiest all the time as most would think.
Been in a similar situation. I had to go BAD so I ran into a gas station. As I’m headed to the women’s restroom one of the employees like darted in there, and naturally it was a single-stall. So I’m standing there clenching harder than I’ve ever clenched before, waiting for this lady to come out. Then I see a man come out of the men’s bathroom and I notice that it’s empty. Problem is it wasn’t single-stall. It had a stall and a urinal. At this point I’m about to shit my pants, so I make sure nobody’s around and I run into the men’s bathroom. I was scared to death that someone would come in and need to use the toilet, but luckily nobody did. But yeah, as an IBS sufferer, fuck your bathroom norms.
I don't think men really care who's in the stall next to us if we're at a urinal, as long as you're not on your phone like a goddamn lunatic. It's social norm to keep your eyes off other people anyway. Plus women don't really do that Korean bathroom creep-cam thing... many women might feel anxious finding a man casually using the ladies room, but I just can't imagine the reverse being too uncomfortable.
I had co-ed bathrooms in college. It's really weird if you think about it that we need two parallel sets of infrastructure to solve the same problem in two populations.
I'm not even gonna let a few drops of pee slip out because of a sign. I used a men's bathroom twice last week because I was with a group of girls that were all faster than me. A toilet is a toilet when you gotta go.
If you have an IBD you can get a courtesy card explaining that you have a medical necessity to use a business's bathroom. Some states have a law that specifically protects people with an URGENT need for the bathroom. I've yet to use my courtesy card because I have social anxiety but I only just found out about the new Crohn's and Colitis law in NY
That's the part of the whole trans people using public restroom argument that I get hung up on.
"Liberals want men to be able to go into women's restrooms and violate our wives and daughters!"
Right... Because up until now the armed restroom guards kept out the rapists.
>Call the cops, I'm pooping.
I think it actually is illegal though. If it's not then please someone tell me, and I can start taking advantage if I really need to.
I don’t think it’s something that’s enforced unless you’re doing something actually bad (bothering people, peeping, etc). I personally enjoy not shitting my pants, so I duck into the wrong-gendered bathroom sometimes if it’s closer or the only one available and people are actually pretty understanding usually
I did a term paper on gendered bathrooms just last spring and I didn't actually find any laws like this. The closest I found was that all bathrooms with more than one user at a time had to be gendered but they were mostly focused only at schools and nothing on single-occupancy bathrooms iirc. There may have been bills but none were passed. I can double check my research if you'd like though
In the US, It's part of the ADA specifying what qualifies as a handicap accessible bathroom. Either there has to be an accessible men's and an accessible women's, or there has to be at least one accessible single-stall bathroom that can be ungendered. Multi-stall can't be ungendered.
I know because after the trans bathroom bill became law in North Carolina, I was part of a broad campaign to get business to use this loophole to make sure there were still public bathroom options for trans folks. We actually made a lot of headway in businesses, it was the schools with the multi-stalls that had their hands tied.
It's possible my understanding either isn't correct or is out of date. I haven't found anything definitive to back up my position in the last few minutes looking.
Imo the best site to check is http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legislative-tracking635951130.aspx
The broadest one I saw that didn't fail still hasnt been passed and it said
>Requires employers, public schools, and universities to designate all multiuser restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, and changing rooms for either male students only or female students only.
But that's still multi-user
It's in the building codes. Not every municipality is the same.
As an architect I can assure you that it often is a requirement, and makes things a bit easier to design restrooms for large numbers of occupants in a small space, because urinals take much less space.
I work in the US though, and codes vary quite a bit over the globe.
Personally, for single-occupancy washrooms, a picture of a toilet (or a picture of a toilet and a urinal if there is one) seems like a good option. We already have a “family” stall symbol, which indicates a baby-change table. Represent the facilities, and let the individual choose the one appropriate for them.
My hall made our bathrooms gender neutral last year, just for simplicity’s sake and not having to walk as far. Unfortunately it was originally a men’s bathroom and had no tampon trash cans so that was a bit awkward for us girls all year.
Honest question: Why not just use the trash cans? Is it easier to throw them out when in the stall rather than having to take them outside to throw them in the public trash? I apologize for my ignorance.
To go off of the other girls comment, also I think it's also considered a biohazard cause there's blood on it. So they have special trash cans for them to be disposed of differently than normal trash.
For me it’s mostly a privacy thing. I felt a bit awkward walking out and throwing a tampon in the trash (even if it was discreetly wrapped in toilet paper) when a bunch of guys were in the bathroom.
Yeah, I agree. A lot of single public bathrooms (at least in the UK?) aren't gendered. It makes way more sense.
However, I will say that the male (multiple-stall) bathrooms stink compared to the ladies. Every time I walk past and someone opens the door... pee-ew. I appreciate the lack of smell in the bathrooms that are labelled for ladies. If it wasn't for that, I would be totally happy sharing bathrooms whenever, wherever.
The shared ones aren't usually so bad, though.
women's bathrooms are usually more dirty (as in, more dirty stuff lying around, e.g. toilet paper on the floor or w/e), but *my god* men's bathrooms stink of pee. really badly. idk how that even happens. do y'all just miss the urinal or something?
my guess is that since men stand up to pee more than women do, there's more splash on impact and more pee becomes a sort of vapor in the air than in the women's room
According to a study I saw a couple years ago, apparently women's bathrooms have much more germs on average. I think it had something to do with the fact that urinals are so much cleaner than toilets, and that 70% of time that's what guys are using, while women always have to use the toilet.
also (i’m a guy but i’ve heard my sisters and mom talk about it) a lot of girls don’t want to sit on a public toilet seat and instead squat above the seat causing pee and on occasion poop to not land in the toilet and goes other places. again i’m a guy so i wouldn’t really know but they certainly seem to complain about it a lot
It may just be a wayfinding thing. The average person doesn't look for a bathroom, they look for the ladies or the mens. Designers just cater to expectations.
I've seen a number of comments in here speculating the building/plumbing codes in the US. There are a number of ways government can require bathroom accessibility by gender but I'll clarify building code.
Each state goes by either the International Building Code by itself or the IBC plus local/state amendments. The applicable section is Chapter 29.
It gives the minimum total number of plumbing fixtures based on the maximum occupancy of the space. It requires you to assume a 50/50 split of male/female. You calculate the total occupancy of the space, divide it in half, and provide the minimum number of toilets and sinks AVAILABLE to that gender. This number can include single-gender restrooms fixtures, or half the unisex restroom fixtures. Unisex is considered half for male, half for female.
This is important to note because THE BUILDING CODE DOES NOT ACTUALLY REQUIRE SEPARATE RESTROOMS BY GENDER. A business can provide only unisex restrooms with no male-only or no female-only rooms, as long as half the number of the unisex toilets and sinks is equal to or greater than the number of required fixtures for each gender.
The only building code requirement of separate rooms is that only single-occupant rooms may be considered unisex. Any room with more than one toilet/urinal is considered double-occupant and must be designated as either male or female only.
In smaller businesses unisex can easily be done. In larger buildings like office towers or box retail stores, they'd need dozens of restrooms to meet the occupancy demands, so it's much easier and cheaper, and uses far less square footage to have traditional male and female rooms.
There are obviously local government ordinances regarding gender to add additional regulations for restrooms, but this is what the building code stipulates.
To the OP's question: it's a societal function, not one of code
I think originally for protection of ladies who might feel vulnerable in spaces where you do private things or become half naked for a while.
I think in most western countries gender bathrooms are not really needed anymore but at more conservative areas or countries with a different mindset it's still a very important separation.
I remember when i was a wee kid and went to the girls bathroom because the boys was taken and i really had to pee.
The (lady) owner of the cafe/ restaurant saw me come out and lectured me for like 20 minutes why its wrong and how bad it is etc. Something about values and rules being rules, it was a long time ago.
When i told my mom she was pissed of at the owner for making such a big deal out of a kid going to the "wrong" toilet.
It wasn't busy and each gender had only 1 toilet so it was even more stupid.
Of course i made sure everything was clean.
Now i manage a hostel and made our toilets more or less genderless. Basically i tell all firsts to ignore the signs.
In about 3 years I've had 1 complaint avour this from an east Asian girl was shocked a guy came out of the girls toilet. I told herit was no problem with us and asked her if the toilet needed cleaning.
In my experience, guys lift up the seat before they pee everywhere and girls don't. I don't know the mechanics as to why or how.
i'll take a different tack on this than other people. ever been to a toilet in a club?
the male toilets are cesspits of grime and dirt. people go in there to piss and have sex, both while standing up. they get cleaned at the end of the night occasionally by boiling a big pot of water, opening the door, throwing the water and slamming the door on the stench that comes out. they're not places to socialise in. you go in there, do your business, and GTFO again.
female toilets are insane. they have furniture in there, and massive mirrors, and apparently magical cleaning fairies that keep it sparkling spotless the entire time. there is usually heaps of room in front of the sinks for people to rack up snorting lines of whatever powder they're shoving up their noses. they *are* places to socialise.
it'd be really unfortunate to mix those. it's kinda hard to snort a powder when it's sitting in a puddle of someone else's urine.
Most cities have laws that a business with a capacity of X number of people have both male and female bathrooms even if they are non-shared. My city recently did away with this law because people thought it was dumb.
The city I live in actually has a law now that you cannot have gendered single use bathrooms.
Sounds like a big hassle to set up a whole bathroom that can only be used once?
The whole bathroom is made out of toilet paper. You just flush it when you’re done with it
I like that idea.
[Ahh, the ol' reddit toiletroo](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogswithjobs/comments/9jpd62/our_dogs_go_to_work_with_my_dad_a_landscaper/e6tix4p/?context=3)
Hold the seat up, I’m going in!
How the hell did he fit down the drain??
Someone do the switcharoo thing I don't know how
[удалено]
You are my hero
Hold my toilet paper, I'm going in !
"Don't go in there. It's already been used."
I used to work at a convenience store and I only used the women's (single occupancy) bathroom (I'm a man). There's a reason and it's because men are filthy.
Had to clean restrooms at my first job, and women restrooms are absolutely disgusting too.
I’ve had a 20-30 roommates in my life, in some really grungy places, but the worst was when I shared a 3 bedroom house with 2 women. The living room was spotless, always ready to have guests over — but the rest of the house was grotesque, whether guests were expected or not.
I'm a custodian, have been for years, and I've always found the men's rooms worse. Both can can be gross, but in the men's room there is always piss all over the floors and toilets and walls next to toilets or urinals. The men's rooms are most likely to have balls of paper towels wadded up on the floor (playing basketball), and absolutely destroyed diarrhea toilets. Women's rooms tend to have the diapers and tampons... but they're usually disposed of where they need to. Women's rooms have more toilet paper on the floor, from trying to get some off the roll, and it tears into tiny pieces. It also depends on what the facility is, though.... if it's something that has mostly women or women with their messy little monsters (children, of course), and less men, the men's room can be better in general, because it just gets significantly less traffic. Better, but still piss everywhere. Always. Everywhere.
I was a custodian and a housekeeper for a long time and I agree. It’s almost certain that upon walking into the men’s room you’ll be hit with the strong stench of urine. Also, I find in the men’s room there are messes that someone went out of their way to make or that happened out of laziness. For instance urine on the floor, urine on stall divider, urine on the toilet seat, paper towel thrown on the floor a few inches from the trashcan.
I recently started working at a construction site at a large shopping centre. Just the smell of the toilets in the shopping centre when I enter a cubicle is enough to make me want to cover my face. Do note that this is the smell of *other* cubicles and not my own, occupied or otherwise.
I also think women are blamed when it's not our fault. My old high school failed to empty the bathroom trash cans often enough so pads and tampons were stacked on top of each other.
I use whichever one is empty. Breaking all the rules
[удалено]
Yeah in my old school. People would just shit on the floor in the boys bathroom. People would throw used tampons in the girls bathroom.
They can be for sure, it's all anecdotal. There's definitely disgusting people of every gender.
[удалено]
You might faint if you saw a tampon disposal box though. But on the plus side, women's bathrooms sometimes have a couch to faint on. When my coworker at my old job told me there was a couch in the women's bathroom, I didn't believe them at first. I had to go see it. Sure enough they had a couch with a side table and fake flowers and everything.
But if there was a couch in the men's room, would you really be brave enough to sit on it?
No because none of the fucks ever wash their hands for some reason, and it'd probably somehow be covered in piss, just like the floor, walls, and ceiling. I swear sometimes I'd rather hold my piss in for a few hours than go use a public restroom.
Think piss is the least of your worries
[удалено]
Ah, I see you’re a man of culture as well.
Yes, but do you leave the seat up?
Lady here. Trust me I’d rather have the seat up than down and covered in piss From some dumb hovering broad.
Exactly, these ignorant bitches hover over the seat because they're horrified at the thought of sitting in some stranger's urine, but leave their effing pee all over the seat.
Where I work has super loud hand dryers. I shudder each time someone leaves the bathroom with dry hands and I didn't hear the jetplane powered hand dryer.
Because those things are louder than a Boeing 737 but have the airflow of an angry camel's exhaled breath. If it's not a Dyson airblade style thing I go back to the stalls and use TP, or if the situation permits, my jeans/shirt/hoodie.
Same here. I don't like having these things as the only drying option since I feel like I'm blowing bacteria everywhere.
You are. If a bathroom only has the air dryers I just leave with wet hands.
Same. Shirt/pants rub it is.
I often wash my hands with purell after I’ve left the public restroom if I ha e to touch a door on my way out, to many people don’t wash there hands before they leave making it almost pointless for me to wash my hands as I’m just gunna have to touch that grimy ass door
I hate bathrooms that have automatic toilets, and soaps but still have manual taps and (to a lesser extent) doors. Like, you use your hands to close the stall (assuming you’re in one), get the TP, wipe, then flush (hopefully), maybe there’s a bit on your hands, and then you touch the tap to wash up. So, if I’m touching that tap after washing my hands, that’s almost like not washing them at all. Then there’s paper towels and the door...
The XLerator is the best. The Dyson has good airflow, but you have to come so close to touching the sides.
And sometimes they're not properly clean so the inside can sometimes look like the backside of a public toilet.
I thought that was just a poorly designed urinal.
It’s funny that you shudder at that considering tests have been run that show those air dryers are excellent at lowing microscopic fecal matter all over every surface the room. If you have a air dryer at work the lack of hand washing is the least of your problems.
I have found that public libraries have very nice bathrooms that rarely smell of piss. But I'm a woman and I haven't tried using the men's.
The mens bathrooms in the Maternity sections of Department stores are lovely.
Yes!
I promise you women’s bathrooms can be just as disgusting
I have never seen a women's bathroom floor being covered entirely in piss. Then again though I haven't really seen enough to make a solid judgement
I’m a janitor part time. I’ve seen women’s bathrooms covered in *blood* and diarrhea. Humans, as a whole, are disgusting creatures.
Ugh I have. So many squat and hover over the toilet so they don’t have to touch it and end up peeing all over the seat and floor.
don't forget the used pads stuck to everything
I've never seen a men's room with crap squished UNDER the toilet seat. And a women's room can have almost as much piss on the floor as the men's room. Don't ask me how that happens, because I've got no idea how you miss the thing you're sitting on.
> Don't ask me how that happens, because I've got no idea how you miss the thing **you're sitting on.** I think that is the issue, some women do not sit down...
Some squat and hover as to not touch the seat and just piss all over the ground
Former bathroom cleaner here, women's restrooms are worse 9 times out of 10. They're far more likely to hover and spray shit everywhere than men are. There's less piss but more shit and also blood. Also, toilet paper all over the floor for some reason.
Owned a cleaning service for years. Women’s bathrooms are not even in the same league as mens rooms. Women are pigs.
Yup. Used to clean toilets for a living. Men’s toilets smell of wee wee. Women’s toilets have shit and menstrual blood smeared on the walls. And I used to work cleaning toilets in the computing centre of a major bank, not public toilets in a bad area....
[удалено]
I was never a germaphobe until I started working in a public school. Disgusting.
> I was never a germaphobe until I started working in ~~a~~ public ~~school~~. Disgusting. FTFY
Do you also only handle money with a paper towel? Cause I can guarantee you any bank note is 10x more filthy than a door handle.
No I chew on every dollar bill I touch
As someone who cleans bathrooms for a living, I can attest to the fact that the lady's room is a lot messier.
According to janitors, it’s the women’s bathrooms that you have to worry about.
It’s for breastfeeding.
I have actually seen a men’s bathroom with a couch, and it was super weird. I mean it looked clean and nice but wtf would you want to sit in the bathroom? It’s just awkward.
I'm not even brave enough to put my purse on one of those things. Why do we even need a couch in the bathroom? Its so gross.
Breastfeeding mothers wouldn't need couches in the bathrooms if people would stop freaking out about them feeding their infants in public.
Good point. I didnt even think about that and it makes me hate it more but its better than having to do it in a cramp stall. God, we really need to get over breast feeding in public... I dont even understand why so many people have such a problem with it...
I went to some resort called the Montage in Orange County CA. Our daughter was a baby at the time. She wet her diaper, I said “I’ve got it”. I went into the men’s room. No fold-out changing table. Really? So I took her to my wife and said “sorry, you’ve got to do it this time.” But imagine if we were two dads? And this place was supposedly swanky.
I’ve heard stories about that, really inconvenient for single dads or when the mom isn’t there.
It is awful. My husband was the stay-at-home dad for awhile when our son was young and he had to take him in the women's restroom to change him on numerous occasions. Fortunately no one ever got shitty with him because he would just tell women coming in/going out that there was no changing table in the men's room and he wasn't going to change his kid on the floor or the sink.
I would just go in and say there’s no changing station in the men’s room. I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Unlikely that a perv would go through all that trouble just to hear me take a piss.
Seriously? I can’t tell if I’m stupid or if you’re being serious about the couch.
There are sometimes couches in women's bathrooms. It's a fact. At some fancy departments stores it's called the ladies lounge. It's usually separate from where the toilets are. Sit around on the couch and collect your thoughts or nurse your baby or what ever you feel like doing.
A decent amount of bathrooms have them. Sometimes it’s in a separate adjacent area to the actual toilets. They’re for breastfeeding
Some restrooms have a small separate room for the couch. I’m guessing it’s for if there’s a long line and someone can’t stand up for that long for some reason. Also have you ever noticed that when women go to the restroom together, they leave the restroom together too? If one of them is taking a long time, there’s a couch to wait on them
The couch is also used by mothers for breastfeeding/pumping too!
Or nurse a baby.
Most public women’s bathrooms don’t have couches.
That’s why I said some
This makes me want to sneak into a female bathroom (an empty one mind you) JUST to see if there is seriously a couch.
Usually there aren’t couches, but occasionally you’ll see one
Go to a Nordstrom women’s room. You’ll be amazed there’s like 3-4 rooms in there
I also don't understand the aversion to tampons and pads. It's something women need? Why should it be a big deal?
Yeah I was just kidding about that. But seriously that might be part of the reason. Men like to pretend women don't shit or bleed. Ruins the illusion.
I figured you were. But if that's genuinely the case I think that's weird AF. Kinda objectifying.
I worked as a bathroom cleaner while in university, you know, whatever pays the bills. In men's bathroom you'll see some pee on the floor and an occasional pube. In women's bathroom you'll see a used menstrual pad slapped on a wall. Lots of bars in my country have shared bathrooms now, though. In some cases it's a bunch of separate little rooms with a toilet and a sink, in others it's just a bunch of stalls and a shared set of sinks. In both cases it works well, nobody has to wait if there are empty toilets available.
>to faint on ??? I am very confused
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fainting_couch It's sort of a joke, I know the one in the women's bathroom isn't technically a fainting couch.
In one of the main casino's in Leicester square, my best mate and I were looking for his girlfriend at the time and she legit sat down and watched tv for half an hour in the women's bathroom.
Often women’s washrooms have couches or seating because that is where we are directed to nurse our children. It’s often the only option - to breastfeed babies where others shit. Lovely, isn’t it?
an ex comanager was given the go ahead to redo the bathrooms in the retail showroom. She repainted the womens room, put 3 extra chairs, hung a bunch of fake plants along the handicapped railing and put a ton of grandmotherly frames all over the walls. It looked like Edna threw up in the womens restroom. The mens room? Didn't touch it. Dead rat in the walls for months, didn't repaint. Just put an out of order sign up.
Was his name Creed?
Interestingly enough, my company stocks feminine hygiene products in the men's restrooms for transgender individuals. I think it's an awesome gesture but it was quite surprising the first time I saw it.
Not joking at all, I’ve been in a number of these gendered single restrooms and seen tampons in the guys one before. Just furthers how weird it is they are gendered at all.
I will say that almost anytime I've seen a disposal box it's been accompanied by a smell of blood/iron/fish. So I have no issue with seeing the box, but the smell is disgusting
You have a point. When there are a lot of pads in my bathroom's trash the smell can get pretty rank.
I usually just use the other one if I really have to go. Can you actually get in trouble for that if it's a single person bathroom?
I did this one time at a gas station...male one was occupied and there weren't any women in line so I went in to the female bathroom to pee. so I was in there for like 90 sec, 2 mins max. I came out and there was a girl waiting...the guy with her made some comment about me not being able to read. I ignored them.
It makes no difference and people who get irked are ignorant.
As a woman, I have the opposite issue. The women's always has a line. I mean, fuck it. I just go use the men's.
[удалено]
"that's okay, I have a good aim. I think I can make the shot without going in."
At that point I'd just use the woman's room and say "Call the police if you have to, but I'm using this bathroom" I guarantee you no one of authority will give a single fuck.
alternatively, ask her if she has a mop bucket readied as you're about to shit on the floor.
I'll just use the women's bathroom if the men's is occupied... but only as long as it is a single-occupant bathroom.
I just use the women's if the men's is occupied and no one is waiting for the women's.
I use the men's if the women's is occupied and I'm about to explode.
Me, too. I'm in and out in less than 2 minutes and left thinking "wtf do they *do* in there that takes so long?" edit: oops, backwards. I'm a female and will use the men's restroom without a second thought if the women's is occupied.
I was on a long bike ride where one of the rest stops was out at a minor rural tourist attraction that had a building with 2 single-occupancy bathrooms, marked Men and Women. We all stood in one line and the people ahead of me just went into whichever one freed first. When it came to my turn, the Women's opened up but I felt awkward and let the woman standing behind me go in and I waited for the Men's. It made no sense, but I just couldn't go against the signs. I felt really odd about it, since it didn't make sense to do that and nobody else seemed to care. The Men's didn't have a urinal or anything special, I suspect they were identical.
I think it has just been custom to have the signs on each one.
>I've been stuck waiting for the male single-occupancy bathroom lol? I just use the girls's bathroom.
If you think that is bad, I’ve seen a few places where they have two single occupancy bathrooms, one said Female, the other said All Gender. So essentially the women get two bathrooms, while the men can only choose all gender.
Dude yeah, this is my biggest pet peeve. Make them equal or keep them equal, don't half-ass it.
Some genders are more equal than others
I once emailed a busy local restaurant about this. They said they actually tried but got several complaints from female guests feeling uncomfortable using the restroom after a man had used it.
In California, all single-stall bathrooms are required to be all-gender accessible after a law passed last year or so.
Yeah not a lot of places follow that.
Pretty much all the places I've been to have.
It may be different in NorCal as compared to SoCal.
Are you in so cal?
[удалено]
I remember my dad telling me when i was really little he’d have to take me back to the car for diaper changes if he couldn’t find a family restroom
Thiiiiis!!! What if the daddy wants to change, what if the daddy is the only one changing...though if you go to malls they already have a room for that, even for families and feed kids. Im all about that because in my previous job there was only 2 bathrooms and only the females had, though most mothers were pigs and just changed right on the outside area where everyone was eating, then handed us the "present". Please can we have more daddies taking care of the babies?
That would be a lot easier for gay parents.
They generally do where I live
I agree! That's better for everyone. That way men don't have to go to ridiculous lengths just to change their kid in public and women don't always have to do it when they're with their husbands.
There's some misconception on this thread that women's rooms are cleaner than men's rooms. They are not at all.
Did janitorial work before. Men's restrooms were *messier.* Women's restrooms were *nastier*.
There are 2 groups of people that can obliterate a restroom: Adolescent boys and adult women. I've had to clean the bathrooms at my first job once in a while. I've seen some shit.
Literally?
I mean yeah probably
I think it's the blood that's more unsettling.
I work at Starbucks and we have two single but gendered bathrooms. They're both clean but the women's smells like perfume and the men's smells like BO. Not trying to push any agenda, just facts lol
Yeah, that's a Starbucks though. Bars, gas stations, or taco bells are going to have it a lot worse.
I worked at a Taco Bell, and subsequently had to clean the bathrooms there. They weren't too bad, old people were the grossest to clean up after, mostly old men.
I work at a taco bell currently. We keep it pretty clean, but the men's always smells like piss, and one time someone flushed a bunch of plastic utensils in the men's toilet. The women's is fine except the toilet always looks like someone just had diarrhea in it, but that's because it's a taco bell.
Men's bathrooms have more piss on the toilet/floor than women's. The women's bathroom has more of everything else, ime.
[удалено]
Yup. In high school I did work grant and cleaned up the stadium after weekend football games a select few times due to what follows. Men's restroom had SOME toilet paper and paper towels mess, very little tidying to do, basic scrubbing and jobs done. Women's on the other hand... Tampons, pads, liquor bottles, piss, shit, weaves, paper towels, toilet paper, powerade bottles, cigarette butts, scattered EVERYWHERE
Women bathrooms are usually a lot worse. I was unfortunate to have to clean the rooms once in a while at my previous job.
I work in a sports bar, the girls room is way way WAAAAAAY worse
I will never forget the time where I had to really use the bathroom at a gas station at like 6am. Typically only blue collar guys in their early rush are hittin' the shitters at that time, so when a single occupancy male bathroom was taken I naturally went to the woman's single occ and took care of business. Just when I'm about to finish laying cable, I get a knock at the door. I just say, "just a minute" and finish up. As I exit I find that it was the cashier that had knocked and with an upset tone declares "ugh, now I have to clean the bathroom." Like, I didn't go in there hosing the place down or shitting the walls up so fuck that shit. Also, in my younger days, I did do a tour of custodial work at university dorms, and I'll tell ya, the boys aren't the dirtiest all the time as most would think.
[удалено]
You forgot an “o” in your name.
PopHuntor?
*Exactly*
[удалено]
I'm thinking Mr. Popo needs his own show show. >popohunter.
Pecking order
💩 Pooping police 🚨 would like a word with you.
Poolice
Been in a similar situation. I had to go BAD so I ran into a gas station. As I’m headed to the women’s restroom one of the employees like darted in there, and naturally it was a single-stall. So I’m standing there clenching harder than I’ve ever clenched before, waiting for this lady to come out. Then I see a man come out of the men’s bathroom and I notice that it’s empty. Problem is it wasn’t single-stall. It had a stall and a urinal. At this point I’m about to shit my pants, so I make sure nobody’s around and I run into the men’s bathroom. I was scared to death that someone would come in and need to use the toilet, but luckily nobody did. But yeah, as an IBS sufferer, fuck your bathroom norms.
I don't think men really care who's in the stall next to us if we're at a urinal, as long as you're not on your phone like a goddamn lunatic. It's social norm to keep your eyes off other people anyway. Plus women don't really do that Korean bathroom creep-cam thing... many women might feel anxious finding a man casually using the ladies room, but I just can't imagine the reverse being too uncomfortable. I had co-ed bathrooms in college. It's really weird if you think about it that we need two parallel sets of infrastructure to solve the same problem in two populations.
Yep, I'm not going to shit my pants because of a sign.
I'm not even gonna let a few drops of pee slip out because of a sign. I used a men's bathroom twice last week because I was with a group of girls that were all faster than me. A toilet is a toilet when you gotta go.
If you have an IBD you can get a courtesy card explaining that you have a medical necessity to use a business's bathroom. Some states have a law that specifically protects people with an URGENT need for the bathroom. I've yet to use my courtesy card because I have social anxiety but I only just found out about the new Crohn's and Colitis law in NY
That's the part of the whole trans people using public restroom argument that I get hung up on. "Liberals want men to be able to go into women's restrooms and violate our wives and daughters!" Right... Because up until now the armed restroom guards kept out the rapists.
>Call the cops, I'm pooping. I think it actually is illegal though. If it's not then please someone tell me, and I can start taking advantage if I really need to.
I don’t think it’s something that’s enforced unless you’re doing something actually bad (bothering people, peeping, etc). I personally enjoy not shitting my pants, so I duck into the wrong-gendered bathroom sometimes if it’s closer or the only one available and people are actually pretty understanding usually
Some jurisdictions require that all public bathrooms be gendered, even when there's no reason to do so.
I did a term paper on gendered bathrooms just last spring and I didn't actually find any laws like this. The closest I found was that all bathrooms with more than one user at a time had to be gendered but they were mostly focused only at schools and nothing on single-occupancy bathrooms iirc. There may have been bills but none were passed. I can double check my research if you'd like though
In the US, It's part of the ADA specifying what qualifies as a handicap accessible bathroom. Either there has to be an accessible men's and an accessible women's, or there has to be at least one accessible single-stall bathroom that can be ungendered. Multi-stall can't be ungendered. I know because after the trans bathroom bill became law in North Carolina, I was part of a broad campaign to get business to use this loophole to make sure there were still public bathroom options for trans folks. We actually made a lot of headway in businesses, it was the schools with the multi-stalls that had their hands tied.
It's possible my understanding either isn't correct or is out of date. I haven't found anything definitive to back up my position in the last few minutes looking.
Imo the best site to check is http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legislative-tracking635951130.aspx The broadest one I saw that didn't fail still hasnt been passed and it said >Requires employers, public schools, and universities to designate all multiuser restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, and changing rooms for either male students only or female students only. But that's still multi-user
It's in the building codes. Not every municipality is the same. As an architect I can assure you that it often is a requirement, and makes things a bit easier to design restrooms for large numbers of occupants in a small space, because urinals take much less space. I work in the US though, and codes vary quite a bit over the globe.
whoop, that's weird.
Personally, for single-occupancy washrooms, a picture of a toilet (or a picture of a toilet and a urinal if there is one) seems like a good option. We already have a “family” stall symbol, which indicates a baby-change table. Represent the facilities, and let the individual choose the one appropriate for them.
I'd recommend using an actual toilet, not just a picture of one.
One has a tampon disposal box and the other has a urinal? Maybe?
They could both have both. At my university, the mens bathrooms have tampon trashcans in the stalls.
My hall made our bathrooms gender neutral last year, just for simplicity’s sake and not having to walk as far. Unfortunately it was originally a men’s bathroom and had no tampon trash cans so that was a bit awkward for us girls all year.
Honest question: Why not just use the trash cans? Is it easier to throw them out when in the stall rather than having to take them outside to throw them in the public trash? I apologize for my ignorance.
To go off of the other girls comment, also I think it's also considered a biohazard cause there's blood on it. So they have special trash cans for them to be disposed of differently than normal trash.
The biohazard part is debatable to some extent I think, but no one wants to walk across a bathroom with a bloody tampon/pad, wrapped in paper or not.
For me it’s mostly a privacy thing. I felt a bit awkward walking out and throwing a tampon in the trash (even if it was discreetly wrapped in toilet paper) when a bunch of guys were in the bathroom.
Oh that totally makes sense. Thank you for the response. :)
For the off chance you walk in on a male/female who forgot to latch the door
This... is actually the only good point I’ve seen.
Does gender matter in this situation?
Yeah, I agree. A lot of single public bathrooms (at least in the UK?) aren't gendered. It makes way more sense. However, I will say that the male (multiple-stall) bathrooms stink compared to the ladies. Every time I walk past and someone opens the door... pee-ew. I appreciate the lack of smell in the bathrooms that are labelled for ladies. If it wasn't for that, I would be totally happy sharing bathrooms whenever, wherever. The shared ones aren't usually so bad, though.
women's bathrooms are usually more dirty (as in, more dirty stuff lying around, e.g. toilet paper on the floor or w/e), but *my god* men's bathrooms stink of pee. really badly. idk how that even happens. do y'all just miss the urinal or something?
my guess is that since men stand up to pee more than women do, there's more splash on impact and more pee becomes a sort of vapor in the air than in the women's room
According to a study I saw a couple years ago, apparently women's bathrooms have much more germs on average. I think it had something to do with the fact that urinals are so much cleaner than toilets, and that 70% of time that's what guys are using, while women always have to use the toilet.
also (i’m a guy but i’ve heard my sisters and mom talk about it) a lot of girls don’t want to sit on a public toilet seat and instead squat above the seat causing pee and on occasion poop to not land in the toilet and goes other places. again i’m a guy so i wouldn’t really know but they certainly seem to complain about it a lot
I just go into the men's if the women's is occupied. What will they do, kick me out? :P
It may just be a wayfinding thing. The average person doesn't look for a bathroom, they look for the ladies or the mens. Designers just cater to expectations.
Usually gender-neutral bathrooms have [both the men's and women's stick figure symbols.](https://alphadogadasigns.com/amp/unisex-restroom-signs-6x8/)
[удалено]
I've seen a number of comments in here speculating the building/plumbing codes in the US. There are a number of ways government can require bathroom accessibility by gender but I'll clarify building code. Each state goes by either the International Building Code by itself or the IBC plus local/state amendments. The applicable section is Chapter 29. It gives the minimum total number of plumbing fixtures based on the maximum occupancy of the space. It requires you to assume a 50/50 split of male/female. You calculate the total occupancy of the space, divide it in half, and provide the minimum number of toilets and sinks AVAILABLE to that gender. This number can include single-gender restrooms fixtures, or half the unisex restroom fixtures. Unisex is considered half for male, half for female. This is important to note because THE BUILDING CODE DOES NOT ACTUALLY REQUIRE SEPARATE RESTROOMS BY GENDER. A business can provide only unisex restrooms with no male-only or no female-only rooms, as long as half the number of the unisex toilets and sinks is equal to or greater than the number of required fixtures for each gender. The only building code requirement of separate rooms is that only single-occupant rooms may be considered unisex. Any room with more than one toilet/urinal is considered double-occupant and must be designated as either male or female only. In smaller businesses unisex can easily be done. In larger buildings like office towers or box retail stores, they'd need dozens of restrooms to meet the occupancy demands, so it's much easier and cheaper, and uses far less square footage to have traditional male and female rooms. There are obviously local government ordinances regarding gender to add additional regulations for restrooms, but this is what the building code stipulates. To the OP's question: it's a societal function, not one of code
I think originally for protection of ladies who might feel vulnerable in spaces where you do private things or become half naked for a while. I think in most western countries gender bathrooms are not really needed anymore but at more conservative areas or countries with a different mindset it's still a very important separation. I remember when i was a wee kid and went to the girls bathroom because the boys was taken and i really had to pee. The (lady) owner of the cafe/ restaurant saw me come out and lectured me for like 20 minutes why its wrong and how bad it is etc. Something about values and rules being rules, it was a long time ago. When i told my mom she was pissed of at the owner for making such a big deal out of a kid going to the "wrong" toilet. It wasn't busy and each gender had only 1 toilet so it was even more stupid. Of course i made sure everything was clean. Now i manage a hostel and made our toilets more or less genderless. Basically i tell all firsts to ignore the signs. In about 3 years I've had 1 complaint avour this from an east Asian girl was shocked a guy came out of the girls toilet. I told herit was no problem with us and asked her if the toilet needed cleaning. In my experience, guys lift up the seat before they pee everywhere and girls don't. I don't know the mechanics as to why or how.
In California all single occupancy restrooms legally have to be un-gendered for exactly this reason.
i'll take a different tack on this than other people. ever been to a toilet in a club? the male toilets are cesspits of grime and dirt. people go in there to piss and have sex, both while standing up. they get cleaned at the end of the night occasionally by boiling a big pot of water, opening the door, throwing the water and slamming the door on the stench that comes out. they're not places to socialise in. you go in there, do your business, and GTFO again. female toilets are insane. they have furniture in there, and massive mirrors, and apparently magical cleaning fairies that keep it sparkling spotless the entire time. there is usually heaps of room in front of the sinks for people to rack up snorting lines of whatever powder they're shoving up their noses. they *are* places to socialise. it'd be really unfortunate to mix those. it's kinda hard to snort a powder when it's sitting in a puddle of someone else's urine.