“Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing”
edited by Harvey Molotch and Laura Norén
Chapter 1: Introduction by Harvey Molotch
The Influence of Gender Within Public Restrooms
Society has designed bathrooms physically, culturally, and behaviorally with the belief that there are only two genders, which are often depicted in opposition. The identification of gender, within American bathrooms, has led to the establishment of a hierarchical gender, male. It also is excluding other individuals who don’t identify with the socially constructed genders: male and female. Women are constantly waiting in lines to use a public bathroom, while men often don’t, and this is directly related to the fewer toilets in women’s bathrooms than men. However, to improve the inequality, their efforts went towards designing toilets and accessories that allowed women to pee standing up, like a man, instead of increasing the square footage of the women’s, so both restrooms have the same number of toilets (Molotch 5).
Figure 1: Women are almost always forced to wait in line for the restrooms in public, while there rarely ever a line for the men’s
The Governance of Public Bathrooms
On page 7, Molotch states that “the personal is political”, which is establishing the strong presence of politics seen within the establishment of public bathrooms. The governance of public bathrooms has also been used to discriminate towards others based on class, race, ability, gender, and other social identifiers. Bathrooms have many different uses beside disposing waste, for example, individuals use it to do drugs, to sleep, to have sex, to steal, commit crimes, chat, and smoke (Molotch 9). Molotch suggests the design be improved to create a safe and sterile environment for the users.
Figure 2: Bathrooms were segregated by men, ladies, and colored, and were seen as superior in the social public.
The Physical and the Social
The behavioral and social patterns that have emerged within public restrooms, have a strong influence from the restroom’s physical configuration. Women’s facilities were designed to be almost completely private, with inclusion of some open space for surveillance. The design of women’s toilets also creates health issues with the potential exposure of diseases from the toilet, and even the physical effects of eliminating the need to squat. On the contrary, male’s facilities were design to influence erotic, sexual acts with the publicness of the urinals. Bathrooms have been designed to benefit abled men, while women and individuals who struggle with disabilities find these public facilities discomforting and difficult to use and access. This has pushed many individuals, especially women, back into their homes (Molotch 12).
Figure 3: Women’s restrooms had individual, private toilet rooms/stalls creating a stigma of privacy around restrooms, especially for women.
Chapter 7: Sex Separation: The Cure-All for Victorian Social Anxiety by Terry S. Kogan
The Separation of Sexes
During the nineteenth century, women were expected to follow the social role of “moral women” (Kogan 146). They were expected to live the domesticated lifestyle: morally responsible and religious. In the late-nineteenth century, policymakers instituted toilet separation laws as a reaction to the social anxieties around women leaving the homestead and entering into the workforce. The 1887 Factories and Workshops Act, which demanded these industries have the proper sanitation rooms, also required those who employed women to provide them with a water-closet and wash-room that wasn’t already used by the male employees. When the diseases started to spread, due to the increase of people involved in the public, the Americans blamed it on moral failure – individuals who didn’t abide by the role of the “moral women” (Kogan 146).
Figure 4: When women joined the workforce facilities like factories were required to install ladies only rest rooms.
The Regulation of Women Within the Public Realm
As women entered the public realm, there was a major push back from society. Architecture was designed to keep the women segregated from the men, and the women’s rooms were, generally, heavily decorated like the domestic homes’ society believed women should reside in. Libraries tended to exclude women, and those who did, built a women’s section that was completely cut off from the rest of the library. The rooms were also decorated like a private house, and only provided magazines about fashion and home advice. Their bathrooms were tucked away into a private area to supposedly protect the “true women” (Kogan 151) modesty. Other public spaces, like the parlor and railroad cars, also became divided by gender as it was said to protect women, but it didn’t. Instead, it communicated a cultural message that women belong back in their homes where it is supposedly safer for them (Kogan 152).
See image at this link
Figure 5: Women’s domesticated, public library
Figure 6: 19th century library for only men
Bibliography
“Chapter 1: Introduction.” Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, by Harvey Luskin Molotch, W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library, 2020.
“Chapter 7: Sex Separation: The Cure-All for Victorian Social Anxiety.” Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, by Terry S Kogan, W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library, 2020.
Image Sources
Cover photo: The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-be-separated-by-sex-in-the-first-place-59575
Figure 1: TODAY.com, https://www.today.com/health/covid-bathrooms-t184898
Figure 2: NAVIGATION: Historical Context, www.stalled.online/historicalcontext-navigation.
Figure 3: The Week- All You Need to Know about Everything That Matters, https://theweek.com/articles/621109/brief-history-ladies-bathroom
Figure 4: The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-be-separated-by-sex-in-the-first-place-59575
Figure 5: Alamy, stock-photo-young-women-reading-in-library-of-a-washington-dc-normal-schools-that-50048684.html
Figure 6: Boston Public Library, https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/celebrating-165-years-the-bpl-through-time-and-place/
I found this topic very interesting as I normally equate inequalities in bathrooms to racial segregation, but it’s interesting to learn about how the bathroom was made for the man and didn’t take into account women’s needs.
This information is so important to the development of restrooms in the united states. I think this post is very well executed and informative to the problems with gendered restrooms in modern times.
Your post is very well-organized, and I really appreciate the use of time-period images to go along with your headings. I didn’t know about the 1887 Factories and Workshops Act that mandated separate bathrooms for women. I find it interesting how society struggled with integrating social norms for women into the workplace, and that a stigma resulted around privacy of restrooms. Nice job!
These are very interesting and important topics that should’ve been discussed more! It’s crazy how sometimes designs that tries to be fair or understanding, can end up promoting inequality with or without conscious. Your choice of images supports the information very well. good work!
This post is very organized and the information was very intriguing. I found it interesting that women’s restrooms were modeled after domestic homes to encourage segregation. This was a great post.
Information was easy to locate and interesting to read. I find it funny that women weren’t even given access to public restrooms until the late 19th century and even today we are still at a disadvantage because there are fewer stalls which means that it is more time consuming for women than men, giving them yet another advantage
Your post tackles a very interesting topic, and the information you added is very informative. The layout was also very easy to follow.
Very interesting topic! I love the overall layout of your post and it was very interesting to learn how the bathroom design for women’s bathrooms was influenced by the male’s role in society.
Your Post in very easy to read and understand your points as well as the layout being exceptional with related pictures being next to relevant text.
I found your post to be extremely enlightening. I was shocked to realize that women’s public restrooms were used as a demeaning medium of segregation. To realize that even in libraries, restrooms were placed in a section of the library entirely separate from the main library in order to communicate how women were unwelcome. It is also frustrating to note how these policies were put in place in the name of preserving “modesty” when it was just blatant sexism to force women back into the domestic sphere.