Virginia Blackburn
AT LAST a little common sense: an Oxford college has decided not to create gender neutral loos on the grounds that they would make women “feel uncomfortable”. Thank heavens for that. “Feel uncomfortable” doesn’t begin to describe it: loos are places for private functions and having some bloke hanging about is torture. I briefly worked in some millennial-run copywriting agency and the loos were unisex. It was agony. You could see everyone, men and women alike, trying to judge when only their own gender was in situ and dashing in when the coast was clear. Either that or crossing their legs.
I gather that men feel as uncomfortable as women in these opento-all-sexes spaces but it is still no surprise that the college that has refused to go with the flow is Somerville, which started out as all-female. Because what people are totally ignoring is that there was a reason some places were for men or women only and it wasn’t just Victorian prudery.
People are vulnerable in places that require them to shed some clothing and nor do most women want men around when they are engaged in the more antisocial bodily functions. There is a famous poem that I cannot alas repeat here about one man’s disillusionment when he found out that his beloved required a lavatory for a reason. It’s nice to preserve a little mystery at all times.
One bit of “gender neutral” policy pre-dates the current lunacy and it is mixed hospital wards, which have been around for years. They have been a complete disaster, foisting indignity and embarrassment on people who were already in an extremely vulnerable position. Research released this year said that