UNISEX toilets are popping up in restaurants in the West and have created heated debates in distinguished newspapers, globally. All the while, when many Malaysian eateries don’t even have restrooms, let alone gender specific ones.
This fact leads me to wonder: are the local outlets more progressive than their Western counterparts or have we missed the boat long enough to be fashionably ahead of the game despite being ourselves?
During a recent virtual stroll through my hometown’s newspaper breaking news section, I came upon a passionate discussion about a restaurant owner resenting the city council for fining him over his hip outlet’s unlawful unisex toilets. The epitome of first world problems, you say? I beg to differ.
How did gender-specific bathrooms come to be, anyway? And why aren’t there any in our homes? Historically, in the Victorian era of the 19th century, women started to leave their traditional place of competence, their homes, to join men in theirs, textile mills and other factories.
In the then predominant spirit of separate spheres ideology, the delicate, so-called weaker sex had to be protected from the crude public world of men. Or did they? Segregated work places ensued, as well as separated train sections, library reading rooms, photography studios, hotels, banks and department stores.
The fact that ladies don’t need this level of protection in the civic realm has long been established.
Restrooms, however, have somehow escaped this development.
Women are still victims of many gender-based injustices, most of them no laughing matter. But, one we generally agree to clench our teeth and smile about is the fact that, be it at the movies, at the airport or even during school recess, the queues in front of the ladies’ is always so much longer than at the gents’.
This fact has led the more adventurous, or more desperate ones, among us to throw caution to the wind and step through the wrong door. These carefree ladies usually re-emerge unharmed and quite relieved from the “Lelaki” section.
Restrooms often have a very bad reputation, worse than they deserve. True stories interweave with urban legends of people getting conned, children being abducted and late night visitors finding themselves locked in until the next morning. Such anecdotes are covered in the press with astonishing regularity. But, the dilemma of the linguistically inapt tourist who doesn’t know which comfort station to choose and the distress of the mother of a little boy who clearly shouldn’t be left alone “in there” is always very real.
I don’t like public bathrooms any better than the next person, but I do have to admit that I have had my fair share of interesting, intriguing and, on occasion, even entertaining encounters while queuing. I have met long-forgotten relatives who hadn’t mention they were in town. I have made new friends while considering some people’s evident lack of good manners. And I have shared a chuckle and an awkward stare as well.
So, I plead for gender-neutral washrooms. The benefits are countless. For example, it would eradicate at least one instance of great gender-based favouritism in the world. It would make potty breaks a lot less traumatic for mothers with little lads and fathers with wee princesses. It would greatly help foreigners as well as androgynous-looking people to save face, not a task to be underestimated in the age of man-buns and ladies pantsuits. It would curtail some owners’ vexing sense of humour as far as creative signage goes. It would debunk the canards of men’s superior ability to aim at an intended target. In fact, I’m not sure this will pass as a benefit. And on a more serious note, its obvious space efficiency could allow even small venues to offer their patrons the luxury of an in-house loo.
This idea seems too progressive for comfort? I bet that’s how many felt when public schools became inclusive. Or when aforementioned railroad coaches, libraries and department stores ended their segregating tendencies. And come to think of it, nobody seems too bothered by unisex lavatories on airplanes either.
Let me leave you with this little jewel to ponder over the weekend: I recently stumbled upon a social media post illustrating an establishment where (mostly) youngsters of both sexes happily pee together — courtesy of your local, and very public, swimming pool!
Fanny Bucheli-Rotter is a long-term expatriate, a restless traveller, an observer of the human condition, and unapologetically insubordinate.