A place of camaraderie and bonding
The Independent tells us that women just love women’s toilets.
We do?????
I must not be a woman then; I don’t love any public toilets, because they’re, you know, public toilets. It’s not exactly a luxury environment, nor is it a breezy bright day in the mountains. It’s a public toilet.
Public spaces where women feel entirely safe can be few and far between: a 2019 report by the Trades Union Congress found one in two women have been sexually harassed at work. Survey data from reviews site FitRated found 71 per cent of women have had an uncomfortable interaction at the gym, and a YouGov survey last year found that 55 per cent of women in London have been a victim of some form of sexual behaviour by a stranger on public transport.
But! But! There is one saving grace.
Enter the women’s bathroom, a place of camaraderie and bonding.
A place of what?
That’s where women have to go to find safety and camaraderie? That’s pathetic.
Whether it’s at the giant loos in Wetherspoons (and those central fountain-style sinks), the toilets at crowded train stations or at your favourite club, complete with a friendly attendant who has lollipops, hair grips and hairspray on hand, the feeling of the ladies bathrooms is unmatched.
Oh yes the toilets at crowded train stations are divine, if you can even find any.
A night out at a club has many highlights; there’s getting ready with friends, pre-drinking in the taxi, the strangers you meet in the smoking area, but there’s nothing quite like the girls you meet in the bathroom. “Those interactions with kind strangers are something that a lot of people, including myself, have been missing since Covid,” Bella says.
Ah well, there’s my problem, I’m not acquainted with this “night out at a club” phenomenon, and don’t want to be. It sounds repulsive. And it kind of has to be repulsive, doesn’t it, if the highlight is hanging out in the toilets?
For Joss Prior, 45, these girls provided a sense of safety on her first Pride since she transitioned to living as a trans woman.
But you were just saying the toilets were the one safe place for women. Joss Prior, 45, is a man.
Never mind, I have to go get dressed up to hang out in the sewer. You wouldn’t believe how much fun we have down there.
It’s hard to believe that the author of the article is serious, and yet I’m afraid that she (he?) probably is.
What? This isn’t your everyday public restroom experience? I’m flabbergasted. Flabbergasted, I tell you.
Nullius @2 That’s what I was thinking, too much Hollywood. Most people are just there to take care of business and get the hell out asap. I dunno about women’s loos, but that’s how I’ve always done it. Small talk in the shithouse is creepy. :P
Comraderie and bonding elsewhere ffs, don’t be gross. It stinks in there.
“Meeting in the ladies room
Be back real soon!”
I can honestly say I have never bonded in a restroom. Some days I might actually have a short conversation about the long line, but that’s it. Most of the time, it’s rush in, do what you need to do, wash your hands, and leave. No small talk, no camaraderie, no bonding.
Speaking as a man — which I believe means you need to give me extra credibility — I always found bathrooms with attendants weird and awkward. Like, I’m just there to take a piss and wash my hands and get out, and now I’ve got some guy controlling the towels, and I’m obliged to tip him or else I’m a jerk? (It’s another example of America’s weird tipping culture, but that’s a whole separate topic — internet discussions of tipping are trainwrecks, so please forget I mentioned it.) And I manage to use the bathroom several times a day without needing mints or aftershave or whatever the hell else they’re offering.
Maybe women’s restrooms are different and a ton of bonding goes on there — the old stereotype of how women all go to the restroom together — but I doubt it.
Obligatory Simpsons reference: Homer sneaks into a (deserted) women’s bathroom to see what it’s like and exclaims “well I’ll be! There’s a sofa in here!”
I can remember hiding in the toilets during breaks when I was in school, but it wasn’t so much about the bonding and camaraderie as about avoiding going outside in the cold and rain. Once you’ve outgrown running around like a wild animal between classes, the school playground just becomes a different area of the child prison.
That aside, anyone who writes a whole article about how the public crapper is the only place women can feel safe needs to have a good long think about what’s wrong with the world.
Screechy@#7:
I have been told that there are lots of such jobs in America where the tips are the bulk if not !00% of the pay. So it’s a kind of grazing rights situation. But I may be wrong.
The writer seems to think that club toilets are full of moments like this, and never this.
In addition to bonding in public toilets, women love to make their skirts spin round. There’s also the frequent pillow fights.
And a particularly disgusting man, at that. The more an article quotes Joss Prior, the more likely I am to dismiss everything else it says, too. And the publication it rode in on. I don’t think Prior is even capable of telling the truth, even by accident.
Women’s restrooms used to be a place of privacy and a place to get away from dealing with men for a few minutes. Now men like Mr. Prior use Male size and strength (all the intimidation they usually need) to get their jenda feels off by forcing themselves into our spaces. All women are now supposed to be emotional care slaves for these men.
Screechy @ 7 – They’re not. They’re really really not. You get in and get out (I do and others do).
Maybe in workplaces they can become a hangout space, but other than that I just don’t believe it. There’s no incentive to linger.
Toilets a hangout space? In my experience not a chance. Well, maybe if you’re ten and hiding from the teacher. I was watching some movie years ago with a bunch of (mostly) female friends. There was a scene in a toilet with women hanging out, having a convo, redoing their makeup and generally discussing the world with total strangers. I asked if that’s really what female bathrooms were like and got a collection of stares that suggested I’d just done a rail of coke in Church and then stripped naked and washed in the baptismal font. I took that as a no.
Yep, that’s a big no. In my experience you keep your eyes to yourself at the sink and get out as briskly as possible.
It’s another one of those revolting Sex and the City type myths. I bet those women would hang out in the toilets for hours doing their makeup and gossiping, but those women are as preposterous as flying elephants.
What, exactly, does Joxx love about the public women’s lavatory?
Wherever I’ve worked, the restrooms were not hangout spaces. Conversations may start there, but when ‘business’ was done, people left, and the conversation was continued (or not) elsewhere. Kitchens, break areas, and other common areas were the hangout areas.