I went to Yale during the first years of (some) co-ed bathrooms, although there was only one year out of four when the bathroom assigned to my room was also used by women on a regular basis. (All bathrooms, however assigned, were used by persons of the opposite sex on an irregular, but frequent basis, i.e. guests of various sorts.) I never, ever heard about guys harassing women in a bathroom, even at the level of pure folklore. I can’t imagine who would have done that. My college, at the time, was overloaded with varsity football players, but it’s impossible to imagine any of the specific jocks I knew doing something like that. It wasn’t some kind of paradise of sexual equality, but people tended to treat each other with kindness and basic politeness, especially people who lived next door to one another and who might cross paths in the bathroom.
One hears plenty of narratives of sexual assault in college. However, I can’t remember ever hearing one in which a woman got assaulted in the bathroom or shower by one of the five or six other people who were assigned to the same lavatory.
@JBStillFlying My DD is a first year and her house has co-ed bathrooms. For the first couple of weeks, she was concerned that no one else used the bathroom because she was always in there alone. The kids are all on different schedules, so she still hardly ever runs into anyone. Only once has anyone come into the bathroom while she was showering. For reference, her hall has about a dozen kids, and the bathroom has three stalls, 2 showers, and 2 or 3 sinks. DD didn’t grow up sharing a bathroom, and she says that it barely seems like she is sharing one now.
As far as problems, the worst complaints from within her house are of a repeatedly clogged sink and of people using toiletries that don’t belong to them. Even if DD’s bathroom had a place to store her things, she’d still keep them in her room. If there were any serious issues, she has no doubt that they would be handled quickly.
3 years, 1 bathroom for about 20 students with multiple stalls. I think there was a prank once with clothes taken while someone was in the shower but that was a gender neutral event. If I ran into a stranger of the opposite gender in the BR, it was a bit of a surprise but my hallway ‘siblings’ faded into the background.
Interestingly, my boyfriend’s room was at the other end of the hall, with another bathroom. I never used that one as ours felt much more comfortable despite the exact same design.
@JHS you would be amazed. I won’t disclose and the majority will not know him anyway but he’s pretty well known in his profession - and he wasn’t a football player (though he does hold some athletic records). He was an eyewitness, not sure he was a participant (thinking he must have been at least an observer, based on what he said). I got the distinct impression that they weren’t in favor of the policy and were taking it out on the females. BTW, when I heard that - straight from his very lips and he wasn’t lying - I decided that my daughters wouldn’t be attending a school that encouraged “co-ed” bathrooms. However, a lot has changed socially and on the campuses in the 15+ years since I heard his testimony. In all honesty, this issue didn’t come up on my radar when D17 was applying. Our two older girls are in art school (different schools) and they DON’T have community bathrooms. Everything is either a suite-style or two bathrooms on the same floor).
@NorthLeftCoast I spent two years of college in dorms with community bathrooms (only it was a single-sex college so this wasn’t an issue). I was ALWAYS the only one using the bathroom! Totally agree with you on that. It’s most likely not even something she would notice.
@IHS76 - clothes-taking happened on our floor too (all - women).
A bit skeptical about this “hallway siblings” thing, people. We know a few with kids at UChicago and they all seem to have significant others in the same house (usually on the same floor). One parent mentioned to us that he doesn’t even want to think about his daughter and her single room next year! Siblings you can sleep with are the best kind! LOL. Of course, at that point who’s worrying about lack of “gendered” bathrooms?
I gather “housecest” is generally frowned upon. You are not really supposed to sleep with your siblings; it destabilizes the group. But some people like doing the frowned-upon, and some just can’t help themselves.
In a funny bit of cultural anthropology, general undergraduate folklore at the University of Chicago always maintained that the smaller off-campus dorms had excessive rates of housecest.
Housecest is a really bad idea, but is rampant in BJ and Snitchcock anyways, lol.
I know of a lot of awful things that have happened in the dorms here - anything from stupid arguments that got too big to straight up stalking. I have never heard nor seen first hand any problems arising from gender neutral bathrooms. Not one. I’ve never heard anyone complain about them or say they made them feel uncomfortable, or anything else. The only thing coming close to a “serious” problem was one house making a gendered set of bathrooms because a few girls thought the boys were too messy.
This is one of those things that parents freak out about while their kids sit there wondering what the big deal is.
I tend to agree with you, @HydeSnark , but one of the things I have learned on CC is that there are lots of high school seniors who are very, very anxious about the bathroom arrangements in college dorms. Bathroom threads are a perennial on CC, and it’s generally not just parents doing the freaking out. Of course, by the end of orientation they are fine with whatever the situation is in their dorms, but sitting at home trying to decide which college to pick and what dorm to choose they often cannot imagine coping with a communal bathroom that is not restricted to one sex.
After looking at the state of D17’s bathroom here at home, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be demanding a gendered set of bathrooms due to the messiness of others
Also pretty sure that the biggest struggle will be the lack of a dedicated basement laundry room, such as she has now. Nothing like having your own washing machine!
Regardless of anyone’s personal views on the subject, bathrooms are one of those topics in which people are going to have differing views and comfort levels. None of them are “wrong”. No one would be complaining if UChicago provided separate facilities by gender on the same floor, and the failure to do so is likely to be more due to plain ole economics than anything else (much cheaper to put up a set of four walls and charge rent than to install more plumbing . . . ).
What I’m betting - and please correct me if I’m wrong - is that the summer programs for high schoolers do NOT include gender-neutral bathrooms - or, for that matter, “co-ed” floors - as part of the campus experience. Could be several prudent reasons for this, one of which is that they just know better than to make it an issue when they are trying to entice families to spend thousands of dollars of discretionary income on UChicago for their high-schooler. A <8% acceptance rate for college does change the picture somewhat.
Yeah, IRL I’ve seen HS seniors freaked out by gender neutral bathrooms and parents shrugging. We had co-ed bathrooms in college with no problems. No housecest taboo AFAIK. I did shack up with a guy on my hall. Still living with him.
I think houses have more bathrooms these days, families are smaller, and/or maybe I just live in a different class fragment now, but when I grew up kids all shared a bathroom (often with adults) at home, whereas the kids I know today are more likely to either have their own bathroom or share one with a single same-sex sib. By comparison to home, the communal/no waiting model seemed like a good deal.
Don’t underestimate the effect of having a small but non-negligible set of very sympathetic, very vocal students whose gender status is unclear, dynamic, or otherwise not binary, and who have been militating for non-gendered bathrooms. From a student perspective, it’s not just a question of having men and women share bathrooms. It’s about giving everyone equal access to bathrooms where they are entitled to be. You can’t assume that everyone is either male or female, and you don’t want to set up a system to separate out and implicitly to stigmatize those whose gender identity is other than standard. If you start there, it’s a heck of a lot easier to make every bathroom available to everyone than to come up with a dedicated bathroom system that will not be a perpetual source of conflict. Cf. North Carolina: The world would be somewhat a better place if people didn’t start with the assumption that public bathrooms are gendered.
That’s not the only force at work, but it’s increasingly significant.
By the time my kids were rising high school seniors, I wasn’t worrying about whether they were on single-sex floors or not if they went to some conference or summer program. I’m sure there were (and are) other parents who cared about it, but I don’t think it even occurred to me to ask. In both kids’ high school circles, it was pretty common to have mixed-gender groups sleeping over at one another’s houses in connection with this or that activity. I sure noticed when that started, but it quickly became clear that it was no big deal and civilization was not going to collapse.
@JHS they can vocalize all they want about “entitlement” and the University is surely free to make a gender fluid accomodation for them w/o compromising the “entitlements” of others. If someone is willing to troop down or up a level to use the single-sex bathroom I’m not sure where the gender-fluid have a valid argument about the right to use the bathroom on their own floor. UChicago doesn’t exactly consider this to be an “entitlement” either or else they would provide Open Housing for first years - which they don’t.
@JHS@JBStillFlying I really admire your open mind. My DD and most of her classmates, who are early teenagers , tend to think that gender fluid designation is not a big deal. However, I can already imagine some people on the other side of the political spectrum will think that this is Sodom and Gomorrah at Hyde Park
I bet if you count there are more genderqueer kids than there are kids who are willing to go to another floor whenever they use a bathroom in order to have a single-sex bathroom. Not that the headcount matters that much.
I didn’t mean to endorse undesignated bathrooms as an “entitlement” for anyone, or to create a hierarchy of rights between people who want gendered bathrooms and people who want ungendered bathrooms. I was only pointing out that there was a significant cultural trend besides mere convenience and economy that was probably accelerating the trend towards ungendered bathrooms.
The University of Chicago has a strong tradition of intellectual conservatism. The student body and faculty probably lean left, on the whole, compared to the American public in general, but both lean somewhat less left than those at peer institutions. Nevertheless, it’s a strongly libertarian tradition of intellectual conservatism, and there’s very little demand from any quarter for enforcing social-conservative values based on tradition or religion.
@85bears46 - Having lived in Hyde Park for several years with nary an indication of S&G, I’m personally thinking that my D17 will be safe in any dorm bathroom there (a bit concerned about the outbreaks of armed robbery now and then but HP is actually safer now than it was when I lived there. In those days, students would routinely be mugged for their Harold’s Chicken down on 68th and Stony. But it was worth it because that was good chicken. Edit to add: we also know someone who was held up on 53rd in Hyde Park - in broad daylight - but she yelled at the guy that she was a poor student and had no money so he ran away. This was about 30 years ago).
I actually know several parents on both sides of the political spectrum who would be concerned about “gender-fluid” bathrooms. Many of them are parents of daughters, naturally.
I also know several who adhere to various faith traditions - Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, LDS, etc. - and who have sent their kids to UChicago. Always thought that the libertarian tradition there - which @JHS has spot-on described - actually encouraged an authentically diverse and vibrant community. People attracted to the rigorous intellectual atmosphere come from many different backgrounds and from both sides of the political spectrum. As I like to say: From Scalia to Sanders.
My daughter is not really concerned much about the bathroom issue, although I think she appreciates the heads up so she can give it some thought. She values modesty and privacy, but also convenience. And having spent two additional experiences in dorms, she realizes that most students are simply not all using the facilities at the same time and it’s quite possible to time your own personal use differently. She may choose I-House or vote for “gendered” restrooms at her house meeting at Snithcock or BJ or wherever . . . or she may not. It’ll be her choice and she will choose thoughtfully and well.
@JHS I agree with you that the cultural trend is moving quickly and will likely play a large role in house decisions on this. Many kids see it as an issue of social justice.
D1 recently graduated and lived for 3 years in a satellite dorm - Breckinridge - that is sadly no more (altho the house lives on in I-House, as the only satellite house UChicago resurrected last year). She loved it. I think the smaller size helped. It was a one-house 94-student dorm. There was always a group walking to dinner around 6; you could join them or not, but you knew people were always going around that time. It was a 10-min. walk to Cathey Dining Hall. Her boyfriends also were Breckies, so I guess you could say “housecest” was at work there. She did date guys from classes, but mostly Breckies. She lived on female-only halls (it was just the way the building was structured). D2 is at Northwestern and she has taken “dormcest” up a notch to date a guy 2 doors down on her mixed hall. (So far so good.) The two bathrooms/showers are single gender.
@momzhood - thanks for the commentary on getting to the dining halls from a satellite. We were a bit worried about that should our D end up in I-House.
The “housecest taboo” is silly and unrealistic. Would hate to think that UChicago house norms resemble some of the snottier aspects of fraternity or sorority living (date this, not that . . . ). BTW, not hating on the frats - it’s just something I personally noticed while living in frat houses at Cal Berkeley for a couple of summers back in the 80’s. Anyway, we know several parents whose kids are dating others in the house. It happens and there is nothing - legal or moral - that says otherwise. Seriously. If it’s awkward for everyone else, perhaps the two lovebirds need to be a bit more discrete in the manner in which they are carrying on their romance. After all, it’s no one else’s business.
I’m really confused on this parental crusade against people saying housecest is a bad idea.
People say to avoid it for purely practical reasons - it’s almost impossible to escape your house or the people in it. If there’s a bad breakup it gets extremely uncomfortable for everyone. It’s hard to get distance from each other because there is going to be a ton of overlap between your friends and your ex’s friends. Sometimes it ends badly and these things do happen. I’ve seen it lead to social isolation and/or a lot of pain because you just can’t escape each other.
The internal structure of houses aren’t analogous to an average floor on college from what I can tell from my friends at other schools.
In any case, it isn’t a hard and fast rule (“legal or moral” - lol what, I think you’re reading waaaaaay too much into this) it’s just something people say, usually half tongue in cheek because we know how hard it is to avoid. It’s a running joke that everyone knows it’s risky but it happens anyways.
This reminds me of trying to explain the meaning of people talking about UChicago being “where fun comes to die”. The meaning is understood by every student to be at least half sarcastic but that doesn’t stop random people from writing very earnest inquiries asking if they will be ostracized for wanting to have fun and generally taking it many times more seriously than any student does.
@HydeSnark what’s interesting is that there are parents even opining on the prudence of “housecest” in the first place (and, I might add, adopting the kid term for it. Assuming that the kids were, indeed, the ones who coined the term “housecest”). Who someone dates isn’t your business or mine. Everyone is free to express an opinion but this one seems a bit intrusive and arbitrary - and not in keeping with the culture of the university.
You might have very valid reasons for why you think “housecest” is a bad idea. But bad breakups aren’t a mess because of a house situation - they are a mess because the kids got too intimate too quickly before they were ready for a long term commitment. And kids often bring their close friends into that situation for counseling, advice and comfort - WHETHER OR NOT they happen to live in the same house.
And I think you misunderstand why I used the “legal or moral” argument. My point is simple - if it’s not illegal or immoral, it’s really none of your business - or mine. Or any parent’s. Who someone dates is strictly THEIR business.
Interesting that it’s “live and let live” for bathrooms but not for relationships. That seems a bit misguided. Just one person’s opinion - or “crusade” as you called it LOL. Interesting that one opinion can spark a diatribe. Sorry to throw that word at you but it’s to make a point that an opinion is not exactly a “crusade” any more than a response to that opinion is a “diatribe”.
Edit to add: Pretty sure you can change houses if, for whatever reason, your relationships with others are compromised. No one is forced to live in a bad situation. You might be stuck for the remainder of the year but you can always switch for the next year.
The kids are all on different schedules, so she still hardly ever runs into anyone. Only once has anyone come into the bathroom while she was showering. For reference, her hall has about a dozen kids, and the bathroom has three stalls, 2 showers, and 2 or 3 sinks. DD didn’t grow up sharing a bathroom, and she says that it barely seems like she is sharing one now.