Where's the loo?

Most Cambridge colleges “went mixed” some twenty years ago. But they still preserve unexpected corners of male power and privilege. None of these corners is more irritating than the location of the female loos.

Imagine it. You’re sitting in the SCR – that’s the fellows’ common room – after dinner. You casually ask for the Ladies. The chances are that there will be a bit of a flap, while the equivalent of an AA route map and a compass is produced. It usually involves going out into the courtyard, through the rain, into the next court, up a staircase three doors on the left – only to discover a set of facilities which you know to be decidedly inferior to whatever is laid on for the men, and much less ‘convenient’ in almost every way.

Some colleges, to be fair, are a bit better organised; and my own, I confess, treats male needs with almost equal disdain. But the general rule seems to be that women’s ablutions are lower down the pecking order than men’s.

I have never really understood why single sex loos are necessary, anyway, in a place like a university (King’s Cross station late at night is probably another matter).

Why can’t we just share?

In my more paranoid moments, I strongly suspect that the answer has to do with  men’s urinals being one of the few remaining sites of exclusively male wheeling and dealing. Men will disappear for a pee in the middle of a meeting and come back, after a cosy chat in the loo, with the business fixed.

Women can’t do that. Female toilets are strangely discreet places, for the simple reason that you never know who is locked in the cubicles – invisible, but capable of overhearing every word that’s said. There can hardly be a woman in the land who hasn’t learned her lesson on this one: bitching in colourful terms about a woman who two minutes later emerges to wash her hands.

This was something that repeatedly got Ally McBeal into trouble in that wonderful old television series. As the joke used to go: How do you know if you’re an Ally McBeal fan? Answer: If you look under the toilet stalls to see who’s using them before you start talking.

Surely it would be easier, and an imaginative blow for female power and equality, just to make urinals a thing of the past and put everyone in the same facilities. It’s already common enough in the USA (in fact, Ally’s loo was a ‘unisex’, as I recall). It’s we Brits who have this illogical obsession with urinary segregation – to the extent that we are even known make students use separate toilets from the staff.

. . . So what did the Romans do, you’ll be wondering.

Well domestic loos were something of a rarity. But the evidence from Pompeii suggests that, if they were present at all, the usual location was in the kitchen. There was convenient water supply  and Roman assumptions about hygiene were rather different from our own. Better not to think too hard about the consequences.

Outside, and in places such as baths, they had an excellent line in splendid multi-seaters. like this one from North Africa. Though whether these were also mixed sex we don’t, I think, know.

I’d like to imagine that they were.

Comments

[Xjy]

Here's another link regarding how women can get to pee standing up. I like the name :-)

http://www.femalefreedom.ca/

[loos time man]

I always thought unisex loos were a new idea which can be found at liberal night clubs

[Fred O'Hanlon]

Dear Mary

In despite of somewhat deplorable but fortunately fleeting suggestions of irony, your blog touches upon two matters of considerable moment and great contemporary concern. In a forthcoming paper on evacuation to be published in Vol XXXVIII of Studia Mathematicae Antiquitatis, 2024 (3), I shall tentatively suggest that the fact that Archimedes’ wife chased him along the streets of Syracuse vociferating “You reek, You reek”, constitutes incontrovertible evidence that in middle to late 3rd century BC Sicily it was in fact common practice to pee in the bath.

Archimedes was, let us not forget, the first mathematician to enunciate the second law of genderdynamics, according to which the time it takes a female to get out of a loo is in inverse proportion to the time it takes a male to get to one in the first place.

Fred O’Hanlon

[David Bradbury]

I know of one Roman lavatory which, the guide book claims, was segregated by sex - that at the palatial villa at Oplontis, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Such a large villa demanded large lavatories, which are split in two by a dividing wall. But one quick look at it when I got there made it clear to me why it was actually segregated. One part is quite large - room for at least half-a-dozen seats, if not more, while the smaller section screened off by the wall has room for only two or three seats. If one part had been for men and the other for women, would one not expect them to be roughly of equal size? Even more tellingly, the larger part had the same water channel common in Roman public loos for cleaning one's sponge afterwards, but the smaller part did not. The reason, it occured to me instantly, was the users of this part did not need to clean their sponges - because they had someone else to do it for them. In other words, you have one small area reserved for the owner's family and a larger one for his slaves and freedmen (and women).

[Chris N]

At least women have separate stall. we men have to learn the correct etiquette with regard to the use of a row of urinals. The following is a guide to correct use

http://www.drinknation.com/urinaltest_answers.php

As a student of history I find your blog most entertaining and informative blog, thanks Chris

[Oliver NIcholson]

His Lordship's allusion to Mary's possible age recalls a story about a member of a London club who had lost his umbrella. He went to the Secretary and handed him a suitably worded appeal for its return. The notice read "Would the Nobleman who has stolen my Umbrella Please Return It". "Fine", said the Secretary, "but how do you know it was a nobleman who took it ?" "Because", came the reply, "this is supposed to be a Club for Noblemen and Gentlemen, and no gentleman would have stolen my umbrella".

OPN

[Lord Truth]

There are surely enough sexual hazards for the hapless British-or American -male to negotiate than to introduce a clincher like unisex toilets...
Prof. Beard may well be past her sell by date in this area but the opportunities for screams of rape,attempted rape,assault,attempted assault,indecency,down to "Why you starin at me then?" are nightmarish
to contemplate...its bad enough with being unable to use a urinal without some on the pick up homosexual trying it on-it happened to me once-memorably- with John Geilgud...
These blogs are of course a half amusing venture yet historical details can be irritating..
Surely the rich /middle classes have seldom-until the servantless age of the forties,ever "gone to the toilet"-the toilet always "came"to them in the form of a commode or a chamber pot.In Peter Townsends memoirs he pointed out the lack of toilets at Buckingham Palace.Such toilets would traditionally always be avoided as being potential sources of disease...
I have sat on the seats in the beautifully preserved octagonal public toilet
at Leptis Magna in Libya..Bearing in mind the voluminuos clothing of the times I doubt whether an inch of flesh would be exposed-different to our trousers round the ankles of today...
Most sensible surely was a public toilet in a Beijing suburb,:one peed against an inner wall or squatted (male or female)on the floor over a hole.The building was perched on the side of an embanked road-everything that dropped down was hastily eaten by the black pigs crowding beneath-perfect recycling...
The Scandinavians certainly have a different attitude to these things-quite unlike our own dear land...I once was sitting in the first floor window seat of a youth hostel in central Copenhagen watching people hurrying to work,when suddenly two boys of about twelve stood in the gutter and began sending huge arcs of urine over the heads of the crowd who happily ducked and ran ,laughingly trying to protect their heads with handbags papers etc.-presumably dry cleaning costs are lower there than the UK.
And now perhaps Prof Beard can forget cloacal matters and get off that fence and devote herself to saving the Elgin Marbles.
Unlike ourselves she has,as her next blog shows, ample opportunities to do this.

[Max]

All these people claiming it's taboo for men to talk at urinals must not spend much time in pubs.

[Mary]

Thanks anon; I'm relieved! But some of the other comments seems to suggest that the rule of silence isn't fully observed -- staple of the stand-up though it may be.

Interesting, though, that single-sex loos are one of the few areas of moern life where the behaviour of the opposite sex remains entirely mysterious.

[Anon]

To put your mind at rest, many of the male lavatories in Cambridge colleges (for students and fellows) have no urinals at all, precluding the cosy chat. Furthermore (and this staple of stand-up comedy seems to have inexplicably passed you by) it is simply not done to converse in the lavatory. A brief nod is about as familiar as one can be.

I am still in favour of separate lavatories, simply as a means of providing some degree of protection from allegations of inappropriate behaviour (especially if staff and students share facilities).

[Irene]

Since we are all so frank here, and with regard to women standing up:

Many years ago a friend of mine was assistant to the Dean of Students at one of your universities.

They had an influx of Indian post-grad students who brought their wives along. These women appeared rather unhappy to my friend and she decided to get to the ground of this. It turned out they were all constipated, because they did not want to sit down on the loo.

Luckily, my friend lobbied successfully for Asian style (and French for that matter? -- having had some unhappy experiences there myself) loos to be installed.

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

Mary, this reminds me of the famous riposte of Sir Winston's: when asked by his successor PM at the loo of the House of Commons why was he rather stand-offish, his reply was 'because you will nationalise anything big you see'. So much for the wheeling and dealing in the loo.

[Steve Symmons]

Urinals of Federal Court of Australia - Brisbane
QC for Applicant (now Justice of The High Court of Australia): "Well, do you think we've got a chance?"
Me: "Nope - I can't see you've got a leg to stand on - make the 50th and you leave the Copyright Act's jurisdiction."
QC: "I fear you may be right - but we'll give it our best shot...."
Shake
Wash
Return to Court....

[Oliver NIcholson]

I am not sure what Mary means about male privilege in Oxbridge colleges, In my first year rooms at Oxford, I had to cross one quad for the loo and two for a bath. The facilities were so exiguous that when only a couple of years previously the college consumed a chicken curry at dinner, some gentlemen were obliged to utilize the well-known gardens for a purpose for which they were not intended, and the Master of the Rolls (the - usually pushy - undergraduate elected to care for such matters by the JCR) ran out of paper before breakfast the following morning (a grim collation consisting of black coffee and dry toast).
OPN

[judith@judithweingarten.com]

The first thing I ever dug up in my archaeological career was a Roman toilet at Knossos in 1980. We took hopeful samples of night soil from underneath, floatated it and did all, but the loo was not in situ, so no poo, no diet data, nothing. I'm surprised that my career recovered from the humiliation.
Judith
--

Visit Zenobia's new blog at Empress of the East

[Hadar]

Well, one of the reasons criminologists (particularly of the Situational Crime Prevention persuasion) give to the loo segregation is that it minimizes the opportunities for sexual assaults in bathrooms. Of course, that's not why they segregated them when Cambridge buildings were built. And it doesn't really protect men from sexual assault, does it?

[Candadai Tirumalai]

Your blogs are always witty--and this one hilariously so.
Wasn't Vespasian's (Jackie referred to the special tax he imposed) habitually strained expression ascribed to chronic constipation? Of course the best loo in the world wouldn't have cured that.

[Jackie]

As toilets in private homes were in slave areas (kitchens etc) I don't believe the elite would have been seen dead in them! There is a fair amount of evidence that chamber pots were emptied into the street (hence the stepping stones in Pompeii?) and there were always the poor old slaves to get rid of the detritus.
Urine also had it's commercial uses. Weren't there urinal pots at street corners to collect it for use by the fullers? But again - just for the men! Roman women must have been very good at crossing their legs!

[Xjy]

Women can pee standing up. All the gen at:

http://nbtsc.org/~ganimede/stp.html

And so they can use male urinals doing it, instead of this:

http://flickr.com/search/?w=57423871%40N00&q=patient+creatures&m=text

The traditional morning shit was usually taken at the village ditch/latrine communally as I've understood it. Men and women separately.

Sweden/the Nordic countries (open-air life in forests etc) has a tradition of open-air peeing with few constraints that sometimes leads girls in need to do it with minimal cover (behind a hotdog stand, say) on the pavement in town.

Men peeing like horses in the street I've seen in Austria.

Some fashionable eateries here in Sweden now have (unisex) twin toilets, where the frequent habit (of women at least) of sharing a visit to the loo is rendered a bit more civilized.

Most workplaces here now have unisex toilets, although a growing puritanism has been encroaching on the traditionally perhaps less constrained intersex behaviour in other areas.

In Finland the sauna is taken naked, of course - towels are used to sit on not wrap, knickers etc are laughed at - but how the family/friends mix or segregate is an individual matter. A common habit is kids first perhaps with a woman (coolest), then women, then men (hottest). No drink (or sex) in the sauna while it's hot (you'd collapse), but plenty after. Or before if you're trying to cure a hangover.

http://www.jmrw.com/Peintres/Horizon/pages/05.htm

Now, Mary, how about a blog on classical farting? - I vividly recall Claudius being advised by his medicus to let it all blow free in the TV Claudius. Did they care at all?

[Resolute Reader]

Ok, it's anecdotal, but the last two sites where I saw Roman toilets were at Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland and a private villa in Ostia Antica.

The first, had one, collective toilet, with, I think room for about a dozen people to sit. Since I saw no other toilets. So either there was one collective toilet for all inhabitants male and female (unlikely) or the more private toilets (for instance in the camp commandants home) have been destroyed. Since these places had baths, it's likely they had places for toilets. My thoughts are though, that it's most likely that the poorer sections of the camp had to share toilets, but in a fort perhaps they were mostly male anyway.

In Ostica, there is at least one Villa that I remember with a private toilet. Again no sign of other toilets. Perhaps it was shared by the whole household, though I think it more likely that it was the slaves and servants who had to make other arrangements, and the family of the house who got to use the proper loo.

Finally, of course, there is ample evidence in Pompeiian graffiti that lots of Romans were happy to relieve themselves against the walls....

All this of course, leads me to believe there is a potentially excellent PHd Thesis around this subject. "Roman Toilet Arrangements - a sneaky peek" perhaps.

[Mary]

James, I am delighted to hear it! Obviously, by definition, we cannot know the conventions of the loos of the other sex. But I'm still not wholly convinced that they dont exchange the odd "I really do think Dr X is the best candidate" -- return to the meeting and hey presto!
I confess, Irene Hahn, that my US sample is small -- but does include the Getty Research Institute and Ally McBeal (wonderful? well in retrospect, yes ... but OK at the time, slight, sexist....).
As for the ancient world, Jackie, there must have been loads more shit around the place than we can imagine. Why do we think they needed stepping stones over the streets at Pompeii. Was it just in case of a torrential south Italian downpour?

[Jackie]

There was a report published in 1997 about private loos in Pompeii. 195 had been investigated, many of which where for more than one person. But they were hidden away in areas more applicable to the slaves than the family. So what did the family do? Chamber pots, commodes - or 'sit down with the staff'?
I love the story in Suetonius about Vespasian imposing a 'piss tax'. Perhaps an idea for Gordon Brown on Budget Day today?
But to get back to your original posting about the lack of Ladies loos, my particular beef is about the long queues in the Ladies as opposed to the Gents. Why are they usually the same size instead of being split according to usage?

[James]

'In my more paranoid moments, I strongly suspect that the answer has to do with men’s urinals being one of the few remaining sites of exclusively male wheeling and dealing. Men will disappear for a pee in the middle of a meeting and come back, after a cosy chat in the loo, with the business fixed.'

I don't think you need to worry, Mary. It's usually the case that men's loos are a very silent place. Engaging a fellow pee-er in conversation mid-stream is something of a taboo.

[Irene Hahn]

Mary, you must have visited very special places in the U.S.

I've nary seen a unisex loo around here.

However, in public places they now have put changing tables into men's loos, so that daddy can change the nappies. That's at least progress...

[Max]

If we got rid of urinals men would have to queue for them as much as women during the interval, and that would be awful. Not to mention the appalling environmental consequences of the mad increase in water use you implicitly advocate.

Of course, there's no obvious reason why unisex loos require the removal of urinals.

Also: Ally McBeal "wonderful"? Oy.