<p>The bathrooms at my office are out in the hall by the elevators, and I’m actually very happy that they require a key so only people who work there can use them (unless they borrow a key). When I’m working late into the evening, as often happens, and the building is basically deserted, I would be really nervous about using the bathroom if it weren’t kept locked. Stuff happens. (And putting a gender label on the bathroom doors certainly isn’t as effective as a lock in preventing that!)</p>
<p>woody, to me there’s a real difference between the statement “I don’t want anyone to see me when I am sick” and the statement “I don’t want any men to see me when I am sick”. The first is about privacy and personal dignity, the second about gender roles and taboos. I don’t mind the first at all, but the second bothers me.</p>
<p>During my college years, by the way, this was often a real issue for me. I had a chronic condition that often caused me to be sick in a particularly embarrassing way. While I always tried to keep it to myself, that just wasn’t always possible, unless I became a total recluse. My experience was that if I trusted people, they were trustworthy.</p>
<p>DonnaL, et al.: Of course those middle-school communal showers were traumatic for many, and DonnaL’s story makes me especially sad. I do think – or thought – that most people I knew had made their peace with it before they got to college, so that the thought of being seen naked, briefly, by a same-sex roommate would not cause anyone’s heart to stop.</p>
<p>JHS, I don’t think the issue is “I don’t want any men to see me when I am sick” in general. The issue is “I don’t want any men to see me [or hear me] when I am sick” because of a specific reason – having one’s period – that’s specifically female in nature, and something men don’t necessarily understand or empathize with. I’m not saying all women feel like that, but it’s certainly comprehensible if they do. And if they do, or if they feel they wouldn’t want a co-ed bathroom for any other reason, I don’t see anything wrong with, or retrograde about, their choosing the option of a single-sex bathroom, just like I think it’s fine to opt for a co-ed bathroom if you’re OK with it.</p>
<p>After all, I’ve known guys who would be more embarrassed to have a woman see their reaction to being hit in the crotch by a tennis ball, than to have other men see it. And I don’t think that necessarily has much to do with antiquated gender roles or taboos, either.</p>
<p>DonnaL – I have to disagree with you. First, the post that set me off made it clear that the list of not-in-front-of-men conditions included food poisoning and stomach flu, so it wasn’t a menstrual sickness issue. Second, I wasn’t being judgmental about the incomprehensibility of the taboo, but about the taboo itself. It is perfectly comprehensible – specifically, it’s about feminine mystique – and wrong for that. And because I think it’s wrong and dangerous, I don’t care whether stomach flu and food poisoning were tack-ons to disguise the source of the poster’s discomfort.</p>
<p>My college grad daughter is sitting next to me and I asked her if it’s more embarrassing to take care of bathroom activities in the presence of a guy and she said it definitely was for her when she was in a co-ed bathroom. When I asked why, she said there is a chance you would want to be impressing a guy and it’s just awkward. She says it’s the same reason she wouldn’t want to get naked in front of someone of the opposite sex in a changing room. “Even though I’m not attracted to every guy at the fitness center, I wouldn’t want to change in front of any of them.” I guess some people feel that bathroom activities are personal in nature the way being undressed is personal in nature.</p>
<p>Actually, JHS, I included stomach flu and food poisoning because I felt that lot of men as well as women would prefer not to have severe and horribly malodorous runs in a stall next to someone of the opposite sex. I did not include that to hide the issue of menstruation, but to address a general idea that illness or not feeling well is bad enough without doing it in front of people of the opposite sex. I find your labeling of someone’s opinion about co-ed bathrooms as “wrong” to be really obnoxious. It’s not a moral and ethical issue. Some people want to walk around naked in front of people, some people don’t. Some people don’t care who hears them vomiting, some people do. It’s not right or wrong, it just is a person’s comfort level. And it’s certainly not “dangerous.” As for the “poster’s discomfort”, the only discomfort I am feeling is the way you are responding to opinions that differ than yours.</p>
<p>mimk6, I don’t mean to attack you, and I don’t usually make a lot of judgments like this. But I do disagree with you that it’s not a moral and ethical issue – although I agree with you completely that a lot of men as well as women would prefer not to have severe runs in a stall next to someone of the opposite sex. (And, believe me, I know what that feels like.)</p>
<p>The question is why we should consider that preference natural and and worthy of respect. We would blanch if someone said that we needed racially segregated bathrooms because a lot of white people would prefer not to have runs in a stall next to black people – although that may well be true as a matter of observed preferences, too. The only reason your statement is not offensive is because we take for granted that a certain mutual dehumanization between the sexes is natural and acceptable. (By the way, let me make clear that your statement is NOT offensive, nor is it nonsense.) We DO – all of us – take that for granted sometimes. But I’m questioning whether that is a good thing, and how far it should go.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m off base. As I think about it, I am not sure why I react differently to differential attitudes about nudity and about sickness. I didn’t go off like a rocket at the idea that people might mind being nude in front of other people of the same sex a lot less than being nude in front of the opposite sex. (And that’s a pretty common feeling.) But when the same concept is extended to being sick or embarrassed, I find myself thinking “That goes too far. That perpetuates an idea about the separation of men and women based on sex that I can’t agree with. At some point, you have to say no, that’s customary but wrongheaded.” So I did. But I’ll have to think more about it.</p>
<p>In case you were curious, schools that offer coed bathrooms (although not necessarily ALL of their bathrooms are such) in student housing include:</p>
<p>Stanford, Yale, MIT, Amherst, Columbia, Williams, Univ. of Pennsylvania, CalTech, Pomona, Brown, Wesleyan, Cornell (Univ.), Oberlin, Haverford, Carleton, Swarthmore, Kenyon, Scripps, Vassar, Whitman, Hampshire, Reed, University of Chicago, Brandeis, UC-Berkeley, UC-Santa Cruz, UCLA, Grinnell, Connecticut College, Beloit, McGill, Emerson, Skidmore . . . .</p>
<p>There are others, those are just a few of the names that come to mind.</p>
<p>In fact, many if not most of the bathrooms at MIT are coed!</p>
<p>Here’s a great blog post from MIT admissions about the subject:
[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “Dorm Bathrooms”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/health_safety/dorm_bathrooms.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/health_safety/dorm_bathrooms.shtml)</p>
<p>I think all of the Oberlin bathrooms are coed now and all of the bathrooms @ Conn except for those on the single-sex floors (in one dorm?) are too.</p>
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<p>I would never, ever want to be naked in front of anyone. Nor have I been. Many people I have met feel the same way. I’m very, very…modest, for lack of a better word.</p>
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<p>Excuse you? We aren’t talking about Holocaust deniers or some disgusting group here, where such a question would actually be relevant and valid. The idea that men and women are biologically different in the context of bodily functions is not up for debate, and this difference is a direct cause of some of these preferences. In other words, you’re saying that a personal preference based directly on a fact is “not worthy of respect.” You’re making it really hard for me to not be offended.</p>
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<p>Your argument is invalid. Unless I am just out of the loop here, black men pee the same as white men. They also shower the same way and have the same anatomy. Unless I spontaneously grow a vagina and sprout breasts, I hardly see how you can compare racial differences with gender differences. It’s not even worth pursuing as a line of thinking; I suggest you try another approach, one that isn’t inherently flawed and absurd.</p>
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<p>“Mutual dehumanization?” i.e., the acknowledgment that men and women are, in fact, different? I suggest you take advantage of a gender-neutral bathroom in order to examine whether this is in fact the case. Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy my single-sex bathrooms.</p>
<p>Nothing to say except… Why would Scripps have co-ed bathrooms in the dorms? If I’m looking at that school, I would never think to ask about that!</p>
<p>I do think culturally though there is an assumption that more private things are more acceptable among the same gender, though, JHS. If you, Donna and I were in a room and for some reason I needed to change clothing, I would expect you to step out or turn away. I wouldn’t expect a female to have to step out. </p>
<p>Similarly, if D is showering and we need something from the bathroom, I’d likely be the one to go in and get it, not H or S. And I’d say “it’s just me” so she knew it was me and not H or S. Why do you think that is?</p>
<p>Interesting thread. I’m not sure that son would care if the bathrooms were co-ed or not but I could see why some students would not like this particular arrangement. </p>
<p>As a 40-something person, I recently had an unexpected encounter with this. We were traveling in Russia last summer and had stopped to eat at a restaurant. I asked the waitperson where the restroom was and he pointed to a door. Of course, I couldn’t read the sign on the door. It was a small restroom with two stalls and a sink. After I had finished in the stall, I walked out and there was a man standing at the sink washing his hands. It was disconcerting to say the least. Had I inadvertently gone into the men’s room? As it turned out, it was a co-ed restroom. Of all the places I have traveled around the world, I think that is the first time I had encountered such an arrangement. I have been in restrooms where there is a separate entrance for the mens and womens stalls and then a communal sink. That I don’t mind as much. But being in a stall next to a man felt really weird and had I known it was co-ed beforehand, I’m not sure I would have used that particular restroom.</p>
<p>Although, it wouldn’t be for me, I suspect most college students would get use to to the co-ed bathrooms very quickly or they move out of the dorms as fast as they can. On the other hand, the thought of living in a dorm has never appealed to me either. I like my privacy too much. I always felt fortunate to have escaped that aspect of college.</p>
<p>JHS, as always, your comment about whether a preference is worthy of respect keeps me thinking. </p>
<p>We certainly wouldn’t countenance a person who, upon arriving in a hospital, requested only white nurses to attend to her needs. And we wouldn’t say the hospital is obligated to arrange things such that only white nurses tended to that patient. </p>
<p>H is an ob gyn. It’s a field in which women have clearly strong preferences. About one third strongly prefer a male ob gyn, one third strongly prefer a female, one third are indifferent. I’m in the indifferent camp myself. Is that a preference worth indulging? I recognizing I’m going way off topic, but it made me think about to what extent we indulge or not indulge preferences for only those of the same sex to be nearby in more personal situations, and why we believe there is at least some validity to it (hence we still have same sex locker rooms, etc)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I acknowledged that I accept the nakedness taboo. I am still puzzling over why extending that to a [poop] taboo bothers me so much. Maybe it’s because in my house anything having to do with [poop] or anything like it is my job; my wife won’t touch it. (That most definitely includes vomit – mine, hers, the kids’, or the animals’.) Maybe it’s because this is one issue that was not hypothetical to me when I was in my early 20s (not just as a co-ed bathroom thing).</p>
<p>I also fully acknowledge that people can and do have very different positions on this. I’m not surprised that DonnaL disagrees with me – male-female differences are very important to her, and she has gone through more than I can fathom based on how significant they were. So maybe my insistence that we should not be complicit in allowing them to take on so much meaning amounts to a personal attack on her (and maybe that means I am wrong, or not).</p>
<p>I do not mean to deny sex differences, by the way. I am just questioning at what point recognition and accommodation crosses over to fetishization. Unlike Baelor, I do not take for granted that having a ***** is far more significant than having a high melanin level.</p>
<p>Edit: Ooops, didn’t realize that particular anatomical term was forbidden. Male genital.</p>
<p>Don’t use that term in front of the ladies, JHS. (fanning self with lace hanky)</p>
<p>If I’m suffering from some malady where I need to be in the restroom, I’d like to be at home, of course. Next best is to be in a single bathroom where I don’t have to worry about someone else knocking impatiently at the door. Then the preferences start getting murkier. There are tradeoffs between same and mixed gender, strangers and friends and acquaintances, large and small facilities. I’ve never thought about if I’d rather be suffering surrounded by same-sex strangers (oooh, alliteration! 
) or by mixed-gender floormates. At the very least, I wouldn’t want people making comments of either disgust or great amusement. Or at least to wait until they’re entirely out of my hearing.</p>
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<p>I don’t think you are way off-topic at all. This is exactly what we are talking about, in its most ‘clinical’ form. Let us first agree that:</p>
<p>a) this preference is personal.
b) that morality is not a factor here.
c) that ‘ickiness’, ‘privacy’, ‘comfort level’, ‘taboo’, is the main factor.</p>
<p>I think the most sensible answer is, whenever possible, the institution should try to make accommodations for (i.e, humor) the personal preferences of individuals. So if a patient wants to name a female as her Ob-Gyn, she should be provided that option. But there are limits to this. For example, I don’t think there is a hospital in the land that always has a female Ob-Gyn on call. Or a female nurse, for that matter. It just wouldn’t be practical, and there is no ‘natural’ or ‘compelling’ reason for a hospital to do that.</p>
<p>Similarly, I think it would be appropriate for colleges to offer a few single sex floors with single-sex bathrooms depending on student demand and the architectural options, and let everything else be coed.</p>
<p>I do agree (on an intellectual if not instinctive level) with JHS’ comment:</p>
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<p>I should also remind people that all of this is specific to our culture. Other cultures have either a lot fewer taboos (think some parts of Europe) or a lot more taboos (think Mid-East, South Asia). For example, it is quite the norm in many parts of the world for there to be separate hours for men and women in gyms, communal swimming pools, etc. Many women in these cultures are uncomfortable wearing swimsuits in the presence of men. These women would consider our coed swimming pools to be disgusting.</p>
<p>ETA: Hasn’t the US Army had to deal with these issues a while ago…and then moved on?</p>
<p>*If you, Donna and I were in a room and for some reason I needed to change clothing, I would expect you to step out or turn away. I wouldn’t expect a female to have to step out. *</p>
<p>^Why? where do you suggest Donna go? what if she was your roommate?</p>
<p>Perhaps it is not as much of a concern in homogeneous situations but as we know it is not as simple as black/white, boy/girl.</p>
<p>Some straight men, may have a problem with gay men using the same facilities, those who are questioning may not feel comfortable in “picking” a side, but I think when the bathrooms are designed to encourage privacy for all, and dorm policies are for polite and respectful behavior, it is possible to not make using a bathroom something to angst about.</p>
<p>The important thing here is that students are not unnecessarily uncomfortable. I would suggest that posters like JHS may not have had the experience of being a young woman. Generally, being a young woman, I think, tends to make a person draw more lines, maintain more modesty and be more careful. A matter of biology and experience. </p>
<p>It’s unclear to me (still) why some people are so offended that a young woman would want a single-gender bathroom.
Shouldn’t schools want to reduce stress where they can?</p>