Body Inequality

In the midst of a traumatic world event week, although I’m not sure there is such a thing as a week without traumatic events happening, I’m going to willfully avoid talking about that and write instead about something that is closer to my heart, namely, my bladder. Luckily most of us have one. And they function in more or less the same way. They get filled up, liquid needs to be released. And because we are out in public so frequently, we need a place to do this. Hence the development of public restrooms. Personally, I would rather piss in the woods than use a public restroom. It’s cleaner. But that is not always possible. I find myself, like many other women waiting in line at convenience stores, restaurants, etc to use the ‘Ladies Room.’ even if there is an adjacent, completely vacant “Mens Room”. Even if it is a single room, no man in site, empty bathroom right in front of us, women will wait in their assigned line. Like sheep. 

Yes, I own this tshirt which I bought shortly after I bought a SheWee which is amazingly useful if you spend a lot of time outside.

Years ago, I started using whatever single person public restroom was available. Like, you know, in Dunks. Many times, to the disgust of the women in the line for the ‘Ladies’ room, I’ve sauntered into the vacant ‘Mens’ room, always asking if anyone in front of me would like to use it first, because it would be rude to jump the line. And despite not one other woman volunteering, I get side eye. I understand that public men’s bathrooms are generally somewhat grosser than women’s public restrooms, but c’mon they’re all fairly disgusting so why wait in line unnecessarily. Sometimes a woman will glance skeptically into the ‘mens room’ as though….what? There was a unicorn hiding behind the door? A federal agent waiting to hand out a summons? A couple of times upon exiting the men’s room, there would be a dude waiting outside the door, a little surprised to see me, but no big deal. Why should there be? And for the record, I’ve never received a fine or met a unicorn.

One day I asked my husband and sons how it felt to walk by a long line of women waiting to use a bathroom as they walked straight into their demarcated bathroom to do the exact thing the women were waiting to do. My very socially aware husband shrugged and said he didn’t feel anything. He had never thought about it. It was just the way it was. My sons avoided the question and moved away in that, ‘mom’s about to get weird again,’ sort of way. 

This last year, I’ve gotten braver. Not so much as to make a point (ok, maybe a little bit), but sometimes you just need to pee and don’t have a lot of time. AND it’s humiliating to wait in line while watching men come and go as they please. Not only humiliating, it’s unacceptable. On occasion, I’ve asked Bob to check in the mens room to see if there’s an empty stall and if so, I go in and use it. Some men get weirded out when they see me washing my hands at the sink. Which makes no sense. I mean I could understand if I was peering over their shoulder at the urinals, but no one wants to do that. Not one person of any gender. And if they do, that’s a whole other thing entirely.

A couple of weeks ago my family was at a county fair and we only had a few minutes to hit the restroom, find the booth that sold the good french fries in a cardboard dog bowl and make it in time to see the Flying Wallendas. The Ladies room line was, I kid you not, 30 deep. The mens room… no line whatsoever. If I waited in ‘my’ line, I would miss the fries and the show and that would be sad. Bob told me there were several open stalls in the mens room. There was also a restroom attendant by the door with a tip jar. I walked in without making eye contact and went straight to a stall. You would have thought a python had slithered in. The attendant started shouting that there was a woman inside who had no business being in there. It was as though he had never in his life seen such an abnormality and he couldn’t stop angrily and loudly alerting everyone within miles about this abomination. I finished up, washed, and exited the restroom. The furious attendant yelled “And she’s not even going to leave a tip”. I turned toward him.

“You don’t belong here.” he said, eyes wild with fury.

“It’s just a bathroom.” I answered. 

“You belong over there.” He yelled pointing toward the woman’s building.

 “Why? Why should anyone have to wait when there are open stalls here?” I could hear myself ramping up.

“Because that’s the way it is!” (I didn’t answer)

“Because that’s how it’s always been!”

“BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE A DICK?!” I yelled, taking a step toward him.

Bob quickly took my arm and led me away, before I became unhinged. On the way past the ‘Womens line’, I tried to persuade those waiting that they, too, could use the mens room. They looked away from me and held their children a little closer until I left. 

I chewed on that interaction for a long time. About the entitlement men have to not even notice the freedom they have over bodily functions that we identically possess. I don’t think it’s poor design, but a piece of gender oppression. It’s a baked into a societal fear of not having enough privacy to take a shit when someone of a potentially different gender is within an arbitrary distance away from them. Personally I don’t like anyone near me when I’m doing my business, gendered, non-binary, strangers, best friends etc. But if you got to go, you got to go.  

Let’s change the system. Start a revolution by refusing to wait in bathroom lines if it is not necessary. If need be, both men and women wait in line. We all deserve the same access to bodily care. I challenge you to challenge the status quo. Use the available toilet. I did ask the Google and apparently there are some laws in some places about this sort of thing. I don’t care. My prayer to the universe is that if I ever get arrested, I want it to be because I was using an empty restroom stall. 

In peace, equality, and bodily functions, Lorryn