May 7, 2024 - 10:00am
Did you know the toilet in your home is gender-neutral? Following the news that single-sex toilets are to become a legal requirement in all new public premises, there have been plenty of commentators eager to remind us of this fact. Not for the first time, this has been presented as some stunning gotcha, destined to silence any woman dreading the thought of her arse coming into contact with a toilet seat that has been touched by the arse of a man. Chill out, Karen! It’s already happened!
As arguments go, it is not particularly compelling. Mine is a mixed-sex household (believe it or not, some aren’t), but toilet use is limited to the five people who live here, plus any visitors we choose to let in. In this sense, our toilet is far more exclusionary than any single-sex public loo. Do the people who make the “gender-neutral at home” argument offer up their own toilets for use by any passers-by? I suspect not, yet theirs is an argument predicated on ignoring that there is an important distinction between private and public space. Given the history of public toilet provision for women, it is telling, to say the least.
To look at current debates surrounding single-sex spaces, one could be forgiven for thinking that the only reason one would want a female-only public toilet is to make those who are not permitted to use it feel bad — that, and some weird shared-use paranoia. The charity Mermaids — perhaps hoping to make everyone forget about the Cass Review — has been quick to bemoan the idea of individuals not being “made to feel welcome” when paying a call. The single-sex toilet is, in the eyes of some, a reactionary, conservative concept. Yet sex-specific toilet provision has been central to women’s inclusion in public life. It is those who seek to eradicate it who are trying to turn back time.
Victorian campaigners against the so-called “loo leash” were conscious that the absence of public toilet provision for women tied them to the home, regardless of who did or didn’t get to use the chamber pot while in there. More recent campaigners such as Rose George and Caroline Criado-Perez have pointed out that it is not enough to provide the same number of toilets for women as for men; women use toilets differently and require more time, meaning a fairer ratio of women’s to men’s toilets would be 2:1.
Female-only toilets are essential for women’s privacy and safety, given men’s greater propensity for flashing, voyeurism and sexual assault. To view all this as “excluding” is to see it purely from a male perspective. Female toilet provision is about granting female people equal access to public space, space from which we — not male people — have long been excluded due to men’s violence and their creation of resources which centre their bodily needs. We are nowhere close to having this equality yet.
As most women will know, even public spaces which have both male and female toilets tend to have far longer queues for the ladies’. To witness the latter opening up to male users in the name of inclusion has been galling (more often than not, the men’s remains the men’s — and even if it doesn’t, one cannot identify into being able to use a urinal). True inclusion would mean creating more women’s facilities than men’s. In the meantime, if we cannot have that, ensuring that sex-specific toilets for women are in all new builds is a start.
Because Kemi Badenoch has taken a stand on this issue, it will of course be argued that what is, in practical terms, a requirement which supports female participation in life beyond the home is actually a “Tory culture war”. I will hear none of it. To those who say “your toilet at home is gender-neutral”, I would politely point out that women are allowed to have an existence beyond it.
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SubscribeYou know, I don’t know how many sob stories on reality TV or TikTiok I’ve heard about “I was picked on relentlessly so I showed the bullies and became a great person”. It’s like a continual testimony that bullying works. It’s so natural amongst kids, that literally ALL of us can remember a time we were ‘bullied’. Yet here we are telling kids to accept everyone and bullying is bad and what do we get? This woke ass nonsense that’s destroying society.
Having known nothing about the show, I recently came across the book What Not To Wear. In it the two of them contrast good and bad styles for various given problem areas.
It was certainly interesting, but very much highlighted to me that their recommendations are really quite subjective. Yes, a preference for symmetry and “healthy” looks is probably universal, but even what the latter means has varied quite a bit over time. When it comes to clothes, then, there are plenty of clashing opinions.
I think that’s where the classist and snobbishness accusations come from: a sense that these particular opinions were being elevated above all else.
Trinity and Suzannah are a pair of nasty privileged women. I am unsurprised that you like them.
Living in another country I’ve never had a chance to watch that show but it sounds like something I would have enjoyed. I find the show Absolutely Fabulous Hilarious.
AbFab is totally different, and yes it was extremely funny.
A couple of decades ago, Joan Rivers, a brilliant and brutal comedian who got her start back in the Sixties, had a show where she critiqued the gowns that actresses were wearing on the red carpet for the Oscars. I like watching the mostly beautiful gowns, and then I discovered Joan’s show. Her takedowns of the actress’s gowns, were hilarious. Gowns I would have thought were pretty, suddenly were outrageously ugly. She never attacked the women’s looks, after all they were all gorgeous. But the dresses were fair game. I guess for Joan, and me, it was a way to make us feel better about ourselves. But it was not very nice.
I was with it until “Women are all in this together.”
Maybe I’d read better if I scrolled faster.
“massive knockers”.
I have enjoyed Ms Stock’s writing in this organ for sometime. A very thoughtful and intelligent person who writes clearly for the likes of me.
However, seeing use the phrase “massive knockers” makes me forever her slave.
They were wonderful, educational and empowering for women, encouraging everyone to work with their positive features rather than emphasizing the negative. I miss them.
If only we’d known at the time! I remember the uproar every time a female politician (or other prominent figure) was criticised for her fashion choices. This was sexist, and would never be done to man. If only we’d realised at the time that it was actually empowering.
I can’t say I ever watched it. Probably caught a glimpse and decided it wasn’t for me. Of all the things to get nostalgic about, female meanness seems an odd choice.
Besides, there’s still plenty of it on the internet, and men are still a socially acceptable target. Take, for example, the various bizarre “relationship tests” doing the rounds.
And there’s plenty of anti female female stuff if that’s what you’re looking for, though it tends to focus on genuinely poor female behaviour rather than bad clothing choices.
I thought our overlords were the patriarchy. Have I missed some sort of revolution? Why are people still blaming the patriarchy for stuff? Confused!
Great entertaining article KS ( Nice to have a break from overly worthy up-tight stuffy pants articles !!!) I always thought of T&S as the Fashionista Storm-troopers but they were hilarious & never did take themselves TOO seriously….blimey it wasn’t all that long ago but WTF has happened to our ability to differentiate between humour & po-faced outrage at any alternative view to the approved doctrine….The hideous nonsense of ‘Be Kind’ parroted by the real social fascists of today would be funny if it wasn’t utterly depressing & grim
What has happened? Tony Blair made our kids all go to university to be brain washed by humourless, nihilist Marxists. The result has been to almost completely expunge British eccentricity and individuality and replace it with a group think adherence that would have impressed a pre enlightenment Pope.
In Cambridge Arts Theatre’s “Cinderella” this year there aren’t any Ugly Sisters – they’re “Wicked Sisters”, but at least they’re still blokes in frocks
But “wicked” in youth speak means “great” or presumably when it comes to looks very attractive
No no no. That’s wikkid!
You ain’t down wid da kidz like wot I iz, old thing
You are just down with the dyslexic ones
Brilliantly observed and laugh out loud funny, kathleen Stock is fast becoming a national treasure.
If I may add one absurdity to the pile, I recently heard a young (overweight, very average) young woman on an American panel discussion say that she had spent a great deal of money on therapy to convince herself that she is a 10 out 10 when it comes to beauty.
This “women are all tens stuff” is very striking, though I don’t know how widespread it really is. The idea seems to be that you should be confident and full of self belief – rather than that women actually are. Though it does seem to be the case that women overestimate themselves relative to men.
Uh, men overestimate themselves, too. It’s called trying to get a date with a good looking person.
‘The sociologist Angela McRobbie has even written about its “post-feminist symbolic violence” towards working-class women, in the form of “public humiliation of people for their failure to adhere to middle-class standards in speech or appearance”.’
What on earth is post feminist symbolic violence. Well we loved it, watched it every week, I didn’t realise they were slammed by socioligists with no sense of humour.
‘ The transgressively unrestrained jibes were equally distributed, it seemed to me.’
I agree, the ladies in our house didn’t feel like persecuted working class women anyway, do you think the sociologist lady actually asked any working class ladies what they thought before she got her pen out to protect us from’ post feminist symbolic violence,’.
‘ spitting out their damning verdicts in cut-glass tones with an air of pernickety feudal lords,’
This is so funny. That’s what we used to do when we watched it too. Probably without the cut glass tones though and more swearing. It’s very cathartic.
‘I think that most of us looked on with sympathetic fellow feeling, and came away with some relief and even hope. Instead of private, shame-filled self-chastisement about a particular problem area, perhaps we could just accept that everybody has one or two of the blasted things, then go shopping to celebrate.’
Absolutely. They did do a good job too, the transformations using just clothes, hair and makeup were pretty fabulous, I’m pretty sure most of the ladies that took part were really pleased too.
‘ Back then, we even called them Trinny and Tranny and nobody lost their jobs’
Can we have those days back please.
“Women are all in this together, was the underlying subtext”. Except that’s not really true is it. Nature is very unfair in its distribution of physical comeliness. This is something that will always cause disappointment and resentment in the less lucky ones. And it is something that tends to get shied away from in journalism…. the huge difference between the fortunes of what one might term the More and the Less Desired of each sex. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired. The huge intra-sexual differences between the experiences of prettiest women and the less attractive ones; and between confident ‘alpha’ males and ‘betas’ rarely gets acknowledged.
So there’s ‘What Not to Say’ and then there’s ‘What Not to Notice’.
I, too, watched WNTW with my bootcuts “flapping round my ankles” and think you’ve got this spot-on, and given me a laugh in the process! Far better to swap the polo neck for the scoop, than to be marched off for nips and tucks à la “Ten Years Younger”…
I never watched Trinny and Susannah, but I do also miss the almost casual cruelty of TV in the noughties. Not the cruelty itself, but the freedom of expression that made it possible. We have indeed lost that.
I loved them. They were super funny and yes, they managed to get all shapes and sizes looking good in the right clothes.
Typo:
“Yet strangely, this doesn’t seem to have made women any less content.”
“…any more content”.
Thanks for rectifying.
Stock is really getting into the whole reactionary gammon thing isn’t she. All for a few clicks from the swivel eyed loons. Slightly sad isn’t it?
Not so sure about that, but I do feel that she is perhaps re evaluating feminist ideas from the past which she perhaps once agreed with. I thought this was evident in her book as well.
I wasn’t that keen on this piece. TV programmes based on low level meanness just aren’t my cup of tea. The only good thing about it is that it is a timely illustration of what is wrong with the Manichaen men bad, women good view of things.
To me the article, which I enjoyed, basically highlighted the freedom of speech which we have lost to the snow flake, “I’ve been insulted generation”. It was a show of its time, and obviously appealed to many people, me being one of them. One could at least learn something from it, and the participants took part willingly.
The loss of this show might partly explain why our TV news presenters are so badly dressed. I swear I’ve seen Ugg boots on one presenter. And no, they weren’t on location they were in the studio!
And yes it does matter. You’re on TV for crying out loud. Make an effort. It’s pathetic.
What nonsense you old codgers talk!
OMG – not Ugg boots! It’ll be jeggings next!
Note to Poppy Sowerby: This is how to write intelligently about popular culture.
You’re channelling your inner Trinny there, Geoff.
I prefer to think of it as my Knowall Goodall, Lancs.
Sad, old man. You probably believe that young people should be seen but not heard. Poppy is a different generation from Kathleen and writes about a different generation with an understanding that many of the people she writes for are detached from her subject matter.
Not really. Poppy might one day match Kathleen Stock’s wit and insight, but she’s not there yet. This is not a criticism, just an observation that she’s younger and less experienced.
The difference between the neo-Victorians and the originals is that the neo-Victorians manage to be both priggish and crass. The Victorians may have been a bunch of self-righteous stuffed shirts, but at least they had manners. Today’s Grundys will attempt to shut down behavior they find objectionable in the most offensive, confrontational way possible, and believe that doing so is a sign of moral character. And for extra churlishness, their prudery is based not on a genuine concern for improving public morals but out of ideological one-upmanship and totalitarian political peevishness, making them more kin to the Maoist Red Guards than to Bowdler or Comstock.
The neos never had the advantages of the Church of England.
We used to be able to laugh at ourselves in a time not that long ago. People took themselves less seriously and felt no need to pose in faux outrage on behalf of some group that never asked to be pitied.
There is an unmentioned difference, too, between these women and the Cowell/Ramsey programs. The two guys are bashing people to their faces in an environment where the point is to be a humorless a$$ho!e, not to make crack one-liners.
“We used to be able to laugh at ourselves”
I still laugh at you all the time…
“I still laugh at you all the time…”
But not at yourself, which both makes his point and explains your own inability to ever say anything insightful or perceptive.
Took the words right out of my mouth!
Well there is a lot about you to laugh at
That’s two upvotes from me already. The rest has done you good. You’re on form.
What a hoot! I used to watch the US version for years, and it was VERY different. A lot tamer. Probably a lot less fun.
LOL I used to think (US show) Stacey was too brutal at times — but I realize now that I felt this way because she wasn’t funny! And she didn’t turn the spotlight on herself like these two did.
Excellent point that “the televisual theatre of cruelty didn’t disappear, it just changed tack.” I watched Ramsay for a while, but eventually felt disgusted and stopped. Such a small man.