Right on, Sisters! I must applaud your courage in writing this - glad there are two of you to support each other - and wish I had the guts to share it publicly. If I were not still working for a living I would, frankly. Instead I'll be sending the link to all my lady peeps. This is truly a health issue on so many levels. Kudos to you two and the NYT for publishing it! Of course, some people will be offended. Better to discuss all the ways misogyny impacts women, even imposing societal restrictions on our physiology and shaming us for it. I'm not sure how else you could have been more delicate, considering the subject.
90
Personally I always poop at work, why not get paid to poop! If I poop at work twice a day that’s 20 minutes 5 times a week times 31 years at this point I figure I’m made a minimum of 15,000 this way!
88
Really people? Would there ever be such an article on the personal travails of women in labor? OF COURSE NOT because its a private matter left to a few to be involved in. SO, let's leave this subject as a private matter as well.
28
I loved this article discussing women's inhibitions about pooping in public toilets, but the best part was reading the comments section. Addictive, fascinating, hilarious, bizarre!
89
This is waaay beyond what I look to the NYT for. You really didn't need to publish it.
41
Vegans' poop generally doesn't stink much. It's meat that makes for bad orders.
In Europe, you close a solid door with no openings at the bottom top or sides and do your business in privacy, with a color on the door to indicate someone is inside. There in the USA, women, particularly, are subject to stupid, shaking stalls that often start falling apart right away and don't stay closed, with openings that force one to bend down to look for feet. What's wrong with us? Can't we build a place that allows us to go in peace? AND, there isn't any reason why restroom providers, all of them, couldn't put a "cleanser" air freshener in every stall, except that here in the USA they would break, be stolen, or go unattended and end up useless in short order. Women have to carry toilet paper since many times there is none. Would someone please pass me some paper, please? Yikes.
Since women also have to change sanitary pads or tampons or bladder leak products and leave them behind in a little bin, provided they are intelligent enough not to flush them down the toilet, we have other things to consider than pee and poop.
I worked with a woman who would flush the toilet as she sat down so no one could hear what she was doing over the sound of the water. She flushed and flushed until the last one.
What a crazy country that we are ashamed of bodily functions.
125
Back when WYAY-FM in Atlanta was the juggernaut of country music stations, with the morning drive-time show led by the late, great Warren "Rhubarb" Jones, one of the on-air promos was that the show "gets you going faster in the morning than a hot cup of coffee and a bran muffin!"
15
I could never understand, when I had the misfortune of working in a large corporate office, why the women in the adjacent stalls would always remain stone-cold silent until I and the other bathroom users would do our business and leave. It was so annoying. Thankfully I work from home now and the only annoyance is the cat forcing her way in right when I'm, um, talking to a man about a horse.
25
I once had a coworker who refused to eat anything during the workday (although she drank lots of water) because she refused to poop at work. We also had problems with certain restrooms in our company’s building where toilets were constantly being broken - yes, broken - because huge women were going to that floor to poop, avoiding their own floors. The company actually put out a memo to use the restrooms on your own floor. It even became a union issue.
24
“HUGE” women? What does that have to do with it?
36
@Jane
Obese people can break the toilet seat.
32
An odious fact that cannot blamed upon men:
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/10/6_facts_you_need_to_know_about_farts.html
3
Should have been titled: "You Go Girl...the New Women's Movement"
160
Sharing this article with my husband, we were laughing about all this silliness. Serious, unhealthy and sad. We wondered what this said about out culture and whether there were similar issues in other countries. Our solution was to quit filling up bathrooms with "muzak" and weird perfume (barf) and have soft, natural pooping sounds that would cover up all this natural bodily noise women/men/etc. seem to be so stressed out about. Then people could poop unselfconsciously. That would be a relief. Literally.
56
It isn't limited to workplaces. When I've stayed with friends or even my in-laws for extended periods, this has almost always been an issue, especially if there are several people in the house. I've tried limiting my food intake to make it a little less painful. (I know how ridiculous that sounds.) One time, after around five unsuccessful days, I started feeling so ill that I had to tell the friend I was staying with what was happening. It did lead to a humorous bonding with his grandmother, who also lived there and let me in on her stash of stool softeners.
46
I was in a Target bathroom.. In the stall beside me was a woman narrating her whole pooping experience.
“Ooooooh, come on out! Go! I feel like I’m having a baby! Oooooh, hold on, this IS the size of a baby. Wow, that was more intense than childbirth. I think I just lost 50 pounds!”, and on and on.
I was dying laughing. Pooping can be quite amusing.
114
First of all, “Everyone Poops” is a wonderful classic that should be in everyone’s home.
Second, if there’s anywhere one should be able to fart, poop and make an epic stink, it’s in a bathroom. I had a friend who wouldn’t poop in any public bathroom. Now that’s really sad.
Third, therapists will have a field day with this, but I find poop of all kinds utterly fascinating. I took an excellent class at The Brooklyn Brainery on the history of toilets. Changed my life. I bought a toilet seat bidet for under $100 as soon as I got home.
Pooping is a common human experience. Enjoy!
37
"I have to see a man about a horse" is my favorite euphemism.
36
Women don’t poop! They just don’t! I know because my mother told me.
36
I have one additional complaint.
Lack of respect and inability to adhere to known power structure.
I have an employee who comes daily to use the bathroom by the executive office as opposed to using the employee toilet or better yet the customer toilets.
He (yes, sadly it is a male) leaves the most wretched odor.
It sincerely diminished his professional standing in my opinion because he appears obtuse, disagreeable, and in some small way quarrelsome and passive aggressive.
I have never discussed this with anyone because I thought I was being churlish.
47
Only aFter ADA Act was enacted, public restroom facilities were upgraded across the country to provide for disabled people. A grassroots effort to get something like this on the books to address the privacy concerns in bathrooms will change the situation for sure. Considering the case for gender neutral facilities, it’s time to address the basic privacy need.
28
One of the many benefits of being able to work at home now.
The bathroom is all mine.
44
@Nina
Nothing beats the home base.
39
I find this hard to believe. When I was young, we boys were led to believe that girls/women did not have such issues because the angels took it away.
28
@krashstalcup
One of my friends in college used to insist that "girls don't poop; they spew honey."
The fantasy was nice, but forty years of marriage disabused me of that notion.
29
This brings up memories of basic training back in the day. Six toilets in a 10-by-15-foot room with no door (urinals were in a separate area). Three on one side, three on the other facing each other with no stalls or partitions. You had 15 minutes to get from the mess hall after breakfast to formation and there would be a full house elbow-to-elbow and knee-to-knee on the toilets with a line at the door for those hoping to get a chance and still be on time. I wonder how it’s done these days.
24
Yikes! Congress didn't have a ladies room on the floor until 2011! And I thought we had it bad in the 70s when I worked on Wall Street for a major bank. There were two men's rooms on the floor and no ladies' room. Women had to take the elevator or take the stairs to the next floor. One day a female officer took a headcount. There were more women than men working on that floor. Thanks to her, they converted one of the men's rooms.
I don't understand peoples' hesitation in using a public facility. We all have the same need. If you have to go, you have to go!
44
I keep flushing; no noise and no smell. Plus I use flushable wipes
4
Please reconsider flushing anything down the toilet except for human waste and toilet paper. NYC and other cities around the world spend a lot of taxpayer money to get rid of the plumbing and sewage problems that "flushable" wipes cause. Google fatberg if you dare, to see the problem.
87
@Withheld
My husband insisted on using "flushable wipes" until the day the sewage backed up in the basement due to the clogged line and we had to get a plumber in. And then there was the matter of cleaning up the basement floor.
43
There are some real social problems at play here but it seems to me that building lots of individual gender neutral bathrooms in public places would be a step in the right direction.
39
Contrary to what the article says, the knees are at 90 degrees to the waist (that this, to the angle of the upright torso) while sitting. A squat would be at something less than 90 degrees. Just sayin' . . .
50
The adult bathroom available at my school where I taught was located in the school office. It had a ineffective fan for ventilation. At our 30 minute lunch break, we all stood in line to use the facilities. If you were unlucky enough to have to follow our not-to-be-named vice principal, who would enter the bathroom with a newspaper tucked under his arm (you get the picture), not only would your lunch half hour be ticking away, but holding your breath before entering and apologizing when you departed was not uncommon. I would occasionally out of desperation illegally leave my students to use the “kids” bathroom just to get some privacy. Desperate times call for desperate measures! Oh, I don’t miss that for a New York minute!
26
I remember one time a fellow worker coming out of the bathroom, and “warning” everyone who he passed that it was “toxic” in the men’s room. He took full responsibility, and seemed almost proud of it.
23
I have always loved the euphemism: "I need to go powder my noese."
16
I love the euphemistic, "Pardon me while I go to powder my nose."
11
I don’t understand what’s the big deal. I try not to go #2 on public restrooms, but I won’t go to great lengths to avoid it either, if I need to go, I go. If it’ll smell and I’ll make noises, I don’t care. If people might think if I take a bit long in the bathroom is because I’m going #2, I don’t care either.
Urinating and defecating are only natural.
25
Really ?? Thank god i never worked in a place where people were paying attention to how long i was in the bathroom. While I have engaged in that scatological standoff ploy, it was partly out of respect for privacy, hers and mine. But it never stopped me from doing the necessary.
8
And while we push for doors to the floor, how about getting the toilet paper dispenser off the floor too? How many public restrooms have this humungous toilet paper dispensers only to have the opening so low the ground you have to crouch to get any paper out??
36
@JK Yes. I thought I was the only person to feel annoyed by placement of the giant toilet paper dispensers. Don't get me started on how most of them dispense paltry amounts and do not roll smoothly.
35
Will the day ever dawn when a woman does a 'pull my finger' stunt?
11
I'm guessing you don't have any sisters. ..
17
@Peter S Jack
A few more movies like "Bridesmaids", and I gonna say yes!
7
I remember when our ICUs began hiring male RNs. We had one bathroom for 60 nurses. I never even thought about whether we ever talked about it, but I know that I never had a bowel movement at work.
So here come the guys. All blondes who loved the outdoors in the backpack paradise of Utah. One guy who worked day shift would go to the cafeteria for breakfast, return, grab the sports section and announce “Ok time for my daily BM!”
Up until the mid 1970s all RNs were women. The introduction of the male species into our midst was an epiphany! Nurses not only clean up poop, they poop themselves!
Thanks Gary!
27
Most of my travel in a Public Health career was in the developing world; I could write a book about bathroom experiences. Here’s one of my favorite anecdotes.
On entering the airport in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, I gagged on the stench of unwashed bodies and people dressed in animal skins. My eyes watering so badly I couldn’t see, I suddenly felt an urgent need to poop. The women’s bathroom was a bare concrete space with a hole in the floor, a two-by-four fastened to the floor to help balance in a squat. A crowd of female spectators stood in the room; they politely gestured “you first”, so I went. Amazingly, an “attendant” stepped forward proffering toilet tissue, while a few of the audience leaned over to scrutinize my progress and admiringly feel the fabric of my clothing. Then the rusty cold-water sink was turned on for me, I was handed a leaf of soap, then a stained hand-towel, an out-stretched palm for a tip, and finally a high-five. Scattered applause as I exited, and knowing smiles and giggles as I returned to my seat in the terminal. My traveling companion held it for the flight.
I was raised without squeamishness around bodily functions, but this article and the comments confirm the ridiculousness I have long-suspected in our sheltered culture. Yes, everyone poops; get over yourself.
62
How about instituting designated "pooprooms" with appropriate ventilation? People would then know what to expect. We have this arrangement at home, one bathroom for "long visits", another for short visits, toothbrushing, showering, hand washing, etc.
28
out of consideration for the lowly maintenance person in your building, for the love of all that is dear, please do not flush "flushable" wipes down the toilet. that is unless you really want to know the particulars of overflowing human effluent and otherworldly odors.
50
@cp
Thanks for bringing this up. It’s not just the “maintenance person in your building (who is NOT “lowly!”) but the entire water and sewer system in your city is being literally destroyed by these wipes.
Even "60 minutes” did a segment on “fatbergs” the collection of grease, tampons, paper towels, wipes etc into the sewer system. Read this article and if you STILL are putting anything but the four P’s:
poop, pee, puke, and toilet paper. EVERYTHING else goes into the trash.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/whats-new/trash-it-dont-flush-it.page
39
@cp These products are notorious. How do manufacturers get away with calling them 'flushable'. They are as bad as flushing plastic bags; they create no end of problems for water treatment plants.
40
Slow news day, but glad I was finally informed this is another thing that is partially men's fault.
17
This is the weirdest, most strangely hard-to-stop-reading comments section.
102
@SRF
SRF, Yes, I agree. Isn't it refreshing to read comments on a 'morbid curiosity' NYT article that isn't about Trump?
38
My thanks to the author, and the NY Times, for this article. A subject that needs discussion, for the sake of our health, but, unfortunately, is usually relegated to people’s private thoughts.
23
Yes, do get over it,
In an office work environment, devoting extra time, steps, and cognitive/emotional energy to shame, shame, shaming, and avoiding nonexistent health threats* about ordinary bodily functions confers a small but perpetual competitive disadvantage over those who have gotten over it. If many more women then men obsess about defecation at work, well...
In pursuit of comfortable, equitable workplaces, do design women’s restrooms as women need and want them to be, but don’t blame “the patriarchy” for differential shame or for whatever productivity hit goes with it.
*the buffet salads in the cafeteria are far more dangerous than the toilets at work.
6
Stall #3 illustrates even more distressing sanitary concerns. Having witnessed far too many poorly-vented drain-waste-vent systems, my primary concern would be the fact that the toilet paper roll is unshielded from the dreaded "toilet cough" -- that horrific instance when the content of the bowl is "belched" or "burped", aerosolizing whatever may be in there like a fell biological weapon of mass destruction. This occurs far more frequently than John or Jane Q. Public realize, sometimes executed deliberately by unlicensed terrorist plumbers!
9
re. Orwellsdisciple. I believe the expression is "in this day and age."
2
Thanks so much for this wonderful informative article. Recently the Oakland Museum of California redid its main- level toilets, merging the men's and women's sections into one long space. No urinals. All stalls. With dividers between them from ceiling to floor. An All-Gender sign on the doors. Some people are puzzled. Others wander off looking for different and gender-divided facilities. But most of the people I talk to celebrate this step, just as I celebrate you Jessica Bennett and you Amanda McCall, for writing this necessary article, and celebrate you, New York Times, for publishing it. At almost 70 however I am still surprised by the number of people sitting in their stalls talking on their phones, background sounds, bowel and bladder, sometimes included.
33
@dark brown ink, All I want is not to have to wait to pee. Or to poop. Whatever it takes. I am willing to take over the men's room if necessary.
19
@Texan in Exile
I've done that. Especially at concerts. When entering I announce "Don't get up boys I'll seat myself."
34
@dark brown ink I'm laughing at your description of people talking on their cell phones in toilet stalls, as an accompaniment to the other noises produced. Also, doesn't anyone travel to Europe? The gender neutral facility with individual stalls is very common and a great improvement over what we have in North America.
14
Hey, you, in the next stall over! This is not the place for cell phone conversations. Learn some manners, focus on the task, wash your hands, and be on your way.
48
“KNEES at a 90-degree angle to the waist” [emphasis added]
It seems pretty clear you mean the thighs, correct? The knees are points - points can’t be at right angles to anything.
20
Avoiding public bathrooms , not because of sound or smell but because they tend to be dirty : unflushed toilets , toilet paper on floor , dirty bowl , and other things people should dispose of and don't .
16
One of my favorite book titles of all time is about the history of the fight for restrooms (for everyone) in the workplace, which was a long, hard struggle: "Void Where Prohibited."
29
@Sam Katz This one?
Void where prohibited: Rest breaks and the right to urinate on company time (by Marc Linder and Ingrid Nygaard)
15
I would have gone with pooptriarchy.
Either way, favorite neologism of 2019
5
I don’t get it. Pulling off the road on a cross country car trip, I taught my son and daughter to open both passenger doors, making a stall, and go.
As adults, thankfully neither one has any bathroom hangups.
15
@ne ne na
The video is on YouTube.
8
This is a cultural problem that has to do with hygiene bullying of women and girls. I remember in the 1960s and early 1970s American females being propagandized so relentlessly that boys wound up thinking that girls smelled like a mixture of normal body smells and something like the little air fresheners that hung in cars, probably carcinogenic, that they sprayed on themselves out of fear. It was most confusing...
23
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this.
48
"In other words, the patriarchy has seeped into women’s intestinal tracts. Let’s call it the pootriarchy."
Is there nothing that "the patriarchy" doesn't get blamed for these days?
It seems it's women who reinforce these negative attitudes towards bodily function, not men.
22
@MJ That made me truly laugh out loud this Sunday morning! Thak you.
I have only ever heard women shame each other for bathroom habits, still haven't met any guys that care so long as they kick on the fan. Seems more like a women bullying women issue, but why take any responsibility? this is the age of not my fault
10
I have been fascinated by the amount of (mostly) male contempt for women expressed in these comments, especially when the perfect solution would have been not to read the article. Don't like "chic lit"? Don't read it. But spare us your disdain. Perhaps these folks didn't actually read the article and just stopped by for the opportunity to dismiss yet another finer female sensibility that they don't share and so cannot enter into. Dudes, this is why, in microcosm, there's a women's movement. Men have been judging women for centuries for just about everything under the sun. And many of you have incriminated yourselves—under pseudonyms, I might add. Some of you might summarize the major points of more "important" journalism herein to demonstrate that that's why you read the NYT. But whenever I see the 3 articles that are "Most popular," I am dismayed. Don't tell me you are all reading about Ukraine: you guys are reading about Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, too. So please dismount from your high horses.
Jessica and Amanda: Keep it up. The rest of you gals, vote for Liz Warren. But be prepared for more vitriol. Change does not come easy, especially to the folks who would like to maintain the status quo under which they wield most of the power.
Booyah, boyos.
314
@Barb Crook Thank you, Barb, well said! Touché!
50
@Barb Crook Um, somebody wrote and publically posted an opinion peace. Totally normal to read, disagree and post your response. Not sure where you're coming from on this.
35
@Daniel
It comes from a sense of entitlement some women feel to belittle men and silence their opinions. But don't dare turn the tables!
38
George Bernard Shaw was elected a borough vestryman in London around 1902, and he agitated for public restrooms for women. The notion was shocking to men, apparently, but Shaw prevailed. He said, sincerely, that the victory was one of his most significant acheivements. Biographer Michael Holroyd gives all the details in Vol. 2 of his staggering biography.
89
My last girlfriend lived with me for about six months in a two bedroom 2nd floor apartment. I was (am) so self conscious about using the bathroom that whenever I needed to go I would go down to the basement laundry room where there was a "secret" toilet that I don't think anyone used or knew about. I laughed when I found out later that she had told her friends that I never had a bowel movement the entire time we were dating.
42
@Thomas Kelly Williamson I also suffer from extreme bathroom self-consciousness (thanks to a twisted stepmother in my early childhood). For me, having some kind of sound barrier (fan or sink running) and an ample supply of Febreze are my two requirements. I work from home and love it; I identified very closely with multiple examples in the article. Some of us bear emotional scars from years ago, and in my case it manifested in severe IBS-D for the past 2 decades, which has only made my bathroom anxiety worse.
15
We finally got a nice faculty bathroom at work. Someone, sometimes, I, replaces the air freshener at intervals. The toilet paper actually is able to be separated from the roll.
Only one person can be in there at a time. It is so civilized. Prior to this it was use the student bathroom. If you think defecating at work is fraught when it is your co workers, try it with snarky high school students next door.
Also I recall that when my youngest went off to university this was one of her concerns-that people would "know". This is one of the instances in which women can be terrible to one another. And co-ed bathrooms ! Just No .
20
Ah, the odd conventions of humankind. Anyone who has watched dogs and cats knows that most mammals have an interest in the rear ends and smells of others of their species. We even do know that many humans notice the rear ends of other humans, even if convention prohibits acknowledging this at work, school, church, or various other contexts. Oddly, we are allowed to notice smells, and even to comment on some of them, giving rise to large industries such as perfume, deodorant, air fresheners, and so on. Would being aware that we are mammals really impede work? Why is lactation more acceptable to mention than defecation?
7
@ETOrdman
What about public reverberation?
1
Vestiges of puritanical uptightness. And definitely 100% the fault of men. And writing about it is getting to be a reliable cottage industry...
1
Why aren’t public restroom cubicles enclosed in the US? The public restrooms in Sweden have enclosed bathrooms, and each has a sink with paper towels.
57
@Mercy Wright How wonderful! When I was a college student in Germany for one year in the 1970s, my dormitory (housing 12 students) provided a sink in each bedroom. Additionally, there were two bathrooms, each containing a separate toilet room, separate shower room, and a common-area sink; so three students could use the facilities at the same time.
15
@Mercy Wright Because our public restrooms are designed without compassion or decency. I suspect in large part they are the way they are, merely because they've been designed that way for so long. Add to that the busybody gender bigots who want the capability to snoop on bathroom users...and you end up with our current situation.
10
You should know that this column caused much hang-wringing on at least one conservative site, The American Thinker, as another indicator of the decline of Western Civilization.
10
@Ron Goodman My mistake, it was PJ Media.
5
“Pootriarch”. Brilliant. I even know of one. Even thinks he’s my president.
22
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
8
This is a crisis. We can no longer sit back and allow Communist indoctrination, Communist infiltration, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
10
Why is the "patriarchy" to blame for a woman's toilet requirements? It's a ridiculous statement.
15
I was once hired for a new job at my company because I was on the same bathroom schedule as my new boss. It was a joke between us that we always turned up at the ladies room at the same time. I had no idea there was so much shame around business bathrooms.
3
@Justme There isn't
1
I guess the woman who don't want to be noticed must work in small offices where there's just a stall or two, I've always worked in large office buildings where the ladies room always four plus stalls and it was always known that women's room is always dirtier than the men's, as the cleaning ladies you eventually get to know will tell you. Maybe too much TMI here but I'm just amazed how a grown human being does not flush after #2. I mean, you know what you just did, so is it left intentionally? Also, the "28 day thing", another reason to make sure you flush, but sometimes it amazes what you find when you swing open that door to the stall when you have to go.
24
Something not mentioned in this article is the modern toilet. I work in a new building that just opened four weeks ago. We have low-flow toilets that flush spontaneously as you stand up; that is unless they don't. Then you have to search for the button to flush it. Another "feature" is that it uses so little water that it does not clear even toilet paper away, making you flush multiple times. It is hard for me to think of how many times I would have to flush after a bowel movement; four times? I am glad that I am regular before work. Thank you Coffee!
26
At least I haven't heard women say, "I'm going to powder my nose" in years.
When I was at a zoo in India, outside the women's restroom an old woman sat under a tree collecting the fee. The sign said, "one rupee for urination and two rupees for defecation." I wondered about that until I got into the restroom. There was a long row of holes to squat over with no barriers at all for urination and two stalls at the end, also with holes. I only had to urinate, but I used one of the stalls. Squatting over a hole didn't bother me because my mother taught me to lift the seat with my foot and squat over the toilet when I used a public bathroom. At least in India there was no seat to lift.
10
My user behavior is intended to ensure that I do not offend. So, I flush strategically and often to control smell and sound and I clean the toilet so no remnant remains. For myself, I breathe through my mouth when I find the ordor offensive and clean a toilet before using when it is left unclear. So one might say my behavior reflects what bothers me. I don't want others to be constrained, but I do find ways to minimize what I find unpleasant and have to be desperate to use a portal potty. Life has little challenges which we deal with in various ways.
22
@PH Amen, Sister; my 'user behavior' duplicates yours to a tee! Thank goodness for us.
3
Many years ago, in grad school, I took a human factors course. The teacher was a wimpy guy from the aerospace industry, and a singularly poor instructor. For the required term paper, and because of disrespect, I wrote a satirical piece called, I believe, ‘heuristic bathroom design’ which featured many of the considerations currently mentioned. The joke was not only unrecognized, but it earned an A and an offer to help getting it published! Only confirmed my theory about where this guy’s brain was.
Had I known, I could have retained (!) it and seized an opportunity to update in the Times. Or had an entirely different career.
8
I just have to say the illustration for this piece is wild. Are the people in the first stall supposed to be enjoying each others company? And who puts their bare feet on the floor of a public bathroom like in the fourth?
20
One very positive trend I notice in public restrooms is unisex individual bathrooms. At the Moxy Hotel in Manhattan a group of us went for drinks at their bar.
The women who came back were raving-- restrooms had individual bathrooms with solid doors. No urinals, no segregation by sex. Men and women wait on the same line if necessary and are equally assured privacy and relatively effective sound-proofing.
There are solutions if people think this through and act respectfully toward each other.
28
The great equalizer--from my experience--is the all-day group hike into high Sierra wilderness. Men and women alike in our group peeled off to answer nature's call. We always had a reminder from our hike leader to bring along a zip-loc baggies with TP and bring the used TP back so "there would be no Charmin lilies left in the woods."
The hike also eliminates all of that urban angst. :-)
7
@RAB Even better is a river rafting trip where everyone goes in a large ammo can that is transported down the river and then must be emptied at the end of a trip.
They're called "groovers," because in the days before portable toilet seats, one's posterior got grooves from sitting on the rim of the can.
12
A timely topic the broken winds of time has not diluted, In sincere proof, I offer an authentic documentation of the habits of Elizabethan times by noted historical transcriber, Mark Twain : https://www.horntip.com/html/books_&_MSS/1870s/1870s--1910ca_1601__mark_twain_(PB)/index.htm
And now to the personal anecdotes section of my epistle - As a big-bike affectionato , I have always derided any and all who rode scooters--so vehemently so that I began to refer to there squaty riding position as "potty bikes"--Until a friend riding a scooter claimed to have been ticketed by the the law ,,,For excreting the speed limit.
Do read the Twain, though. You will remain just so naive if you don't.
5
And then there’s Hillary’s late return to the debate stage after a break.
2
There are billions of people both men and women who never give a thought to this part of their lives. then there are the naval gazing readers of publications like the New York times. take a back packing trip into the woods now and then where you have hike a few hundred yards and to dig hole first. then cover it. it will provide some perspective.
3
@fme writes "then there are the naval gazing readers"
And other readers are "navel" gazers ...
9
@MJ
There are some just fascinated by sailors and their lives at sea.
13
I am a guy and I (used to) hate to use public/ office restrooms. One, because men’s restrooms are usually way dirtier than I can deal with. Two, because I also feel somewhat conscious of making noises or stinking up the place in a public restroom, esp. at work. And three, yes, in American restrooms, there simply isn’t enough privacy!! (Hence I love restrooms in Europe and now increasingly in India (workplace) where there’s much better privacy.) Oh, and four, a friend/ colleague of mine once told me we might ourselves smell a bit after a poop! (That took some time to get over!)
So, ladies, guys (many of us I’m sure) also have the same issues or fears as you do. I stand in solidarity with you on that.
Having said that, I think most people - men and women - including me, expect women to be quieter, cleaner, better “behaved” about bathroom habits, etiquette and humor than men. Having gotten married and having a feisty daughter who’s 19 now, has fixed some of that for me - but I have to admit, not fully. But I definitely don’t let that affect my behavior towards women at work!
I did think that women had a much better deal regarding public/ workplace toilets than men - both in terms of privacy and “judgy” behavior. This article makes me think perhaps not so much?
25
I ways thought women's rest rooms were a little bit cleaner. One day, last year, when I was visiting the Chicago Botanical Garden, a woman went into the men's room nonchalantly went into a stall for a few minutes and left. No man stared or spoke to her. The wait lines were large.
13
I'm of the consideration that no woman wants to put her makeup on where the room smells disagreeable. I certainly know I don't want to. What's more I don't want to wash my face or brush my teeth where there is a toilet. That's because just flushing a toilet causes droplets in the air and those droplets move around on air currents to fall in other places. I much prefer the French way to handle toilets. I don't know if it is across all Europe but if possible it is the French way when possible.
That's to install a water-closet where there is ventilation and privacy. We live in a one story house and have one. It also include a small rectangular sink. We are only 2 adults. My inlaws have one on each of their three-floors. The bathroom is used for just that, bathing and showering.
Of course that is not always the case in all apartments or houses but it could be with a small amount of forethought.
4
@Susannah Allanic:
It is absolutely untrue what you said, that flushing a toilet causes droplets that "move around on air currents."
Any droplet that contained a "contaminant" would be unable to float. If you've taken a course in microbiology, you will know the air all around us is filled with the same contaminants you fear. Our immune system (and noses) evolved to filter-out such things. It's why our noses have mucus -- so everything sticks & stays there -- and doesn't enter our lungs.
Don't be alarmist.
Toilets do not release "droplets that float."
8
@IN
I have taken courses in microbiology. That is why I understand that there are air-negative (a misnomer but still) in nearly every state hospital.
I have also proven to doubters about droplets, which are not 'gtts', which you would know had you taken a course in microbiology or pharmacology.
I challenge you to drop some color of dye, any color you wish, into your toilet. Then lay a piece of absorbent paper between the seat and the lid while the seat rests on the toilet rim and and the lid is lowered. Flush and once flushing is done, before the refill is done remove the paper. Turn it over and you will see.
Droplets spread the common cold as well as Tuberculosis. Droplets can remain in the air for a very long time. You can see proof that that perhaps in your bathroom if you have mildew or in the forest where mushrooms habit.
8th grade biology is only the beginning of science knowledge. There are many more classes to go and lab work to be experienced to know more. But if you don't mind brushing your teeth at the washbasin next to toilet it is no longer my problem. Wait a minute, it was never my problem anyway.
I am not a phobe. I spent my career in health care in Trauma One care centers.
15
A number of these issues could simply be resolved if bathroom design were different. In many public bathrooms in Europe it is not a stall but an actual "closet" where the walls reach floor and ceiling and the door provides full privacy. Maybe, if bathroom design changed all could feel more comfortable defecating outside their home/hotel etc and, as an added bonus, all this discussion of which gender is in which bathroom could just grind to a halt.
29
A local Century 21 store’s bathrooms are coed. The stalls have floor to ceiling walls and doors. No urinals. The sinks are in a common area. It felt like the most normal thing in the world, to be washing my hands near other men, women, and children.
20
Thanks for this article. I have occasionally wanted to ask my wife about women’s experiences in public toilets when they “travel to Poopylvania.” Our home features a bathroom close enough to our bedroom to make me wonder if there’s some kind of loudspeaker wired into the porcelain throne. If my wife emits the kinds of sounds she makes at home while in public bathrooms she would do well to provide Bose noise canceling headphones to the neighbors. Don’t get me wrong—she has no qualms about these thunder strikes. In fact she took a page out of Lyndon Johnson’s how-to book and leaves the door open most of the time. I have grown used to the cacophony but am eternally grateful that my excretions emerge to the sound of perfectly tuned violins, with the scent of well-curated wildflowers, and pre-packaged in compostable sealed bags.
45
@Capital idea
Thank you, finally someone with a sense of humor.
12
@Capital idea Thank you for my second laugh with these comments.
6
Well, then I guess someone should consult women before making women’s bathrooms available to anyone who wishes to use it.
Also bathroom stalls tend to have a crack so someone outside can see what the person inside is doing. I once had a little girl peer in at me while I was on the toilet. I held up a jacket, but really. Other countries don’t have this gap, or such a small door.
In Japan, many toilets, especially targeted at women, have white noise.
17
@Raindrop everybody farts, everybody's poop makes a sound when it drops in the toilet. Don't try to hide it!!
1
It is true that IBS and IBD affect women at higher rates, and that one could have increased frequency of bowel movements if they are diagnosed with either of those. It would be wrong to associate “poop shame” with actually causing “IBD” Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Crohn's or Colitis). They are complex, immune related and multifactorial chronic illnesses that do not arise from having anxiety, not going, or general issues regarding defecation in an individual.
6
As a male, I simply cannot relate to this essay. Yes, the notion that women don't defecate is sexist and downright Victorian in the sense that it places women on a pedestal. It reinforces the notion that women are essentially spiritual, sublime creatures unpolluted by base biological functions. Males, in contrast, are regarded as bestial creatures whose bodies perform disgusting functions that a woman's body never would. And this somehow privileges men? I've been hugely ashamed of the fact my body performs this function precisely because, on a deep emotional level, a part of me remains convinced that defecating, which I still consider disgusting, is something that only males do. This idea was drilled into me by own father, despite the fact that I grew up with a twin sister with whom I regularly shared bathroom time when we were tots, so I knew otherwise. The idea that males, because they defecate, are much closer to barnyard animals, in contrast to females, who are much closer to angels or goddesses because they do not, was further reinforced at the elementary school I attended, where the toilet stalls in the girls' bathrooms had doors for privacy, whereas the stalls in the boys' bathrooms did not. It was drilled into me that privacy and dignity were privileges denied to me because I was male; in other words, disgusting and animal-like. Dogs don't expect privacy when defecating; why should I?
I continue to insist that sexism harms both sexes. This is a case in point.
28
@David
A further thought, in line with my comments above:
The authors write that "Men's room users have the luxury of urinals. . . ." There is nothing "luxurious" about having to urinate cheek by jowl with other men. It's disgusting, demeaning and an affront to one's sense of privacy and propriety. That the authors imagine the experience of having some man's urine splashing onto one's own shoes because he is, literally, that close, or that standing in a puddle of urine because of all the slobs that preceded one at that urinal who missed, to be a "luxury" illustrates the maxim that the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.
Yet I acknowledge the authors' larger point. At least, when I have to go, I don't have to wait in those interminable lines for public restrooms that women have to wait in.
I repeat; sexism harms both sexes, albeit in different ways. The gendered way in which our society views basic biological functions, and the harms and indignities that each sex suffers as a result, is the very paradigm of this phenomenon.
25
Thank you guys for tackling a subject that isn't discussed enough. I sympathize with women and didn't know the extent they suffered. I can identify to some extent in dealing with inconsiderate men's bathroom habits, namely leaving the seat down and peeing all over it... then not flushing and walking away! 23 years in the Navy and I could never seem to teach this basic civility to my young male Sailors. Male inconsiderate behavior and yet other males never say "hey, that's very rude and inconsiderate. Don't do that anymore." I don't get it.
20
My late wife said that women’s bathrooms, especially those at airports, were the most disgusting things she’d ever seen. Apparently some women, rather than letting their bottoms touch the seat, somehow hover over them and then in the process pee everywhere. And then walk away without cleaning up. Since from reading some of the comments below we’re a “patriarchy” (Earth Citizen - you should have met my beloved late wife) or men absolutely need to know and understand about a woman’s bodily functions, I think that the NYT should go a similar in-depth piece on this particular phenomenon.
21
Some experiences. 1. When I lived in an Army barracks for a while the toilets had no stalls so, when you defecated there you were totally open and visible and stinkable to your mates (all men of of course). And if your odor on a certain day was particularly offensive, it would be normal for fellow bathroom users to so note, jokingly. 2. When I backpacked with coed groups it was not unusual for people of both sexes to expose their bodies, e.g. while skinny dipping or changing clothes, and even urinating in front of members of the opposite sex. I don't recall anyone defecating in public, if one had to go, one would go off to an appropriate place by oneself. If fact the "place" often would be the same for everyone; we didn't want to despoil the natural environment by digging cat holes everywhere. Backpacking is definitely a way to fend off trumped up social mores. 3. I know at least one woman who won't hike because there are no bathrooms in the woods.
8
Because we have established that we all do poo, and that women are obliged to use more TP, I'm surprised the article doesn't mention how efficient, hygienic, and economic widespread use of the bidet would be.
15
Something the article does not mention are the behaviors of others that are hard to escape -- for example, loud knocking on bathroom or stall doors. To that, I usually respond with "where you expecting me to invite you in?" as I pass them on my way out. But does there really have to be so much full-volume, "THX-the-audience-is-listening"-style MOANing in public restrooms? Doing this in your cubicle would probably get you into trouble, yet people appear to think it's okay in a bathroom occupied by others at the same time.
Nevertheless, the stipulated etiology of male paruresis doesn't hold water -- it's (usually) easy enough to use a stall to pee instead of a urinal, the above issues notwithstanding.
And what value does the Canadian study have, without offering any comparative figures for males?
2
@Dominik Jacobs my third chuckle with this set of comments. Thank you.
Thoughts here on two nations: Japan - while there, I perceived some kind of a philosophy on "that"...one of respect, total seclusion, absolute cleanliness. It was heavenly. I can't quite articulate the sanity of a culture that provides privacy and comfort to such an extent. Second was Peru...where I said to a (fantastic and courteous) male guide in the middle of nowhere.."is there a toilet around here anywhere?" "I'll take you", he said...and off we tromped - and when we arrived - 1 hut, 2 stalls: he took one and I, winced and though oh boy, when in Rome..while, he on one side of flimsy partition and I on the other, voided and continued our chit-chat about the Incan calendar, non stop. And it was fine. I don't know why, but plush, poncy America has bathroom phobias...and now we're turning it into a gender problem? Nope.
7
It's a very serious issue, and I'm glad the author is addressing this. But then I got to this part: “If a boy farts, everyone laughs, including the boy ... If a girl farts, she is mortified.” And I thought. The author has never met my daughter. She farts with abandon. She farts with joy. Her farts are legendary. She waits until the lights are down, and the movie is right to an incredibly tense part - then lets one rip. Her farts clear rooms, and make us all go for walks in the fog. She has no shame about her body, and I hope this means we're doing something right (but at this point I can't entirely be sure).
36
I remember a funny scene in a Barbra Streisand movie.
Barbra’s character burst her way into a male colleague’s bedroom so that she could use the bathroom AND check to see if the man had a floozy in his bed.
Floozy: “You’re Fanny Brice! I don’t believe it!”
Barbra: “What? That Fanny Brice goes to the can??”
5
I’ve always felt for the women waiting in long lines at public events to use the restrooms while most men’s restrooms have no line at all. Men have the option of urinals and a quick in and out if they are just peeing. I agree that women’s restrooms should be larger and include more stalls.
10
@MarcusD Just make it all unisex. A long row of closed door stalls with ceiling to floor walls, and a common set of sinks outside. Done!
8
Poopourri is very good for use in masking poop smells in any toilet/stall.
I know several ladies who bring this along when they poop at work.
1
I never poop at work since I'm really embarrassed by the smell. However I have friends who definitely aren't embarrassed to poop in public restrooms. I live with roommates so I've had to get over caring what they think a little bit. I think there's definitely a correlation between how offensive someone's poop odor usually is and how embarrassed they are about pooping in public, and I actually don't think it's irrational to be embarrassed by it. I remember hearing once that people's opinions of moral issues or of other people change unconsciously if they are smelling an unpleasant odor at the time. Yeah, in a perfect world we shouldn't judge each other, but having private bathrooms with odor/noise control would make my work life so much easier when my endometriosis kicks in. I could actually think about work instead of putting my mental energy into trying to avoid being overtly disgusting and "holding it all in" or even wishing I could go home sick just to avoid embarrassing myself at work.
11
@Anonymous Come on. The body can easily be conditioned to poop before leaving the house in the morning. All it takes is a cup of coffee or tea or food and juice etc to train the body. Then no usual need to randomly poop at work.
5
Missing from the article, is mine and the experience of many, many others. I do not have the urge to poop until I walk through the door of my home. It is truly bizarre.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/gotta-go/544544/
5
My husband doesn't believe me, but I was shamed about pooping by some other girls in my dorm. They would come in the bathroom and complain about the smell (and this was late at night in a bid to avoid them). I ended up getting hemorrhoids and later having to get a hemorrhoidectomy, not a pleasant surgery.
8
I hate pooping at work but when I have, I don't leave the cubicle until I'm sure that I've left it clean, and flushed several times or sprayed to reduce odour. Most mornings all 4 cubicles in the ladies' at my end of my floor will contain various levels of remnants where the user just hasn't bothered to ensure they've flushed sufficiently if at all, and they haven't opened the window. We get emails and notices on the doors reminding people to flush.
Many of us have noticed that women who've pooped are often in a hurry to leave before they're spotted, and dash out without washing their hands.
Some of my anxiety about pooping at work comes from fear of being thought of as one of those people who leave the toilet messy, but mainly just the thought of creating those sounds and smells. I'd find myself searching for an empty restroom and try different floors - took up so much of my time!
A few years ago I decided that the only way to deal with the anxiety is to deal with why I need to poop at work. I've now trained my system to get it all over with before I leave the house. Peppermint tea every night works for me... It's the first thing I pack for business trips.
9
Screw it. If there's insufficient or 'too busy' woman's bathrooms, I use the men's. Oddly, no one ever objects, although they look sufficiently mortified. Ha!
8
And here, all this time, (I'm 62) I didnt know that I was supposed to be worried about pooping at work. Perhaps the small advantage of being raised blue-collar and then pursuing and working in a profession, architecture, where for decades I was one of few women. The guys didnt seem to care, why should I. Oh, just get over yourselves, already.
12
My office has a noise maker in every woman's restroom. I thought it was the darn weirdest thing ever when I first started working there. Now, I love it. No one can hear anything happening in another stall. Game. Changer.
45
@Michigan Girl
That's great -- as long as they pay her at least minimum wage, even when she is not actively making any noise. ;-)
3
@Michigan Girl. A noisemaker? Great idea.. in my opinion all bathrooms should also have a pleasant smell maker.
6
I can't stop laughing.
2
I actually find that wiping behavior can be more revealing than other stall activity. I can remember hearing one colleague go at the act with such vigor and for such a long period of time I was surprised he could sit at his desk. People do notice such things and there is no doubt that using a public restroom exposes more of oneself than may be psychologically comfortable but it is better than the alternative IMO.
12
@JohnFred
Perhaps you heard something that was the result of a different kind of activity altogether, but you wisely chose to interpret the sounds in a way that would protect your own innocence. Good for you!
7
Look at what happens to women in India and Pakistan who are raped when they try to defecate or urinate in the open.
Oddly, as I have pointed out to the kids I know in college, the "women's bathrooms", established by and in major department stores, and public buildings, in NYC and elsewhere first made ensuring feminine "privacy", in order to bring them, feeling secure, into the store.
Now, Kids at Hunter College are now being taught that the entire "concept" of a two gender system of separate public bathrooms, is a way for men to crush and control women by "relegating" them to unequal toilet status.(?) Feminist and especially male homosexual scholars at Hunter, claim there is no reason why women need or would want separate bathrooms from men. (!!!)
That men invent the need and force it on unwilling women and poor, unequal homosexual/transexual men who wish to use Women's bath rooms.
I didn't invent this-but it is-much like teaching of Marxism , once popular among the young,(probably because no one understood it), who never could explain it- and now toilet abuse is now the theory holding water on campus.
38
@meloop
I went to university in Australia in the seventies and for a year I lived at a dorm run, and staffed, by Ursuline Nuns. The dorm was co-ed. So were the toilets and the showers. A long run of toilet stalls, a long run of shower stalls. Men and women all together. Two sets of each on all the floors of the dorm. The nuns were fine with this as were the students. The nuns were an eye opener for me - I loved how down to earth and forward thinking they were. It was a great dorm.
4
When I was a hippie in San Francisco I lived, for a while, in a "commune" (apartment) on Haight Street near Shrader. It was a three bedroom apartment with no door on the one bathroom and housed 23 people. Not only did we have to get over our "uptight" attitudes, some of us (me, for one) reveled in how far we had come from our "bourgeois" backgrounds.
9
I never felt any of this embarrassment. However, I have been highly annoyed, frustrated, and appalled by the low quality of toilet paper in offices and public places.
This specially designed paper is milled a fraction of the thickness of standard supermarket toilet paper, making it very difficult to get off the roll without each sheet tearing. Then, the giant roll rebounds, and the end gets lost in the vast, difficult to reach apparatus, which is customarily mounted on the side of the at an awkward height so that no one can reach the paper without contortions.
In addition, some types paper tend to crease lengthwise, scrunching up unavoidably to a fraction of the width of normal toilet paper, leaving one wondering how to use it.
I have no doubt that the paper and dispensers are marketed based on economy, and ordered by men who have managed never to have to use them
67
@Linda I worked at a company that switched from the machines you talk about to using plain old grocery store toilet paper rolls. Within a year they converted back, the theft rate was so horrific that it more than doubled the expenditures of previous years. Pretty much every day, by mid day the rolls on the spools, as well as the extra rolls available under the sink counter, were gone.
17
@Linda
Brilliant, just illuminating. If you were mine, only the softest of good traction.
Best Wishes.
2
@Linda
the paper is thinner because of the...err...load on the plumbing in offices and public spaces. Whereas at home the average family uses the toilet just a dozen times a day...and the plumbing lines are much shorter to a cesspool or sewer...compared to an office building where the lines travel several miles...
The paper is made thinner to fall-apart/dissolve faster...and not become a blockage issue...which every home with children knows can be a huge problem...
4
When I first started nursing, I was shocked to be on units with no staff bathrooms, and forbidden to leave the unit to use a bathroom. In India, I found men squatted everywhere but women had nowhere. NYC has almost no bathrooms, too.
13
I've wondered why American public or work toilets are open stalls. In Europe, the toilets are in separate closets, fully closed, giving the occupant privacy. It makes such a difference in the ease of bodily functions knowing that your neighbor is not judging you. And you can take as much time needed or make as much noise as needed. Why doesn't the U.S. have such toilets?
96
@AB Two points for you to consider. I went to a rural high school in Missouri and the toilets had only a brick divider that stood three feet tall off of the floor, this is all that separated you from the other person and the urinal were just feet from these toilets. You had absolutely no privacy. When I graduated in 1986 my class visited Washington, DC. I had contracted a stomach virus which required me to visit many restrooms in DC. The best one if I remember correctly was the Ford theater, which was a closet type if I understand you correctly, with floor to ceiling marble walls and the door was also floor to ceiling. Really plush for me, a hick from SW. Missouri.
5
@AB I would assume cost. A partition is a lot cheaper to install than building multiple separate rooms.
2
The squatters potty is currently popular but I’m not aware of any evidence that it assists defecation. I’m a colorectal surgeon. Anecdotally, I have seen several patients whose hemorrhoids got worse with its use. My advice to patients: go when you need to go. Get in, get out. Don’t strain, read, or take your phone!
39
@Susan B Don't...read. Say it ain't so doc.
3
@Susan B That advice doesn't work for some of us whose systems have to be coaxed like an extremely shy horse.
4
I had no idea some people thought it was a problem to poop at work. I did try to be as respectful of others as possible. I would try to go when no one else was in the bathroom. I would go to the furthest stall.
Then one day, I noticed a can of air freshener in the stall I always used. There was no air freshener in any other stall. I checked bathrooms on other floors. Nope. The only air freshener was in the stall I sat in.
Did someone know it was ME? Did people talk about it and I didn't know? While I thought we were all thinking about the agenda at meetings, were some women looking at me and thinking about my poop?
Really?
I never thought about what anyone else does in the bathroom, except the women who talk on phones in the stall. Everything else we do in there is necessary and natural.
But after the air freshener, I was self-conscious. I think it's terrible that we have to fight something that's natural and necessary.
Thanks for that, Women At Work. I disagree this is the result of patriarchy. This is WOMEN ... because it's other women who are in there with us. This is what women do to each other.
56
@Deb
I don’t think you should assume that it was about you. Most of us have the instinct to go to the furthest stall to do serious business. My guess is that somebody just figured out that was the chosen poop stall for most and put the freshener in there.
15
@Deb, You should not feel bad or self-conscious. it is likely that many different women used the same bathroom stall That you did. Don't take it personally.
8
Deb, did you ever think that it wasn’t about you? More likely the person who placed the air freshener in the stall you use at work also liked to use that stall as it was «the furthest one away »
10
I will out myself as a past listener and cite one episode of The Howard Stern Show I heard on Sirius in my car years ago. It was when he had first started dating the woman that has now been his wife for many years, Beth Ostrosky. He was singing her praises, but I distinctly remember one of his more expressive compliments was that she only pooped like once a week and that was a positive thing. I'll never forget that. I know he's a comedian and he says the most outrageous things to get the largest response and I never took much of what he said seriously, but the same could not be said of his audience. So legions of Howard Stern fans were taught that the ideal woman only poops maybe once a week. I think we may need a sequel to the book "Everybody Poops" called "Everybody Poops, Even Women And Not Just Once A Week"...
17
@Laura
If only that were the most offensive and false and sexist statement ever to come out of the mouth of Howard Stern. Forget it. It’s white noise from the mouth of a misogynist.
20
A healthy person poops 3-5 times a day. If you poop once a week that’s a problem. I think Howard was just being Howard, that’s his brand of humor.
1
@Laura. Donald Trump said, on Howard Stern I believe, that Melania never poops.
7
Somehow I wasn't aware, until recently, that I was supposed to be ashamed to poop in a public restroom. Now at almost 62 I wonder if students at my Uni are horrified if I do. It is rather too bad that I learned that it is supposed to be shameful.
31
@Heather The students don't care. This is one of those topics the right throws at us for being snowflakes - and it's hard to argue
While visiting Tokyo I used a women's restroom in a restaurant and noticed a button in the stall. Not able to read Japanese, I did not try pushing it because I feared it might be some sort of emergency call button. Later my Japanese friend informed me that the button produced a loud flushing sound without actually having to flush the toilet, saving water and "saving face."
51
TIP: just flush immediately and repeatedly.
10
@Tammy
That is a waste of water. Some areas have drought problems. Flush when done.
9
First world problems, much?
29
@Baron95
Yes – – those are the problems we have because we live in the first world.
15
@Baron95. Not really. Lack of bathroom access cause women and girls around the world to have health problems and drop out of school, not to mention getting attacked by predators. So, wherever we are, bathroom use seems to be problematic.
11
@Baron95 First world still has problems, yes.
5
Holy cow, did this hit home! I’m a 63 year old guy and as long as i can recall I have been embarrassed to be either in a public bathroom, or (horrors!) at someone’s house. I have an inherited illness that makes the smell pretty toxic.
So, all you men (and women), who say it’s no big deal: for a lot of us, yes it is.
40
Japanese toilets! The best of them include background noise and instant sanitizing.
21
Are there no end to the articles that reveal, in excruciatingly whining detail, yet another example of how hard it is to be a woman in today's world?
23
@WHS
No, there will not be an end. Women should have their say about anything that matters to them.
65
@Barb Crook
I doubt this is really a pressing concern for women. And I also doubt it has anything to do with "patriarchy".
2
Wonderful piece! Should be required reading for every American adult. Then they should read it to their children.
7
@Vesuviano
Not to children. Children should be left to poop in peace with zero psychodrama. Only if their poor little minds have already been poisoned by the idea of poop shame, and a corrective is needed, should they see stuff like this.
7
My 35 year old daughter tells me that the “older women” where she works, let ‘em rip, without abandon. Age has it’s privileges.
36
After getting through childbirth, raising children, and menopause - poop is nothing compared to flooding periods- there isn’t much I haven’t seen, exposed or experienced. My husband wanted to go vegetarian so now I’m on a high fiber diet. My main concern with toilets is: where is it and is there paper.
5
@Ginger I usually carry some toilet paper in my purse, just in case. When travelling, I sometimes carry small pieces of soap, too--just in case. Women carry purses for all these things and more: toilet paper, soap, comb, tampons or sanitary napkins, aspirin or similar pain relievers, wallet, transit card, tissues, phone, etc. Public facilities run out of soap and toilet paper and rarely offer feminine hygiene supplies for free or for sale. Our periods sometimes arrive unexpectedly. Please, give us hooks in the stalls for hanging our supplies!
8
Every manager and HR person who deals with workers with IBD (Crohn's and ulcerative colitis) should read this story.
It gave me flashbacks to workdays before Crohn's forced my way-early retirement. It's been several decades and now it's hard to remember being young and vigorous enough to cope with workplace bathrooms five to eight times a day.
That doesn't sound like a compliment but it actually reflects what a great job the authors did collecting input...on output.
35
I am a supervisor for a local housing authority on a small construction site. I'm in my 60's and the only woman there. The builder is required to provide a women's porta-pottie, with a lock. Trouble is, it's right next to the one facility provided for the 5-10 men who might be on site (no lock for them). The boxes are located in the middle of a constricted area outside the building with activity all around all day. The men use their box without concern; even if I happen to be standing nearby, they don't hesitate. But I am mortified to be seen entering or leaving my box in their midst. So I have trained myself to go early in the morning before work, and I don't eat lunch, lest I have to use the facilities afterwards. There have been times when I didn't keep to schedule and walked two blocks to a Starbucks rather than walk past my co-workers and unlock my door. I am usually the last person on site at the end of the day; then, if I don't think I can make it home in time, I'll use my facilities - at that hour I can relax and go in private. My reticence is probably harming my insides, and it's certainly not helping to reverse any patriarchal attitudes about women's habits. I should probably get over my phobia, stride up to my box when I need to, and slam the door behind me, just like the guys.
45
@fran o.:
You're showing what too many women fear. It's self induced. And it perpetuates the false myth that "women are perfect" - that "women don't poop."
Get over your fear of being judged, please. For your own sake.
9
@fran o. Don’t worry so much! Just use it.
9
Yes you can! Just do it. They don’t care anyway.
9
Another thought: This year (I am 68), I got another job: Toll Booth Attendant at a local park. I loved the idea of working in an environment that I loved. (Forget about the money.) Came to realize, there is one bathroom/lunch break over 9 hours. I have IBS. Had to leave after a month. Took an anti diarrheal medicine every morning.
19
When I first visited Sweden, I noticed a woman at Arlanda airport entered a stall and left the restroom and didn't use the sinks outside the stalls. I was surprised, then realized on entering the stall that each toilet is accompanied by its own sink. I have found this to be in the case in multiple public sites in Sweden. It's a great setup and allows for private tending to one's bathroom needs, cosmetic needs, etc. with a modicum of privacy. Wish we had more such bathrooms in the United States.
505
@Sushirrito
That would be nice but it would drive the american accountants and managers insane. What a waste of space that could be used to increase productivity and PROFIT. We are lucky that out corporate overlords allow us to use the bathroom at all.
Now get back to WORK!
67
@Sushirrito Nope. Those sinks are contaminated every time the toilet is flushed.
18
@Terry
And the stall knobs, levers, even flush handle (where still installed)...what kind of contamination does that spread without a sink in the stall?
Do you actually put your hands INTO any sink--public or home?? Personally I wash under running water, and can clean the handles while I am at it, before and after use, with one final rinse...look at the science. See what hospitals do.
33
There is one place where the ladies' restroom is always empty: a professional boxing event. I've been at MSG, the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Staples Center in LA, and many others in between - and 95 percent of the time I'm the only woman in there. Bliss.
9
Having a baby in a hospital spewing all manner of bodily fluids among strangers cured me of any embarrassment of mine or anyone else's bodily functions - I proudly walk the long hall at work to the bathroom with my poo purse I keep on the hook behind my office door that I stock with flushable wipes & preparation H and do my business without a care in the world.
If there ever was a pootriarchy, it's day is done and the door is wide open for all women to free themselves - we're all mothers, sisters, and daughters who are intimately familiar with the bodily functions of others in our roles as caretakers. Free yourself of shame and don't continue a culture of shame, in the bathroom or anywhere else.
54
"flushable" wipes clog pipes. there have been multiple articles about how harmful they are and costly to municipalities.
9
@Megan
Flushable wipes do damage in the sewage plant. Just partially wet an couple of lengths of toilet paper before you go.
9
In Army basic training, in the late 60's, the latrine's toilets were situated side by side. Not even a partition wall. Took a while, but eventually everyone got accustomed to the situation. I've even seen guys spit-shining their boots while taking a dump.
I can't speak for the facilities for women in their basic training units.
In base camp latrines in Vietnam, some of the toilets accommodated 20 or more users and consisted of toilet seats permanently fastened to a long board, about 12" separating one from the next. There was no water, just the bottom 15 or so inches of a 55-gal. drum with a couple of inches of diesel fuel in it. These were pulled out daily and the contents set on fire. When the smoke cleared, so to speak, the drum bottoms were pushed back under the seats for refilling. If you were lucky, there might be another barrel outside the latrine that sometimes had water in it for handwashing.
It took me a week to have my first bowel movement in Nam. I was beginning to worry I would go the whole year without any relief.
Back in that era I once read a book that was set on a (fictional) Pacific island where the inhabitants were all on an equal footing, largely as a result of their toilets. These were multi-person, multi-gender communal affairs, circular and without any doors or dividers. Talk about equalizers.
42
@Glen
Perhaps the rudimentary latrines in basic training were part of the training for being able to "go" in the field, under worse circumstances.
8
Talk about Active Duty,....thanks for your service!
11
And then you have the polar opposite of shame, a coworker of mine who would walk into the stall, LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN, and proudly generate the loudest, most detailed defecation one could imagine. And I would be screaming from the next stall, amid the florid stench, "Hey Wayne, how about a courtesy flush??!!"
14
is he a local newscaster? at least the one from my freshman dorm did the same thing in choosing a stall that lost it's door and wasn't replaced.
1
@Alan I can remember being in the gym restroom when I was in college and there was a guy who did not shut the door on his stall. I overheard his friends making comments about him wanting to show off his manhood. It's been decades and it still perplexes me. WHY would someone not shut the door on their stall? Is it showing off? Claustrophobia? I have no idea. Doing it in a work environment is truly odd IMO.
3
I work in a small office, with just 4 female employees.
We are all very close, having worked together for several years. By now, we know the distinct....pooping schedules we keep.
I mean when you gotta go, you gotta go!
We don’t discuss it, but we also don’t pretend we don’t poop.
10
In summation, as I always say, having a bowel movement in the privacy of your own bathroom, in your own home — is a sacred experience.
41
The title reminds of a wonderful satirical poem by Jonathan Swift entitled "The Lady's Dressing Room," wherein a young man sneaks into his beloved's bedroom and discovers, among other horrors, a chamberpot, and evidence that his apotheosized goddess does, in fact, defecate. Swift's mockery of the fragile artifice of 18th century mores makes for a nice companion read to Lin's piece:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50579/the-ladys-dressing-room.
47
@Ben Bryant Amazing and quite funny!
9
This is weird as a man. You can walk in and hear men just rip one while you're at the urinal. Some stories about embarrassing gas issues echoing off the bowl are commonplace.
Piece of career advice I got: do not wear shoes people can recognize under a stall.
12
Poop shaming and resulting anxiety is an American cultural phenomenon. I've had the good fortune to travel abroad extensively, and women in other countries are much more comfortable with their bodies and natural functions. It's not like anyone has a choice, you know.
25
All due (poo?) respect, but "In other words, the patriarchy has seeped into women’s intestinal tracts. Let’s call it the pootriarchy." misses the point (pot?), men generally are not in women's bathrooms. Clearly, women are doing this because of their concerns about other womens' perceptions and responses.
19
In 52 years, I never gave a thought to pooping where others could hear or smell the results. I thought it was a consequence of growing up with several brothers and sisters.
What I loathe, are auto-flush toilets. They too often will go off at exactly the wrong moment. I've left work to go home and shower & put my clothes in the wash more than once. Some are so sensitive, the action of walking into a stall will trigger the flush and send the previous occupants' fecal matter straight at you. Others detect the motion of reaching or twisting to use toilet paper and send a chilly and filthy rinse back at you. If a restaurant has these type of toilets, I'm not staying for a meal.
19
I've never understood why some men are shy about using a "rest room." My barrack in Basic Training (US Army) had a single long trough for a urinal, and the toilets weren't enclosed, just a row of them along one wall of the latrine; I never noticed any signs of embarrassment. On the morning of my first day I was sitting on a toilet when a voice beside me said "How you doin'?" I looked over and saw an older man with sergeant's stripes on his sleeve doing what I was doing; he said "I'm your platoon sergeant." It took be aback, but only because I thought for a moment that I should acknowledge his rank in some way; then I said "Good morning sergeant."
9
Well, the fact that I am “Anonymous” says it all. I recognize all of you who do not want to poop, pass gas, in a public restroom. Yes, I remember going to a “far-off” location in my job. It was an off-hour, but someone came in. She hung around, and after 10 minutes, she yelled out, “You all right in there?” I meekly replied, “Yes.” She left after five more minutes. Twenty years later, I still recollect this!
Thank you for this article. I feel emboldened to fart and poop in public/restaurant bathrooms. I am serious.
15
Wonderful article, thank you! Have experienced all of the scenarios discussed and have gone out of way to poop in far-away bathrooms--in office buildings and gyms. Drove long-haul truck for awhile and learned to let go of public bathroom shyness.
11
An irrepressibly garrulous friend of ours was having dinner with us at Captain Bill's in Bay Shore, Long Island NY. Great fish. She likes her wine. Confronted by an unfairly asymmetric line for the rest rooms she addresses the Men, bragging she can go faster than any of them. The line let her "play through" (as in golf.)
10
I know of no one of any gender who relishes the idea of using a public bathroom at all, let alone for defecation. Private bathrooms and high-powered ventilation systems would be a welcome advance. Until then, carry a bottle of PooPouri with you and find the least-used loo for your business.
15
I struggle with this every work day. Because I have to poop twice a day (once at home in the am, and usually once in the afternoon at work), I've worked hard my entire adult life to find private bathrooms to accommodate my embarrassment. At my current work, there are 2 private bathrooms many floors down, but they are often busy with other like minded individuals, and I find myself standing around waiting for those to become available. Sometimes, there are others waiting - casually pretending to be in the hallway for some other purpose, checking email, etc.
15
@Tgirl--if you're pooping 2x a day you're eating too much food. Way too much food. I was overweight, lost 70 pounds and got to my ideal weight. Stayed there for many years and while at that weight I generally pooped every 2nd to 3rd day. Never on consecutive days. Try checking the intake, it determines the output.
1
It's a good discussion, but when do we move into something more broad? The endless narrative with gender studies is really incomplete. Try the French for a start--co-ed, body functions O.K women can be women. I'm a gay man who is not "cisgender" but you would likely guess I'm straight. To some degree you just have to do what you have to do--men in my shoes always have.
As to what they "think" at a point you will have to stop caring.
5
@Walter. “Try the French for a start--co-ed, body functions O.K women can be women. I'm a gay man who is not "cisgender" but you would likely guess I'm straight.“
What does this mean? And what does your not-biologically-male body and description as a gay male have to do with women’s biological issues in the bathroom? Women have different anatomy from men, get periods and, as mentioned in the article, a different colon structure, so there are issues women must address.
3
My career involved planning transportation facilities. In no place is restroom size more convoluted than airports terminals for both sexes. Sizing all facilities is based on anticipated passenger volumes 25-years in the future.This estimate requires estimating future sizing of gates, floor space for security queues, concession size, trash pick-up and goods delivery, curb lengths, parking etc. It can take years to determine terminal size and layout.
Traditionally architects (male) just assigned the same floor space for male and female passengers based on future passenger flow estimates of deplaning passengers (80-90% of passengers deboarding passengers use rest rooms).
I finally worked with a female architect. After she saw the preliminary terminal floor plan she gave everybody a lecture (all men) about restroom facility sizing .She insisted that female restrooms be 50% larger than male. A study was made to determine time used per person by sex in both restrooms. The conclusion was that female facilities should actually be double the size of male. Quite an eye opener.
Airport terminals are unique in the volume of people using restrooms at one time making design a real challenge. But, some planners and architects are trying to correct old beliefs. Patience will be a virtue for quite a while in the future. (Water use in terminal restrooms is another perplexing problem so trust the infra-red sensor).
34
@Fla Joe
Not only terminals but theaters, where some women are waiting nearly the entire intermission.
22
@Fla Joe
I appreciate the women's bathrooms at the Philadelphia International Airport. The doors open outward. This way, my carry-on can easily enter and exit the stall without touching the toilet bowl.
6
What a great article! Serious points but with humor inserted so that one can't help but continue to read through the discomfort of identifying with, well, the discomfort! The "pootricarchy" - isn't it, though! I'll be laughing about that one for days! Thank you, Amanda and Jessica!
16
I had no idea this was a problem, but I never worked in a corporation, or Congress. Public school teachers are pretty grown up about their rest rooms. Once, during a sudden stomach illness, I had to take my entire class of 7th graders with me to the rest room because we are not allowed to leave them alone. They were all very nice about it.
36
I remember a Spanish (?) film in which the guests sat on toilets around the table, and went discreetly to a cubicle in order to eat in shame. (I can see the actors' faces in my memory but the film's title escapes me ...)
6
@Bill George
It was Bunuel's "Le Fantome de la Liberte" from the early 70s.
6
@Bill George it was "The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie" - a French surrealist film.
3
The ladies at my job are so horrified by the thought of leaving a trace of odor behind, they have all brought in their own cans of scented air freshener. Regardless of what they actually do in the stall, they hose down the small, windowless ladies room with a vengeance afterwards. That leaves those of us with asthma and fragrance sensitivity to suffer. Imagine having to hold your breath and pull your shirt over your nose and mouth while trying to pee and wash your hands! I've even needed to use my Albuterol rescue inhaler afterwards from time to time. I fought HR on this issue for months, even supplying detailed reports from my doctor. In the end, they only agreed to see whether the cleaning crew might be able to identify fragrance-free cleaning products. I believe (hope) that someday, those products will be treated the same as second-hand smoke and be banned from public areas.
57
The scene from "Hidden Figures" was not fictional. It was based on the actual experience of at least one of the three African American women mathematicians at NASA Langley in Virginia in the early 1960s: Katherine Johnson.
I'm not sure about the work rest room situations for the other two African American women.
20
In San Diego years ago, a man sued the City for women using the men's restrooms in the stadium. He did not like it that he was forced to wait in a longer line to get to the men's because the women's restroom was always so packed, and a lot of women were forced to queue up in line with the men in the men's in order to get to use the restroom so they could get back to watching the ball game.
6
F-a-a-r more than we needed to know in this subject.
6
@Never Trumper
hmmmm, but you kept reading it apparently....:)
11
@Never Trumper Actually you DO need to know about this subject and how inconvenient a natural and regular body process is for women to accomplish in a patriarchy.
6
To the NYTimes and the authors:
You may get a lot of grief for publishing this article, but really, this is a subject that needs airing.
Having cleaned more than a few public bathrooms, I might add that though they were messier, at least the graffiti in the ladies room was a bit more creative.
29
@Wilder-- seriously? "this is a subject that needs airing". Of course with no pun intended...
3
Imagine the added problems unisex bathrooms would create for such women. Pooping in a stall next to a stall occupied by your male boss or male co-workers...doesn't that sound empowering and fun!
16
@Pella That's why there also need to be private bathrooms: for people that don't feel comfortable next to anyone else, for whatever reason. Waiting to go is a real health issue and some transgender people, and some straigt cis people, and some children, and some parents or caregivers who need to assist someone, need a private space. Why is that so hard to understand?
15
Growing up in the 1950's my sister and I had to say "excuse me"and then wait for permission to then leave the dinner table and the dining room if we felt the need to "pass gas".
Our mother also stressed upon us that "Horses sweat, men perspire and women 'dew' ".
No wonder it took me until I had my first child to "relax" about my own body functions, despite being a nurse and dealing daily with other peoples.
19
@Nan
Women 'dew'? That's so... literal! I was told they 'glowed.' Then I discovered they sweat, just like horses (and men).
15
@Nan - I was told that by my father, except women “glow.” Bless him. He was born in 1914, so he had Victorian influence.
6
@Nan: My mom's take on it was "Horses sweat, men perspire, & women get a gentle glow."
3
My mother instilled in me the phrase “Powder Room.” She believed with all her heart that “ladies room,” “bathroom” or, God forbid “toilet,” were déclassé.
I did know of a famous marital therapist who said that the secret to a good marriage is separate bathrooms. By that, I think she meant that some bodily functions are best kept private. Whether that’s shaming or simply maintaining a certain “mystery” I’m not sure, but I’m glad my husband and I are lucky enough not to have to share a bathroom.
My mother would be proud.
15
@Kathryn
I always thought it was because men are messy, prone to bringing in two hours worth of reading material, and worst of all, forget to put the seat down. Plenty of marital strife available there.
19
@Kathryn
Larry David also claimed that the secret to a good marriage is separate bathrooms.
On vacation and trying out that theory. It's true!
7
I’m not sure that all women share this problem.
Many years ago, I was watching TV with my career-woman mother, certainly a lady ahead of her time.
Well, she suddenly passed wind with such ferocity, that I swear the sofa she lounged on actually moved!
It didn’t smell at all, but it had the thrust of a 747.
26
@David G Thank you for providing the perfect example of scatological humor. Nailed.It!
9
public bathrooms are fraught because they are disgusting..One of the reasons I welcomed retirement is so that I never again had to plan my day around avoiding pooping in the office..What you are not talking about in this article is the people who clean these pits of disgustingness - in my State office, where were all equal, the two guys (State employees, so they had good jobs, relatively speaking!) who cleaned our bathroom also emptied my trash basket every day, and believe me, they were NOT good at cleaning..I remember looking at one particular under the toilet lid stain, it looked like menstrual blood, and knowing I was going to be living with that stain on that toilet under-lid for at least the next year.. Or there was the day that one of the Asian engineers was freaking out in the bathroom, "look, that is poopy, that is poopy, " she said over and over, pointing to a toilet..Or how the National Park Rangers combine first line park ranger work with cleaning the National Parks toilets - I was hired by a National Park out by Riverhead, NY, Wildwood, I think, and the first day they told me to go clean the toilets -I just walked out and never went back.. No, drink your coffee and get your business done at home before work. One of the benefits of retirement is NOT having to deal with public toilets, ever ever again..
4
@grace thorsen I have worked in workplaces with awful bathrooms and cleaned them myself. I have also been a janitor and cleaned despicable messes from male adult professionals who should have been taught more manners.
And...you are correct, everyone should try to develop morning bathroom habits to mostly avoid this "public bathroom problem." However, public bathrooms should be more accommodating for those exceptions and illness.
4
My husband and I have great fun farting together, only married three years, it's been fun seeing how this has evolved from the earliest days, when we were still a bit modest. I tell him how great it feels to occasionally let go of three liquids all at the same time, pee, poo, and blood. I never knew that woman had all these issues.
13
Sorry, I’m not ashamed about going to the bathroom. As someone who has battled IBS, I know that going to the bathroom at work is an unavoidable necessity for me. Yes, I try to be clean and always leave the stall neat and tidy and yes, I wish my employer had a ladies’ room with more than the handful of stalls it currently has, but I’m not ashamed about having to use the bathroom at work. No, I’m not going to “hold it” until I get home, and that’s not a solution anyway. Going is not the problem; not going is, and if you can’t poop or won’t for whatever reason then you have a serious problem.
Maybe it’s me, but I refuse to be ashamed about natural bodily functions. Lord knows men aren’t. As long as you’re clean and respectful of the bathroom space, no one should have a problem, and anyone who has an issue with their colleagues’ pooping normally in a bathroom needs to see a psychologist or get out more or something. On a more serious note, my fellow women, please wipe the seat or use the toilet seat cover. I’d rather not walk into a stall, having to go, only to come face to face with a toilet seat covered in urine or menstrual blood. It’s gross - more gross than someone pooping in a stall next to me, I’d wager.
40
And I thought I was the only one in the whole wide world with poop anxiety! Whew! Thank you god! I am not alone!
I thought I was weird, abnormal, different and lots of other things until I just read this! How wonderful I am not alone!
However, I still prefer the privacy and security of my home throne and access to the lysol, hot water, soap, and lots of toilet paper and something to make sure the bathroom and me are clean before and after. Yeah, I'm totally paranoid!
And please, please, please do not interrupt me for anything when I'm busy! I want to be alone! I don't care if the house is burning down! Don't bother me!
Thank to everyone who shares my anxiety and paranoia!
18
Is there empirical evidence to back up the assertion that women are more petrified of pooping in public? My poor father-a school teacher-would try his damnedest to do number two at home, if he could make it that long. His phobia made for funny scenes: he'd be running from the car, throwing bags on the floor, going full tilt for the bathroom. Otherwise, if he absolutely could not wait, he would never go in the faculty bathroom but instead, would wait for all the kids to clear out of theirs and then do what needed to be done.
5
@DC
Both of my brothers have serious bathroom phobias. It’s definitely not just women. They will not use public restrooms unless it’s a dire emergency! So you are not alone by any means. And they didn’t learn it from me. I don’t have that issue. Neither does our Mom.
4
Interesting article. I think it has more to do with what religion you are brought up in (even if your parents aren't religious - their parents probably were) and the relationship that that religion has given you with regards to your body. It would take a while to explain what I mean. Regardless, I've found plenty of men who have a bad relationship with their bodies as well as women so don't blame it all on gender. And the architects of bathrooms designed them a long time ago and the design remains unchanged over all these years. You are right that it is a problem, but it's for everyone, but just worse for most women.
6
A friend of mine recently went to Japan, and said that many public restrooms there have devices that play music or other sounds (only when someone is using it) to hide any noises. It seems fitting for the general level of modesty in Japanese culture, and not a bad idea for elsewhere.
27
@Paul-A
Fabulous idea! The closing song from "The Music Man" playing a full volume would be most appropriate:
Seventy-six trombones led the big parade
With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.
They were followed by rows and rows
Of the finest virtuosos
The cream of every famous band...
Yessir, talk about a send-off. And with a smile on everyone's face in the bargain.
11
@Paul-A
My brother has a Japanese toilet with push button requests for a gentle warm water spray wherever needed. So civilized and it cuts down on the need for so much toilet paper.
11
@Glen
@Glen
The "Music Man" verses I didn't quote, not being sure how down-to-earth Granny Graylady would allow comments to be, are much more descriptive of the topic: Copper-bottomed timpani, double-bell euphoniums and big bassoons and all that, you know.
https://genius.com/Meredith-willson-seventy-six-trombones-lyrics
I'm still chuckling.
As a man I found the article enlightening. It's unfortunate that women have such anxiety about normal, healthy body functions.
10
@Doug
Girls learn, one way or another, that their bodies are a liability, if only for achieving respect in the workplace.
I am still outraged remembering when Hillary Clinton came back a few seconds late from a debate intermission because the ladies room was so far from the debate stage. And the feckless men started without her. Trump called her being late from a bathroom break "disgusting". Why then wouldn't women be anxious about bodily functions?
57
The Metropolitan Opera House in NYC needs to clean up its act. This is a man speaking. Why are the lines longer for the Women longer than the "Gentlemen's?" Uh-duh. Perhaps it has to do with the bottom line. A gas station is more democratic than intermission at The Met. Great article, dry wit.
30
@Think Of One
The best public bathrooms at concert halls in NYC are at Town Hall, and at Terminal 5. Both feature a long row of fully-enclosed single-use stalls with their own sinks, and one line that moves very quickly.
4
@Think Of One
Same situation for women flying out of Oahu. The line of women waiting to use the facilities was 35 long! But women, being cognizant of the others waiting, just zipped through the process. Stall turnover was something to behold!
Come on, Oahu - make this right!
4
Have to admit that I scoffed at reading this article at first, but my heterosexual male instinct took over. Learned more than I wanted to.
2
Ladies, know how to just get over this fear? Spend years in the military.
14
@Glenda Yes! I just commented about learning to get over this "bathroom fear" long-haul truck driving.
1
I hate to say, the best part of working at home, turned out to be the bathroom. (After 25 yrs).
When, I returned to work four years later to an office, pleased to have individual bathrooms. 1;1. Big difference.
4
I had a coworker once who, every morning, would walk to the men's room with a magazine or newspaper under his arm and proudly announce to everyone that he was going to "take care of business."
7
@Ingrid Spangler - some people say they are going
to the library.
4
@Ingrid Spangler
A guy, right? If a woman did that she'd probably lose her job.
15
@Ingrid Spangler
I can beat your anecdote, I’m sorry to say.
Long ago, a male partner at the white-shoe law firm at which I was then an associate ducked his head each morning into my office, which was right near the men’s room; asked if he could borrow my newspaper; took it into the bathroom with him; then came out 10 or 15 minutes later and put the paper back on my desk. Within a week of the start of this, I ordered a second subscription to the New York Times, left one for him on my desk and kept the second copy safely hidden in my briefcase!
13
At a financial services company for which I once worked, there was a very busy bathroom with at least 20 stalls. toward the end of my stint there, I contracted an intestinal virus. I tried to find times to use the facilities when it wasn't that busy, but sometimes nature demanded otherwise. There was no shame in noise because the talking was so loud in the room...it was and hourly between meeting break. I exited the stall hurriedly and crossed to the mirror lined sink wall, where I observed the next finely dressed business woman in line for a stall physically recoil as she entered the one I had just exited. For some reason, that cured me of all bathroom shame.
Since then, when in a similarly busy restroom and ensconced in a stall, I will sometimes murmur, "I I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole."
12
@rbyteme
I once entered a restroom at a restaurant that testified to the fact that the last person to use it hadn't "gone" for about two years. I held my breath for a quick one. When I exited I actually told the next woman in line "it wasn't me!"...she laughed.
8
It's a good thing Anthony Comstock, 19th century anti-women's crusader, also described in today's Times, didn't know about this. He may have tried to stop it.
10
@L Martin
I read the article, and yes!
How dare we women give birth to NAKED babies!
6
Just returned from Scotland where the stalls are to the floor. Got through Customs and headed for the ladies room. There were the horrible U. S. bathroom stalls.
18
In the LH stall something unseemly is going on.
4
In the world of pronouns, we need unisex toilet stalls with total privacy, tampon dispensers, soft toilet paper and a common area for hand washing when you exit the toilet. If schools and new construction were designed this way, we would stop designating men's and women's room, have a better use where space is a premium, and recognize that waiting in line to be next should be gender neutral.
24
Sorry, but I’m getting the sense that this promoting a DSM diagnosis. Does everything that is somewhat uncomfortable have to be called out and, subsequently, have a label? Another example of the NYT making a big deal out of nothing.
3
@MG
Question - male or female?
3
I am all for recognizing societal pressure on some subjects.
But there will always be immature people. And we all are on one subject or another.
Being a grown up, mature, person is also to know not to care about the immaturity or idiocy of some.
Bowing down to idiocy on THAT subject is also a sign of one's immaturity.
5
"invest in educating girls to accept their bodies as they are, along with all the smells and sounds that come with it"
How is "education" going to make anyone feel differently about something that's fundamentally disgusting and embarrassing?
6
@Mary Poppins
Same way it does for boys.
There should be a sink in each stall and each stall should be a closed room. It’s just not sanitary to wipe and then gather all your belongings, touch the door, and then wash your hands!
21
Do we not waste enough water without this inane concept of a "courtesy flush"?? Potable water is a finite resource.
Our bodies are machines. Grow up and get over it.
Accept yourself and be accepting of others. It's healthy and empowering.
4
There is a Jewish blessing, "Asher yatzar," said after urination and excretion. Saying such a blessing shows that elimination is part of nature--part of the Creation. We should be grateful for this aspect of our health.
28
Wonderful to learn this! Worth quoting in full, especially the part about God having formed humans with "many openings and many hollow spaces" and "if even one of them would be sealed, it would be impossible to survive . . ." Apparently no shame about bodily functions in Judaism.
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many hollow spaces. It is obvious and known before Your Seat of Honor that if even one of them would be opened, or if even one of them would be sealed, it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You even for one hour. Blessed are You, Adonai, who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.
7
@George Jochnowitz Yes, so glad you reminded me of that. There are blessings for almost everything-----seeing a rainbow, the smell of fresh wood, etc.... It's a lovely thing; helping us to live in gratitude and awareness for our beautiful, functional bodies and this remarkable planet that is our home.
10
cf. swift's "the lady's dressing room".
Seriously? Compare any public mens' room with a public women's room and you'll see who really has the more comfortable place to take care of business.
4
@davemicus
I know a public institution where the paired restrooms are labeled "Men" and "Women", and where between the doors there is a sign saying "Please use whichever where you feel comfortable", or some such.
I did not realize this was going on. Trump's bizarre statement about Hillary Clinton going to the bathroom now begins to make more sense to me. That man is repulsive and disgusting in every way possible. This article gets me to thinking: in my university, we are slowly eliminating gender-specific washrooms and making them gender neutral. That is, public washrooms are slowly becoming just public washrooms. I now suspect that many young women would rather have their own washrooms than have to share with men. I also suspect the reverse may be true as well. I would hope that having to share would make people more accepting of natural bodily functions but, after reading this, I suspect the real effect will be to make many women even more resistant to their scatological needs.
33
@Shaun Narine
Women at MIT in the 70s had a rough time of it. With women making up only 10% of the student body, there were half as many ladies rooms as needed. I remember having to climb a flight of stairs in the main building because the facility was on the floor above, as opposed to men's rooms, which were on every floor and more conveniently located.
2
Thank you NYTimes for tackling this subject without an iota of stigma!
14
Holy cow I'm so glad that at my workplace and every workplace I've ever been in the women have been mature enough to just use the bathroom and be done with it.
Who excuses themselves to go to the bathroom? Just leave and come back. We're not in kindergarten.
13
@L what just get up and leave a meeting with no explanation whatsoever??? Thats plain weird and (especially if youre with superiors) would result in negative judgement.
3
@Kelp
Actually, yes. Men and women do it all the time, especially during longer, larger meetings. It may not be ideal, but it's better than ahem-ing, drawing attention, and then announcing one has to use the facilities.
My trick is to come back to the meeting with a cup of water, giving the impression that's the only reason I left in the first place.
5
@Kelp
I (male) generally say "back in a minute" and leave.
Since our meetings rarely last longer than 1h, this was necessary only a couple of times in my twenty-odd years career.
1
I hope that President Trump does not read this story and tweet about it.
18
@John Penley
I’d bet a million dollars he won’t read it.
7
@John Penley
Don’t worry – – he is nearly functionally illiterate.
11
@Lisa Randles
It has too many words.
11
Best to remember that we're all just animals.
Leave your ego at the bathroom door.
15
@Baba
Very wise. So true.
1
A solution in search of a problem.
4
In Japan, there are public toilets with industrial strength “squatty potty” foot rests. I never understood what they were for. I assumed it was something for handicapped people. Now that I’ve recently discovered what a squatty potty is I wished they had them in the U.S.
4
@JL
those are real squat toilets. A Squatty Potty (TM, I believe?) is a brand name alternative (most styles plastic, also a wooden model) that you set around the base of a western toilet to allow a similarly "knees up" position. Not sure which one the article intends to reference. If you can drop into and pop up from a deep squat, the "eastern" or "squat toilet" (also found in parts of rural europe) allows better clearing than any other alternative. (Hard to find a flush version in the US, and it may not be "code," but you can get them online.) The "get your knees up while sitting" alternative works more or less along the same lines, and you can rise more easily after. A couple of cinder blocks on end likely does same (don't tip them on your toes, though).
At a recent Harvard graduation, women, out of necessity, used the men's bathroom in a building near the ceremonies. I did a double take at seeing one embarrassed man standing in a long line of women waiting to use the lavatory, and laughed, prompting a somewhat shy laughter from the line.
9
I drink coffee to get it all done before I go to work..I think public bathrooms, particularly work bathrooms, are really disgusting, and then you have to deal with the poor employees who have to clean it every day, to differing standards, or might I say, to really sub-standard standards, in my book, as you get to witness the same stain on the toilet remain there for months at a time... No, work bathrooms are for make-up or peeing, that is it..Anything else is not acceptable..I might mention also that my multi-cultural state office had trouble more than once with (only in the mens bathroom of course) certain cultures requiring foot-washing a few times a day..The bathroom foot-washing was pretty bad, from what I heard, but then one gentleman decided to wash his feet in the kitchenette at work..Yes, one of the best parts of retirement is not having to think about public bathroom time anymore..
10
The Hotel Balzac in Paris has an extraordinary "toilette" in their guest rooms. The toilets are the brand-name "Toto", which have heated toilet seats, and is a toilet/bidet combination. You do your business and the bidet part will clean your front and backside with warm water, and dry you as well with warm air! You truly don't want to get off them!
17
@Joie I think that bidets should be the standard for toilets everywhere. But I suppose that in the U.S., they're viewed a cost-prohibitive, especially for public restrooms.
1
@Joie
Just a water spray and no friction? I don’t know about that…
Another reason I rejoice in retirement from public libraries - no more praying for a few peaceful, private moments in the lone staff toilet, while needy coworkers knock on the door with questions that Just Cannot Wait, And Only You Can Answer Them!
Yes, really.
11
@DB I once had a boss who told me that she once had a (male) boss who would follow her to the bathroom and try to give her dictation from outside the closed door. She swore this was true! :o
2
@Cheryl I had a boss who would go into the toilet for what seemed like hours (it was a single toilet room). Periodically a piece of paper would come sliding out from under the door. Employees knew to pick it up if they happened by, and deliver it to his secretary because it was a handwritten memo or a signed document she then needed to take care of.
5
Frankly, I wish the men in my office building--a converted house--were as worried about stinking up the environment as the women. Is shame always such a bad thing?
5
@RMW
There's a great product called "Poo Pourri"....you just spray it on the water before dropping the bomb and it traps whatever noxious gas may waft upward before the flush. The stuff works.
6
@RMW
as we seem to be doing product recommendation here (assuming the authors meant "squatty potty" and not "squat toilet") I'd like to point out the poo-pourri can be used by any gender, and works fairly well, unless someone in your workplace is allergic to the ingredients ("all natural" though they may be).
2
@RMW
Give me a break. Poop smell dissipates in minutes. Those horrid "air fresheners" on the other hand, linger for over half an hour and irritate the eyes.
2
Cf. Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing Room”
3
When I read a review of a BBQ place and it starts with a paragraph on how clean the restrooms are, I'm pretty sure of the gender of who wrote the review and how important restrooms are in their life. They may never comment on the BBQ.
3
I wish bidets would become popularized in the US. Such a wonderful luxury.
18
@Dr. Diane Agreed! I doubt that will ever happen though...cost is the issue here.
1
In a biography of the Kennedys I read years ago I particularly remember reading that a young Jackie Bouvier would flush the toilet to drown out noise when she was visiting the Kennedy home. I was horrified. Not that she would do this but that she was caught out. By whom? All the women of the Kennedy clan apparently, who were not so "fancy" and refined and were either jealous of or irritated by her seeming superiority.
7
Women have a real heritage of going to the bathroom together! I mean, the pioneer circle! Bless.
7
And here I always thought that because they used stalls for everything they’d do whichever they wanted. My goodness I had no idea women had issues going to the toilet at work.
1
In Japan, there is a music button to press to drown out any bodily sounds associated with defecation. Also, the toilets, public and private are spotless and public school kids clean the school toilets every day.
3
Why are there two women in the stall on the left?
6
I guess none of this is as bad as most people in a NYC jail see and having to be exposed to, imagine having the urge with 6 jailed mates watching you in an open toilet ?
1
For 'no gender' toilet areas, this sign should be tacked to the toilet door:
"We AIM to please, your AIM will please us"
5
I was using a urinal during a concert intermission at a theater, when a bunch of women decided to commandeer that men's restroom. They ordered me to get out, and when I didn't finish instantly, because of a common prostate issue, they became more verbally aggressive. I thought they could have worked themselves up to attacking me physically if I had taken longer to leave. Have other people experienced women taking over a men's restroom?
Besides adding stalls to the most obviously-located women's restrooms, there are other possibilities:
. Outside each restroom, there should be a map showing all of the available restrooms and their capacities.
. Women could ask men to locate other women's restrooms. At another theater, on more than one occasion, I mentioned to women in a long queue that the floor above had a women's restroom with no visible line.
. Intermissions should be lengthened when the restroom facilities turn out to be inadequate.
5
@Ralph
I don't understand why the women just didn't go ahead and do their thing with you there. There have been times when I have invaded an empty mens' room and if a man enters I just shield my eyes when leaving and proclaim "I'm not looking!". They always laugh.
7
A courtesy flush of the toilet midway through the procedure usually will take care of lingering odors.
7
Yes, but it’s a waste of water. Women should be comfortable stinking up a place.
4
@Christine
The smell can cling to your clothes – – particularly certain fibers.
1
In Japan many public toilets automatically play the beautiful sound of a running stream while sitting on the toilet. Men's too. It's called "oto hime (he'-may)", which means "sound princess".
5
what's with the bizarre graphic? Two women sharing a single stall? Another kicking her heels off?
6
@sandyellen
I've helped someone with their button and zip in a single-stall toilet, so that didn't startle me, but the idea of anyone voluntarily kicking off their shoes in a public toilet seems seriously gross.
5
I used to have this deep shame about public defecation, I seem to have picked up a lot of hang ups that women have from my mom and sisters. Having severe IBS sort of forced away that shame. Now I work an outdoor job with about 10 men for every woman and have found the women I work with to be fairly vocal about their needs. We have two rolls of toilet paper on the truck for those moments after lunch when nature calls us both at the same time. No shame.
4
An odious subject all around. Who cares?
What women need is Japanese toilets, the only ones I've encountered in public spaces that address smell, sound, temperature and cleanliness. Why the rest of the world hasn't adopted the washlet is a total mystery to me.
11
If anyone has been to Japan, almost all women's restrooms inside malls and restaurants have a sound feature to cover up the sound of a woman urinating. I suppose it's so mortifying that the sound of a waterfall or light rain is preferable to anyone knowing precisely why you went in there. Some also have a bidet-like feature.
That being said, I don't care about peeing in a "community restroom". I do care about inconveniencing anyone with the stench of defecating. It's always unpleasant to follow someone who's done that.
8
What an unnecessary and gross article!
1
@Charlie The point of the article is that pooping IS necessary and not gross.
18
@flenzy - Well, maybe a little? :-)
@Rick (for me at least!) :-)
if you really want something to complain about, try defecating in the head (bathroom) of a sailboat, hard on the wind, in an offshore gale. Now, that's an adventure and just as bad for the men as it is for the women.
10
@Frank Miller even peeing is a disaster in rough weather. Just getting out of your bib without getting knocked around is hard! Sailing will definitely strip a person of their usual hangups.
1
As the father of both a boy and a girl, I’ve definitely observed the differences in their attitudes towards pooping and farting. My son (the older of the two) farts with unrestrained abandon and indulges in scatological humor constantly. My daughter is the exact opposite. My wife and I have never consciously applied different standards to the two kids, or applied different standards for ourselves. So I don’t believe the difference in behavior is driven by us. It appears there’s societal pressure on girls and women as the authors mention.
I think an additional problem is the structure of American public restrooms. Partitions aren’t floor length and are flimsy. In most other parts of the world, stalls are in separate rooms with real walls and full- length doors. Why America doesn’t follow that standard has always been a mystery to me.
With respect to the squat toilet, it’s the standard in much of the world, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. But squat toilets are hard on older people or those with deteriorating muscle strength.
And don’t even get me started on the fact that American toilets don’t have bidets or hoses.....
14
@Shiv- I always thought stall partitions were not full length for cleaning purposes. A mop can be run easily through the stalls. As a former navy "swabby" I can attest to this personally. Even better are when the toilets are attached to the wall and not the floor.
10
After spending 30 years working in offices, I just let nature do its thing, with a courtesy flush. However now that I work at home and I enjoy being able to use my own bathroom. It is nice not to have to deal wet toilet seats because some women want to stand up and pee even if there are seat covers available.
7
I wondered where the concept for Poopouri came from. Women poop and I hope that becomes less taboo from now on. For myself, my lack of social skills has apparently had one good issue, it's never bothered me to poop in a bathroom whether or not the stall walls went to the ground. I do like the suggestion for bidets; tp alone never feels completely clean to me.
2
I'm reminded of the time on a family camping trip, I ate almost a whole box of prunes. I was 6 years old. The next morning, my mother and I were in the campsite bathroom and I entered a stall. After pooping with much loud gaseous fanfare, I opened the door to see a bunch of women convulsing with laughter that so much noise could come out of a little kid. My 6 year old mind asked, "What's so funny?"
15
Years ago, I was the director of an academic department. One female employee would regularly complain that other women were pooping in the bathroom on our floor -- she believed that was something "people should only do at home." Despite putting a can of air freshener in each stall and informing her I could not control people's bowel habits, she continued to complain vociferously to me on an almost daily basis, and at each staff meeting. She even at one point posted hand written signs "Please do not use this bathroom to poop." (I took them down.) When she finally transferred to another location, the entire department helped her pack.
32
My female chocolate Lab will not poop unless she finds a bush to crawl under and she really doesn't want me to look at her while doing the deed. It's a real problem in the city unless you're lucky enough to live close to Central Park. She won't even pee on any paved surface; she wants tall grass with a lawn as her last resort. She's an old fashioned girl I guess.
23
@Win
Same with my late Shiba/husky mix! Privacy was an absolute requirement for her. This was very inconvenient at times, but I understood where she was coming from.
4
With separate male and female bathrooms, how are men even remotely aware of or involved in women pooping in the office? And I doubt they care at all.
It's other women who have a problem with the smell in the women's bathroom. How women judge and repress other women is the old story that is continually ignored.
11
@CNNNNC
Oh, dear, no. It's NEVER been ignored. Familiar with 18th and 19th century literary history? Men have been writing about women's "cattiness" for a very long time. And women parroted that POV in their own books, in order to gain approval for (and publication of) their novels by men, who controlled the publishing industry. I'm not entirely sure the whole cattiness thing wasn't fabricated whole cloth. But if it was not, consider that when a woman only has one option for her future—marriage—she may get a little competitive with the other girls in her neighborhood. Nevertheless, this very old story is one that some men still like to tell so they don't feel bad about being, on the whole, hostile toward women. I don't know the women you hang around with, but the women I know socially and at work are very supportive of each other and me.
These are old tropes, and they are falling away, my friend, which is why many men are so prickly (intended) about any criticism.
2
Mortified if she farts? Not my wife! The string-fart specialist? But I love her. And, it does give one a certain freedom. Do not share breakfast with us.Or, forgive our airy nervousness.
8
@ken lockridge
You must let your wife know just how much you love her---show her your Times comment!
1
So now we're opressing women because they defecate during working hours? So do men. What are we supposed to "get over"? This is getting absurd. No wonder people say there's a PC victimhood fetish.
7
You missed the point of the article. It is about the discomfort/ embarrassment some women feel about pooping at the office, etc., and why this is the case. It is not about a “PC” backlash against men. I suggest you read the article again with that in mind.
2
@mainliner
'Fetish'? It's a full-blown psychosis at this point. Truly. One would love to be able to laugh something like this off, if it weren't so ultimately damaging to our society.
That people honestly and truly buy into this divisiveness is frightening.
4
I've had IBS my entire life, so I've never been able to "hold it", and because of this, I immediately learn the location of every public restroom in every business I frequent because I'm well aware I'll almost certainly have to use those facilities at some time. Maybe because of this, I didn't realize what an issue this is for many women until I was in my late 40s, when I ended up working with half a dozen young women in their 20s and 30s. We got along well, but they weren't shy about openly expressing disgust for any female who had the temerity to use the restroom to defecate. "But I don't get it," I said, "it's a restroom. What are you supposed to do if you have to go?" "It should be for peeing only" they agreed, and a couple of them said "You should hold it until you get home!" One of them bragged that she had managed to not defecate the entire 10 days she was on her honeymoon (I swear I'm not making this up). I told them I had IBS and that I was certain I wasn't the only woman in the building with that condition, but that even women without IBS sometimes had to defecate while at work, and it would be nice if they could be a little more open minded about what they considered "appropriate use" of public restrooms, but I seriously doubt that I changed any of their minds on this topic.
17
@Judith
I'm with you. As a Crohn's sufferer of nearly 50 years. I can locate a bathroom (I was going to write 'sniff out', but didn't want to appear vulgar) anywhere in the Western world, in any of the most un-usual of places. Like you, I've taken alot of grief from colleagues, co-workers and so-called friends over the years.
Your experience with young women of today illustrates a fundamental sea change in attitudes, to be sure. And a bizarre and illogical one at that, as you so rightly pointed out.
What has happened to the world we grew up in?
3
My wife worked with a woman who could only defecate at her mother's house and thus saved up for the weekend.
This article misses an important part of human digestion. It's not so much gender, or culture, or embarrassment, it's the Western diets we eat that lack enough fibre. If a person eats enough food that has sufficient fibre, he/she can squat and poop and be done in no time at all. And there is little noise, little odor.
10
I recall Trump's comment at his rally in December, 2015. He reported that Clinton's use of the restroom at the last Democratic debate was "too disgusting" to mention further:
"I know where she went -- it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said, screwing up his face, as the crowd laughed and cheered. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting."
9
Jonathan Swift nailed this topic in 1732 in the poem "The Lady's Dressing Room," in which the poet is distressed to discover that the attractive Celia [poops].
7
Thank you for directing us to this poem - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50579/the-ladys-dressing-room - and reminding us that bodily functions have always fascinated humankind.
1
While I sympathize with much of what is here, no one is discussing a simple alternative: Refuse to care and be judged. The bathroom is the only place in which it is socially acceptable to relieve oneself so...do a tap dance on your psyche and buy into the idea that you can't eliminate even there? I'll grant that it may not be my idea of fun times to be sonorously having GI symptoms with other women in the room and yet...that's what it's there for and we all do it. Frankly, I'd rather hear another woman farting up the place than peeing all over the seat onto which they can't lower their precious bottoms because the seat is 'dirty.' In my mind that nasty habit is of far greater concern...or can someone tell me? Ladies, why is it okay to urinate all over a public toilet seat and then walk off without even attempting to wipe up your mess and leave it decent for the next person?
18
@Ann Smith Thanks Ann, as someone who has to clean public restrooms I can say without doubt that, due in no small part to this very issue, the womens' is almost always worse than the mens'. Especially in places that serve alcohol.
7
@James As someone who has lived in both a fraternity house, and in an apartment with 2 female roommates, you're absolutely right.
“In other words, the patriarchy has seeped into women’s intestinal tracts.”
Really? Does “the patriarchy” make a woman hover over the toilet seat spraying it with urine so she can avoid touching the seat?
That women have issues with their bodies and those of their ‘sisters’ has little to do with men. A woman does not leave the building to poop to hide it from men; it’s the other women. This is like the cliché that women dress for other women primarily, not men.
This article is describing a woman-to-woman issue. Leave the men out of it.
10
TLDR: White men are to blame for women's poop anxiety.
Men expect women to take a long time in the restroom, we have no clue what they are doing in there and frankly don't care. The only ones who may have a stopwatch out are other women. Let's stop the gender blame game please.
9
I work in an office with a lot of young women, which means that come 5pm on Thursdays and Fridays, the bathroom is full of them changing clothes, applying makeup, having a gossip, etc.
As someone with IBS, it's a nightmare!
We're moving to a new office soon and my suggestion is a "powder room" - a separate area where they can groom and preen, allowing me to fart and poop in privacy...
5
The headline saying women poop, get over it, would imply it's men who should get over it. But obviously it's only women who smell poop in women's washrooms, although the article goes to great lengths to blame men somehow. At least, it's only women until the gender feminists achieve their current radical objective of desegregating washrooms, against the wishes of most women. I've already seen my first multi-person unisex washroom.
Also, women have been telling me my whole life that farting can be controlled, and the women who wrote this article are telling me the same, but I have never been able to do so. Sorry!
4
You haven’t met my family if you think girls and women are afraid to fart or talk about poop.
2
Wait, girls poop?!
6
"Remember the children’s book, “Everyone Poops”? they ask. Indeed the authors would have done well to remember and left out the gratuitous cracks against "men", "the patriarchy etc etc.
2
I must have missed this part of my upbringing where I was supposed to be ashamed to indulge in bodily functions in places so designated. I have always dedicated in public restrooms if need be and I have never held in a fart nor would I know how. I was brought up in the Midwest and am a Professional who is well respected in my field. I do say excuse me when my farts are loud in a social setting but I don’t turn 20 shades of red.
2
Why is everything women experience a source of oppression at the hands of another? Men have shame too, body, poop, sex, and are also oppressed by patriarchy. After a lifetime of being an unashamed, (pun intended), feminist I have come to see how women’s attitudes about their bodies are of their own making. And I am always surprised that most women aren’t able to see it.
Being blind to our power dynamics and complicity is no different to how men are blind to theirs, or how white people are blind to theirs within our social system. When you constantly find ways to pit women’s victimization vs. men’s without see the bigger picture and women’s own role in creating the world as it is you diminish the full humanity of her sex. If she has no agency and is forever being shaped and molded by men’s needs then we must infer she is not fully human or morally infantile, and not fully matured in the same way men are. Isn’t that what a paternalistic ideology purports. I reject this.
Women have agency, they express it in multiple ways. If they didn’t they wouldn’t have survived.
We are biological beings too with hardwired survival techniques, just like men. Women and men are coarchitects of patriarchy. Full stop. The sooner we women fully recognize that, the sooner we will be able to dismantle our own and men’s chains and become true equals in human societies. Some are addicted to being not responsible for themselves. Like any addiction, admitting you have a problem is the first step.
5
This article is filled with unwarranted assumptions about the sources of women's poop anxiety, including unsupported attempts at trying to blame men for it. I don't think I've ever witnessed a man shaming a woman for scatological conduct. To the contrary, men seem to enjoy the humor of the minority of women who join them in scatological humor. See the terrific success of Ali Wong. Here is one distinction between the sexes that may simply be self-imposed and not the result of a vicious patriarchy.
The article is also strangely reverse-sexist. Look at this nugget: "women — who must contend with things like periods, changing-tables, one-piece rompers and wiping — take longer to use the restroom, while doing so with less real estate."
Message to the authors: this is 2019, men change diapers too. Yes, even in men's rooms. In fact I have done it myself! As for one-piece rompers, well, that may be another unnecessary self-imposed hassle.
9
@AJ Lorin. Good point -- in public spaces, I always changed the kids if my wife and I were out (otherwise I was just standing around waiting). Changing tables in men's rooms get a lot of use in the last 10-15 years.
2
The problem is the poor design of many public restrooms (including those in my workplace) - namely, flimsy stalls that don't offer a whole lot of privacy, toilets that don't flush well, and poor ventilation that causes all stink to linger. Women don't like making others uncomfortable and, well, taking a big poop in many restrooms will make your co-workers to suffer for the rest of the day.
3
In December 2015 at a rally, Donald Trump had this to say about Clinton being a few seconds late for the last debate:
"I know where she went -- it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said, screwing up his face, as the crowd laughed and cheered. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting."
I remember reading about this at the time and puzzling over what Trump was talking about. Unless Trump doesn't ever defecate, what the heck was he saying? Now I understand. The absurdity of a male/female double standard regarding an essential bodily function is palpable.
12
What an absolutely ridiculous article that tries to show how the put upon woman has problems pooping. Poop shaming? I’m a woman and have never given any of it a thought because I have much better things to occupy my time.
5
Oh, I could write a book about this subject!
First, to get this out of the way, I got a job in college at a toilet seat factory. Too obvious to call it a (hint — rhymes with snappy) job!
Years later, I had an executive job, but the men’s room had serious gaps between the stalls. If you were looking in the mirror, you could see everything happening in the stalls behind you.
We had a rating system:
1. Pee
2. Poop
3. (I’ll discuss that later)
4. Smoking
5. Pooping and Smoking
We would all report back — “Bob’s in there doing a 5.” “Call the cops, Fred is having a bad 2.”
Then there was Ron. Ron went into the stall every afternoon to “relieve stress” with a 3.
And he didn’t wash his hands afterward!
6
Women being embarrassed to go to the bathroom and poop? Is this for real? I never heard of this.
3
There is no reason for poop shame, except bad parents who miseducate kids to be ashamed of normal bodily functions. I was never shamed for my bodily functions in any way, and I eliminate without ever worrying who might be on the other side of the stall door.
If anyone reading this is self-conscious about pooping, just remember this: anyone who would judge you for pooping is a hypocrite.
3
If i ever get a chance to design a universe there will be no pooping or peeing. People and animals will get rid of their waste products through the cells all over their bodies. It will be as natural as breathing..People can picks their scents, Old spice for men? Lilies of the Valley for women or whatever. Or scent free. We got better things to do.
1
Knowing the risks I walked into the mens room around 9:30 looking to relieve my urge to pee. As soon as I enter I’m hit HARD with the smell of a bad poo. I see the culprit’s white adidas and know instantly it’s the 9:30 dude. He’s here M-F, same time. Just like the honey badger, the 9:30 dude don’t care. I quickly leave deciding to find another bathroom rather than face a full on assault to my senses standing 2 feet from a man who is obviously in the midst of a great battle. One floor up I find a nice quiet stall to relieve myself. As I’m headed back down I notice those white adidas coming up the stairs. I don’t look to see who it is, it’s a man thing. I thought to myself...hmmm, white adidas goes to another floor to destroy the bathroom. I wonder is this is from shame or as a courtesy to his coworkers, or both?
12
"Poop shame"? This is seriously a thing?
3
Women where I work don't seem to have any issues with pooping at work. I wish they did.
2
Men are just as uncomfortable taking poop at work as woman, I have experienced it and other men make a u-turn when a stall or two is in use. We don’t want to go to a meeting with a colleague and then hear them clearly and grossly pooping.
The other thing woman don’t experience is having to pee out in the open at a urinal, this is an awkward experience to stand next to a work colleague and have to relieve yourself. It is a private part of the workplace and it should be done out in the open.
6
All too often in public places, I've had to play "toilet roulette." I open a stall, I see a poop-streaked toilet bowl, leap away, head to the next stall, where the toilet bowl is clogged with a mass of toilet paper, and onward till I find one that's usable.
Single-user bathrooms at our jobs remind me of when a former boss would use the toilet for his daily poop. He always lit a match after and left the door partially open so the fan would run (albeit rather feebly). If you walked past - an unavoidable path - you'd catch a whiff of match plus poop.
One day, my coworker, a delightful and shameless young lady, loudly asked, "Is something burning?"
7
thid article is crazy. I'm a woman. I've never had a problem pooping anywhere at any time. i love eliminating. it gives me much needed alone time away from my work and my family. i know plenty of men who hold it in all day at work. there's a pathology connected with "poop shame" and it's not gendered. either you were raised with a complex or you weren't. try probiotic foods and elimination will no longer feel shameful- it'll feel great!
5
I have never been embarrassed by having to poop in a public bathroom or farting. I have a body and when my body needs to release waste and gases, it will. If people are offended by the smell, they have to get over it as I get over it when anyone else has the same issue.
3
This is an important piece - everyone poops. A little dose of humanity would be helpful for everyone, including making bathrooms larger for everyone and putting more stalls in the women's bathrooms.
6
Never realized how common the shame thing was...flush and hush? I do it all the time! At one job I had a while back, a female director told me she named her poop strategy "2 on 1" meaning if she had to go #2, she would use the first floor restroom which was used mostly by visitors. It made me wonder if this was some unspoken life rule that I somehow missed. Great read, thanks for writing!
2
Working in healthcare seems to make it easier to poop while on the job. Lots of smells in a hospital.
2
I worked in a corporate setting for almost 15 years and can honestly say I never gave this issue a moment's thought... 'passing' or otherwise. Office gossip, corporate politics, incompetent management, yes. Poop? Are you kidding me?
I dunno, maybe people need to work harder. Or at least focus on things that make sense.
5
My boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I poop on company time.
19
Awesome article. Very humorous but poignantly true. An easy answer would be stalls that are more private as they have in Europe.
33
@Bill S. My European colleagues cannot get over how open US stalls are. When I visit my office on the continent I must admit the completely closed bathroom stalls are a plus
15
In Italy, I had to share a unisex bathroom with a guy, and if I had squatted, he would have seen me naked, because the door wasn't long enough. It wasn't even a proper toilet, it was a porcelain hole in the floor. I had to pee standing up in the stall. Eek. In Paris, women were cleaning the bathrooms while men were using them. One guy (another European, more modest) walked in, turned around, and walked out. This was years ago, maybe things have changed.
5
It would be great if there was a row of private bathrooms just like on airplanes with floor to ceiling doors that when they are closed from the inside when in use, the door says "occupied". Each stall is unisex and has its own sink with paper towels and is easily cleaned by the janitorial staff. In addition to the privacy, it would be great if each private bathroom had a light with a fan that came on automatically when the door is shut and locked from the inside. That way energy is saved when the light goes off automatically when the person leaves the bathroom and smells have been generally dissipated while the person was inside. Each individual stall should be about twice the size of airplane bathrooms to feel more like your home bathroom -- private. safe, and comfortable. And a little soft music or sounds of nature -- rain on a lake, soft wind blowing through trees, or gentle waves of a lake -- serene and relaxing. In fact, each small bathroom could be decorated individually -- some contemporary, some old fashioned, with different paint colors and styles of sink and mirror over the sink. That way people could pick the style/color that they preferred to make them feel comfortable. Going to the bathroom should not be a tense stressful activity -- it should be peaceful, private and clean so that no one is embarrassed about anything. Problem solved.
31
Sounds like those fancy pay toilets in Paris in the 90s, playing Whitney Houston music, but they were on a timer, and if you didn't pee or poop fast enough, the door opened and you were exposed (a friend warned me, so this didn't happen to me). They pulled this trick on toilet users because guys were meeting up in toilets to have sex.
4
@Jane E. Like in Europe.
This article is yet another reminder of why although I at one point wished to have a daughter, in some ways I am glad fate only gave me sons.
To know and see my daughter having to deal with unfairness and discrimination her brothers never had to face through no fault of her own would have broken my heart. I'm trying to do my part of change things, but this being one of the oldest and longest-existing human prejudices it will still likely take centuries to correct (at best).
Who knows how much more advanced humanity might be had it not spent most of its history suppressing and subjugating over half of its population. The injustice is heartbreaking.
28
I prefer the unisex European bathrooms with full length individual stalls. One small quibble, in the American separate bathrooms, the men's room oughta have a changing table too by now.
62
It does have a changing table.
2
American offices, stores, etc. should adopt the European style of bathroom stalls - closed from floor to ceiling, including the doors. Not being able to see someone's shoes or hear what they are doing would help relax people so they could do their business.
131
You can still hear people in that type of stall. The walls are not sound proof. I'm not sure if your suggestion would really solve this specific anxiety. If women don't want to poop with just each other in the bathroom, how would they react in a unisex bathroom with men around?
2
@Charmander, I'm American and live in Europe and totally agree with you. Although why Americans cannot call them toilets instead of bathrooms says a lot. One does not take a bath in them so why use the word bathroom?!
6
@Susan - Possibly because in most American homes the toilet is located in the same room as the bathtub and/or shower.
1
Portlandia did it best with the workplace bathroom sound proofing company called Take a Shhh!
43
Guys get impacted by “parcopresis” as well - I do. The root cause of this problem is lack of privacy in American public bathrooms. The bathroom designs are very open and the stalls don’t have floor to ceiling walls.
Some of the men’s urinals also don’t have dividing partitions in between. This leads to “paruresis”. It’s totally insane.
Most countries, outside the US, have very privacy oriented public bathrooms. Not sure who came up with this quasi-exhibitionistic bathroom design in our country.
Before I finish, I must mention one anomalous bathroom design that a friend’s wife recently discovered in a public bathroom in a very famous Scandinavian city: one stall in this specific bathroom was very private with floor to ceiling walls yet it had two side by side fully functional toilets (with separate toilet paper dispensers as well). She initially thought the second one was a bidet but it was not - it was a toilet as well.
Life is full of surprises - c’est la vie!
30
I believe the design is too fold rationale. 1. It is cheaper to manufacture, install and maintain. 2. It is much easier and faster to clean ( especially the floor mopping ) with the open area below the knees on the stalls.
5
In the old days, there was less privacy in Europe, but Europeans also have fewer hangups about their bodies and bodily functions. I was shocked having to share a bathroom with a man, but he didn't even look at me.
2
I don’t think the root cause is lack of privacy. I think the root cause is people being told pooping and peeing should be a secret private act, and that their bodies are shameful.
Two words: courtesy flush
27
Last year I had to replace my toilet. Because it is more comfortable, and apparently healthier, I was looking for a "standard" height - a lower model than the old one. Imagine my surprise when the big box had only two standard height models, but dozens of taller toilets marketed as "executive height".
16
@SR - "executive height" are trump toilets.
1
@SR - I hate those tall toilets! Definitely designed with men in mind. For shorter people, they're so uncomfortable.
3
@sweetclafoutis I am a 6'4" woman with a leg condition that makes it hard and painful for me to get up from low chairs. I practically cry with relief when I run across an executive height toilet! My two bathrooms at home have executive toilets. Each is mounted on a special platform built by my 6'5" husband, making them comfortable for us. I telecommute partly because of the bathroom issue---between IBS and my height, life was agony at a standard office so I looked for a job I could mostly do from home. My two children are also tall, at 6'4" and I feel sorry for what they will face when they are out of their limber 20s and 30s!
1
The authors don't know how lucky they are. Returned recently from rural Italy where I reveled in the versatility of a floor toilet; there was a bar for grip on the back of the door and impressions in the floor showing where to put your feet.
23
@DaveD
These are called Turkish toilets....There used to be many in France years ago but they are fast disappearing....they were hell for women, you could not urinate without splashing your shoes, legs, pants...the smell was awful...they were dirty...Thank God they are no longer installed...
4
@DaveD Yes, I've used these ghastly kinds of toilets in India. The open sewer and stink can be overwhelming. Never ever, ever, ever look down the opening in the floor.
4
@DaveD these squatting toilets are much more consistent with human biology - reduces hemorrhoids.
2
There's a commercial about a product that relieves gas that is that much funnier because a woman is having a gas problem. It struck me funnier watching her squirm in a car seat. I wonder if it would have been as funny with a man.
5
@Phil Pascal Haha the man wouldn't be squirming, he'd just let it rip.
4
This proves that it’s possible to overthink anything.
64
@Steve, I hope in your next life you are born a woman. In the meantime maybe you could ask the women in your life whether they poop in public and why.
8
Very interesting article that seems to have struck a chord with many readers. It seems counter intuitive, as in my experience women seem to more freely discuss personal issues, including bathroom experiences. Granted, these are my wife and close friends, not co-workers, but still I was surprised at the degree of discomfort this natural act causes women. Now I know.
9
Amen sisters! A place I otherwise deeply admire, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, is deplorably short of cubicles for women, especially for disabled women. When I stand in line there, I always tell everyone that when I die, I'm going to leave money in my will to create more stalls. Hope everyone else will do likewise. Opera tickets are very expensive and should at least come with standard comfort.
53
@Rebecca Hogan
Whereas Symphony Center has the best bathrooms in the city. They're just fantastic.
10
@Rebecca Hogan
The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden has shortened its intermission queues by greatly increasing the number of stalls for women - much appreciated.
14
@Rebecca Hogan The relatively new Paris opera at Bastille is awful. So is the Theatre des Champs Elysees, which was completely restored less than 10 years ago. At least on the upper floors of less-expensive seats that I patronize, the mens', and women's "toilettes" as we say in French are identical, and worse, the women are clear over on one side of the audience and the men on the other side. If you have a seat on the "wrong" side for your sex, you're out of luck at intermission, especially the women, for all the reasons cited here. While I wait in line hoping to be back in my seat in time, I think nostalgically of stadiums I have known, where the lines are reversed.
7
If you’re ever in Providence, RI and see a show at the Providence Performing Arts Center, check out the 2nd floor ladies’ room. There are probably 60 stalls (maybe more) so even at intermission there’s a short wait. I’ve always figured it must have been designed by a woman.
263
On a similar note, my mom and I went to wash our hands before eating at a restaurant. The paper towels were on the opposite side of the room, so you had no choice but to drip water on the floor to dry your hands. My mom assumed the bathroom was designed by a man.
17
I too have thought women designing public bathrooms (among other places!) is the way forward. The heavy doors that both allow peering in as well as sagging due to weight(?!), causing stressed hinges that eventually prevent latch from lining up?!? Seriously male designers! The doors need not be made of same heavy material as stalls - just sized to cover opening entirely - preferably with all surfaces going to floor.
My end around for this problem, which I too have suffered from, is to plug my own ears which creates the sensation of being alone. Earbuds and humming along would be my new solution, were I forced to work in an office setting.
If women ran the world....
17
@Gracie Yes, I noticed that when I saw Hamilton there! Another place with plenty of stalls is Tanglewood.
2
I'm guessing there's an evolutionary reason for "poop shame", as I see a mild case of it in my dog. Perhaps it's due to the non-upright position one must adopt, and the amount of time needed to poop--it makes the human (or dog) vulnerable to attack from predators. Maybe that's why even young children appear ashamed to poop, even when they're not ashamed to run around the house naked.
56
@drt
My cat, too! In four years, she hasn't once let me see her poop. I let her watch me whenever she wants. To each our own!
5
@drt
Have you ever noticed that the dog sits or lays outside the bathroom when you’re in there taking care of business? Dogs instinctually guard other members of the pack who need to defecate. That includes you!
13
I am so elated when I seek out a bathroom on another floor AND find that it's empty. YES! If someone's already in there, I pretend I'm there to wash my hands and then leave to continue my search for an empty bathroom. On the other hand, if another woman comes in and poops when I'm already in there, I get both annoyed and appalled that she didn't wait until she was alone, but also admire that she's able to take care of business without shame.
83
@Anny I TOTALLY relate to this!
5
I get that. Being a woman is so fraught.
3
I'm glad that someone is bringing light to this issue. Everyone deserves a right to "own" the space that they work in. If you can't comfortably use the facilities in your own space, that is a problem.
I would caution the author to be careful with harmful stereotypes. While any sane person of course recognizes the outsize impact that (mostly white) men have had in creating societal institutions that suppress others, making generalizations of any group of people is dangerous.
I am a male, and I was harassed my whole childhood by other little boys (and occasionally girls), and I never felt comfortable passing gas or using the bathroom around others. I certainly never laughed about it with friends. Even to this day I will find the most remote bathroom in a public building, and I also practice the "poop dupe" referenced in this article. While the author recognizes that men can experience these issues in her article, she doesn't actively engage this thread of thought. Rather than working to make truly equal and comfortable spaces for all people, it becomes apparent that the author has no intention to work holistically to combat this issue for people of all genders, racial and sexual identities.
39
@Greg because the article was about women. That’s why she doesn’t actively engage the thread of thought you wanted, so that the article could be more about people like you.
Have you not realized that women might like to discuss our issues and not have a man want to focus the conversation on himself instead?
3
@Greg
As a Crohn's Disease sufferer, I can quite easily relate to the childhood taunts you describe. And I agree with you that the indignities associated with using public bathrooms is something that applies to both sexes, not just one, and to people of any level of health, not just, say, Crohn's, IBD, IBS, etc. etc.
It is bizarre that people are circling wagons around their own particular circumstance, as though the world should revolve around them. On this issue?? We're not arguing pro-choice or the 2nd amendment here, for heaven's sake. No wonder we are so divided as a nation/world.
My ultimate 2-cents: Architects, business owners, property developers should design more thoughtful facilities for human beings, those that would offer privacy and a more dignified space.
7
I always wonder who is responsible for designing public restrooms? Is it an architect(s)? Whenever a public restroom is to be constructed or renovated, women need to be consulted in the design process. I have had trouble squeezing into a stall when the door hits the box mounted on the wall for the disposal of feminine hygiene products. And what about more than one hook, for hanging purses and coats? I carry an "S-type" hook that I purchased at the hardware store. If the door is missing a hook, I can use my S hook(s) to hang up my stuff.
70
@WomenDesigningRestrooms, And why is the hook so high? It should be about halfway up the door in case one needs to reach for a tampon or whatever. And so that nobody can easily reach over and grab your hanging purse while you're sitting. That actually happened to a girlfriend of mine in NYC.
12
This can be solved so easily - in my college fraternity (and in many others at our school) the bathrooms had no stalls, just a row of 5 toilets like you see in the army movies.
You get over your shyness real quick and learn to embrace the fact that just like you there are 4 other people doing the same natural phenomenon right next to you.
We also had group showers.
If more people were simply exposed to each other in our natural state of function people who be less weird about their bodies and the functions.
I went from being a shy, pick the stall at the end, not wanting to pee next to another guy at the urinal to a "I talk to people while pooping or peeing" kind of guy. It's quite liberating.
22
John Connor, that is very close to a jail condition. As I recall, when I was in there for a minute, that I truly appreciated being able to close the door when dropping a deuce. It wasn't about shyness or being embarrassed about anything, but about a feeling of privacy.
33
I grew up in a large family that moved a lot. And most of the places we lived in had only one bathroom. That was pretty much the norm back in those days. For practical reasons we never, ever locked the bathroom door. And had no compunction about taking care of business in front of one another. I agree. It’s very liberating.
9
I think the Romans or Greeks had a similar style of public bathroom. People would chat while taking a dump.
2
" it led to a semi-serious hemorrhoid problem."
This is exactly what the EC did to our America last election.
54
@R William
The problem caused by the Electoral College is worse than "semi"-serious. I once had a truly serious hemorrhoid problem; it needed to be surgically lanced.
6
One thing that would help in the US is to have floor to ceiling doors in restrooms! This is standard pretty much any country I've traveled to the US. How I miss European airports and subway stations in Taiwan where I can poop without a huge gap showing my feet at the bottom and showing me sitting on the sides. Are we that cheap? I think all humans can agree some pooping privacy is desired. If we had this people would have no idea if you went out to make a phone call or have diarrhea and this would cause your bowels to relax and poop easier.
117
@SG
It's done to make mopping out public stalls easier.
11
We're that cheap and we're also a police state. We don't allow people that kind of privacy in public spaces.
17
And you always get people's bratty kids looking under the stalls.
6
I love it that within the first few moments of reading this article one is informed that the patriarchy is to blame for women's intestinal maladies.
Reading articles has become a searching game - how soon in the article - how fast can I find - the notion that men are to blame for a given problem women have. Even their toilet issues. It's so predicable. It's always in there.
58
@Charlie L. You may be likewise attempting to be that inevitable commenter who notes that "as usual, the man gets blamed" and just trying to get a rise, but I'll respond.
There is exactly one "patriarchy" reference (and it's towards the end), relating to male architects. To me, that's just a simple, objective statement of fact: Even as a kid, I noticed the relatively longer lines and wait times at women's bathrooms at stadiums.
comments like yours strike me as reactionary and less than useful. Also, if you're searching for something, you'll often find it.
109
@Dukster I stand corrected. there is also the reference to the double standard study.
1
@Dukster
Check out paragraph 7 and you'll find the obligatory calling out of the all-powerful "patriarchy" as well as one I've not heard, "the pootriarchy."
16
everything works itself out in the end.
22
I don't know if this was a problem for women but in our building men use the stalls to check their phones and read e-mail. somewhat gross. As a result the stall have a high occupancy rate. I wonder if architects consider this when the design modern rest rooms. They should. Maybe cell phones should be blocked in rest rooms. I Think the Japanese developed a toilet that deals with the sounds of nature issue.
8
@GUANNA, yeah, that would work out if you had a health emergency or were getting mugged and couldn't call 911.
1
No, I get it, but why are there two pairs of heels in the left stall?
7
@Mark Steven Thayer Maybe someone is trying on their new shoes! Or, switching to their walking shoes?
5
@Mark Steven Thayer It's her therapist?
1
@FootResting Uh, there's legs attached.
I have never in my entire 30 year professional career have never had a discussion with any other man in the office, ever, about any woman’s bathroom habits - EVER. It is something that is so outside the male perceptive consciousness that to say we don’t care about it would be acknowledging it too much. We never enter the Women’s bathroom and honestly we have absolutely no clue where it is, let alone how many times or how long anyone in particular is using it. If women are being shamed for their habits in the women’s room, it is by other women.
86
@Smith really?! Men ARE the problem. If i have to leave a meeting bc i have my period etc not one single woman will judge me but as this article clearly states its judged as a weakness, who do you think judges that? Not women who also have periods and are more likely to suffer from chronic IBS (brought on by stress of judgy men) The archaic male dominated perception of ‘being in control’ of everything extends to women’s bathroom habits.
27
@Kelp, actually, no, we really, really don’t care what you do in the bathroom.
Seriously, saying it’s the lowest on my or any man’s list of concerns would suggest that it’s even on that list.
It’s not.
You really waste your time thinking about this stuff?
32
@Kelp the perception that men think they control everything is archaic. Blaming men because you can't poop is the icing on the cake (pardon the metaphor).
5
Reminds me of the time I paid to use the bathroom in a drug store in Paris. As I entered the men’s room stall, a woman was leaving the stall. After she left, I noticed the seat on the toilet was all wet with urine. Aiming problem. Madam use the ladies room, si vous plait.
I also noticed a sign on a Parisian narrow street telling folks not to urinate in the corner of the building. There was clear evidence the sign was ignored. Don’t think I’ll go back.
10
I’m so glad to live in the USA where all of our public restrooms are immaculate and men and women never leave a mess. I don’t know what’s wrong with the rest of the world.
2
Why can't they play white noise in the bathrooms and make it more comfortable for all.
72
@Sherry
What an excellent, and inexpensive, solution! Maybe make it river rushing or water fall sounds. Or have a bluetooth override so you can set your own sounds?
21
@Sherry I understand that in Japan toilets have speakers that play a flushing sound without actually flushing so that users can repeatedly mime the sound of flushing to cover the inevitable bodily sounds.
14
@Sher Or they could play the sounds of extremely noisy pooping and flatulence.
5
Where are they getting this from? I'm a 57-year-old female professional who's worked in office settings in six different states over a 29-year career, and I've never heard of this.
26
@Kate I'm a 41 year old professional, with 2 decades of professional experience in a major metro area, and I've never related more to an article in my life. I'd have probably foregone $10k in annual salary for a private bathroom. I've left work for the day when GI-distressed by food. I negotiated with my husband that if I had an urgent need, I could rent a hotel room next door.
Instead, I just kept a keycard to a vacated floor of our office building, and on the rare times nature called, I used my anonymous keycard. Other women would do it, too, as I would hear people walk in and then walk out. It's the #1 perk of working from home.
84
@KG, I was fortunate in most of my working career to live in downtown Boston and central enough to run home (kind of extra-long coffee break) if I really needed to when hit by a GI problem.
8
Ummmm … because people don’t talk about poop with each other? Your other alternative is to believe that everybody else making it up.
2
Interesting illustration. What's going on the first stall? The woman in the light colored shoes is definitely in a a flirtatious stance. I have never felt "kissy" in a public restroom but whatever. Is that a man in the middle stall? Women rarely stand facing the toilet.
Anyway, I had several laughs reading the column and the comments. Well done.
12
@Lynn in DC I am a woman, and I usually stand up and turn around to flush.
21
This would be a lot less of an issue if the companies stopped using stall doors open at the top and bottom and went with floor to ceiling doors like you see in some unisex bathrooms, each with it's on exhaust fan.
The part about men being more open about their bathroom habits than woman is spot-on, I used to have a coworker that made his daily trip to the bathroom with a magazine in hand and he didn't care who knew what he was doing: "You got time for a question? Not till I'm done pooping!"
41
@JohnF My hair salon has three completely enclosed stalls and that solves the problem completely but I imagine it's much more expensive to construct toilet structures this way and wouldn't be considered in public places like train stations etc because the privacy would encourage people to linger and not allow attendants to see if stalls are empty etc.
7
Once, my wife was hungry, so I gave her a jumbo bag of sugar free gummi bears. My mistake for not reading the reviews on Amazon. Anyway, when I came into the house a few hours later after mowing the lawn, I nearly passed out. I knew immediately something was terribly wrong. I called for my wife, to no response. I looked in the family room, and there was the empty bag of gummy bears and my wife's Cosmopolitan and remote control splayed across the floor. Hearing a muffled groan, I ran upstairs and found my wife laying on the bathroom floor, behind her a sight I will never forget. The gummi bears had wreaked havoc on the toilet and the wall. I checked her pulse. She was alive. I ran downstairs and outside to get a fresh breath. Then I called my mother-in-law for support. She shortly arrived and helped me clean up the devastation, muttering "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry", in hushed tones. It's been years, and we have not spoken of it since. This article reminds me that we are all humans, and we all poop. Some of us, violently.
58
@TL Something similar happened to me in college and sharing a bathroom with 6 suitemates- we never spoke of it either. Blame the sorbitol that was in the "sugar free" gummy bears! It's only tolerable in small doses or it wreaks havoc on the stomach. Same for those "wow" chips from the 90s...olestra "fake fat"? Ugh.
27
@TL I cried when I read your casualty report. Gummy Bears, en mass are a silent and sometimes not so a silent killer. I would rather be attacked by a 9 foot grizzly in the wild then buy those packs of gummi's you get in a dingy convenient store. Write Congress, but first get help locally, speak up, support groups, etc.
6
You called your mother in law? Really? Why? Couldn't you, a grown man, have cleaned up on your own? Always call a woman to do the gross work men don't want to do.
13
I somewhat live by the pooping shame mantra myself as a man. I do flush the toilet as I am depositing.. Why, I cannot really say beyond self-defined embarrassment.
In conclusion I can look back to when I attended some concerts at a local venue near my home and due to the excessively long, long lines at the women's restrooms some women had chosen to walk casually in to the men's to do their business. I had NO problem with that in any way. Unfortunately, soon after it was somehow formally banned. Possibly by the venue or the local municipality. I saw no harm in it personally.
15
@Red Parson Some fellas feel the need to stand back generously from the urinal, so that "the dragon" is on full display (excessive machismo?) so maybe the women rushing in to get relief caught a glimpse of a male member or two on the way to the stalls and that was cause for complaint.
4
@Red Parson
You know, that's the only time I feel stressed out while pooping--when other women are waiting in line. It that case, I feel under pressure to go. Nothing like feeling under pressure to slam that sphincter shut.
I've been one of those women making use of an underutilized men's room--it shouldn't take a PhD in sociology to figure out that, for whatever reason and I don't care what it is, women are standing in line at concerts while men are not.
The formerly all-male college I attended in my youth had unisex bathrooms when the dorms went co-ed. They never thought to put in separate facilities for women. The administration left it to us to figure it out. I don't remember anyone having a problem with it. Of course, the college I attended wasn't in the South--an area of the country that just can't seem to get over these bathroom issues.
1
Read the book, ’Everybody Poops.’ It explains a lot.
7
The book is mentioned in the article, which also points out that omitted from the category of “everybody” are...women.
2
Since women and men don't share bathrooms, who cares?
11
@Dan T . Women care, that's who. It's unspoken but somehow well understood by women (at least in my generation) that it's just embarrassing to be heard or to leave a smell. I don't even know how that message was transmitted to us. Maybe by parents who made a face and said "Eeew" when they cleaned us up?
Closed stalls and white noise seem like such a great solution.
43
In the context of mature, professional adults (e.g. your readers), what do men have to do with this? Women poo in the company of other women. What happens in the women's restroom is of no concern to men in general, do not flatter yourself. Please own your own psychoses and stop blaming men for literally everything. Why is the evil 'white man' mentioned with regard to architects and builders? One's skin color did not matter in the context of this article.
Your article really takes a right turn off of the rails when you bring up the squatty potty, as though you were writing from stream of consciousness. Poor journalism; I'm surprised this was allowed to be published.
42
@DSR You literally don't know of which you speak. Toilets by and large in modern spaces are comfort height... they're designed to be more modern - and for (taller) men, they probably still work, because they aren't having to get so low to the ground as before... but that is taking a rough biological situation for a lot of women and making it worse. It IS entirely relevant to a discussion of this issue (why did you even read this article?) to say - it's hard enough for women who are conditioned not to have bathroom needs to do the thing that they find hardest because a lot of office building plumbing is actively NOT conducive to the task. You finally go, and then no go.
17
@DSR Hate to break it to you but restrooms were indeed segregated and were first accessible by white males before anyone else.
21
@KG Not all women are short! I want taller toilets in public bathrooms, not ones that look like they were purchased from an elementary school going out of business.
1
Once the New York Times was an important newspaper.
Now they write about defecation habits.
Who are they writing for, exactly? And why in the illustration are there two women in one stall?
33
How could this be blamed on the "patriarchy" unless the restrooms were all co-ed? I don't particularly care what women do in their restrooms, or how loudly or often they do it. Not every evil in the world springs from men. Do your business in the restroom. Your neurosis about who hears or smells is your own problem. Seek therapy.
45
Two words. Japanese toilets.
28
I have no bathroom shame- if you gotta go, you gotta go.
I did however, have a fascinating conversation with a trans gender friendwho had had reassignment regarding peeing and the noise made. it was something she was very self-conscious of. apparently this was a common anxiety for women of her immediate community.
basically- they felt they peed more noisily then biologically assigned females, so many if them tried to be quieter, or not go in public at all.
It had never occurred to me.
just goes to show we all have social anxiety in some form or other.
15
@N.
Just a tip: As a male, I have learned to be a 'silent' pee-er when sitting by simply aiming at the porcelain wall of the bowl, rather than at the water below.
1
I would be interested to hear the authors' thoughts on pooping while developing a romantic relationship.
31
@Spencer Yeah in a tiny NYC apartment where one can hear, and smell, everything.
1
Sounds like a personal problem to me. By the way, no one cares about you poop except maybe your doctor. If you have psychological problems involving natural biological functions maybe you need help?
17
Another reason why working from home makes so much sense.
23
For all the naysayers who are complaining that this author is engaging in “poor-me-identity-politics”, please remember the fact that the current occupant of the White House made a mean comment about the fact that a woman opposing him on the debate stage was in the bathroom as if that was a very gross thing for a woman to do. I was surprised that wasn’t mentioned in the article.
123
@Julie Krug
I wish she had extended her hand for him to shake as she returned to the stage.
68
@Julie Krug thank goodness some sense in the comment section finally, it is SO judged differently by men when its woman’s functions.
16
@Julie Krug
Yes, I was amazed that the author didn’t mention the “disgusting” comments about her rest room break and the fact that there was a line, even for the candidates.
29
Just another reminder of how self-absorbed and shallow we are while, all around us, the world is collapsing.
21
Wow. So useless. Let's take some numbers and make them into stereotypes.
And I've seen disgusting people of both genders - I would blame culture on freedom to pass gas moreso.
Nothing is wrong with "Sorry about that" but I suppose I could help by informing people to flush immediately to reduce odor and hide noise...
12
True story.
After a very long flight (and a massive build up) I really had to go to the bathroom so I ran into the first one I could find at the airport, and let it rip.
I’m a guy (the normal kind) and I had accidentally used a woman’s bathroom without realizing it. The women in there were mortified and let me know it.
44
@JQGALT You can't fight nature's call
8
I would have thought your hurried actions would have made clear your non-violent presence
7
@JQGALT
As a male I am always in a woman's toilet helping my wheelchair bound wife suffering advanced Parkinson's .
I can tell you stories ,how i try to deflect that I am a male
when entering a ladies room with her as stares target us.
I have found art schools and art institutions just accept that I am her caregiver as we enter the ladies room more then even hospital lounges ,many do not have a seperate handicapped unit for wheelchair bound folks and their givers.
20
No one:
Absolutely, no one:
Not a soul:
NYT: women poop
12
I'm sorry but the authors are just wrong on this topic. For men in there are plenty of bathroom rules that are tied to social awkwardness. No eye contact, no talking, don't use the urinal next to someone, etc. Just do a search for "unwritten rules of the men's bathroom" and there are loads of articles that detail this. Such awkwardness is just amplified when potential interactions with supervisors. I know many men who regularly don't use the bathroom closest to their office just to minimize bathroom encounters with their close co-workers. Perhaps rather than using broad generalizations and stereotypes about men (Farts are funny!) the authors could have done some actual research into how men view using the bathroom.
120
@Brian
I've often struck up brief conversations with the next urinal user but I draw the line at stalls.
5
@Brian. The difference is that some/many guys could care less about your rules. I’ve had many lengthy conversations in the high traffic men’s room at our company hq. If someone is groaning or making noises, I ask if they’re doing ok (both my grandfathers had heart attacks on the toilet). It’s considered perfectly normal to talk in the urinal line and while peeing at a sports event or with friends. The only real rule is don’t look sideways at a urinal. If you’re making up new rules, don’t be surprised when we don’t follow them. Women seem much more compliant with new arbitrary self-enforced rules.
5
Whatever induced these people to write this article? Really stupid.
42
In all seriousness... poop is funny. It makes funny noises and it smells bad. And it does this regardless of the butt from wence it escapes. Women shouldn't be denied the simple pleasure of comic 'relief.'
20
"here I sit, broken hearted..."
16
@Bartolo farting is such sweet sorrow
3
If we had doors that reached to the floor, like they do in most other countries, this problem as I understand it would cease to exist. I’ve often wondered about the purpose of having an inch-wide gap and a foot of spare space at the bottom of most public/shared bathroom stalls. For a prudish nation, it’s strange that we seem to accept that every trip to the bathroom should include a peep show.
128
This is America. If no one is watching, I’m gonna scratch my initials into the wall, offer up my best friend’s phone number and draw some phalluses.
19
It is weird, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered about the origins of the minimal privacy in American toilets stalls.
26
@RJR Some "other countries" have troughs that multiple people crouch over. Be happy you have a door.
42
Poop-shaming happens in the realm of men's room too. There was a co-worker who had a particularly loud and smelly morning emission and a number of people passed through the wash room during the event.
Guess what, every one in the office knew about it in minutes.
34
Pooping in a public stall is horrific for so many of us. When I worked, I knew one bathroom in the basement that nobody used. I called it “George Costanza’s bathroom”. It was quiet, immaculate, lounge like, empty and best of all was it had a baby powder air freshener. Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and the old Waldorf Astoria get an A+ too.
73
Marshall Field's State Street store had similar ladies rooms on the 5th floor, next to the Peppermint Palace Ice Cream Shoppe. Each very large stall had ceiling to floor walls, a mirror with a light above and a small ledge. I would go to my part time job there straight from my downtown college campus, it was like stepping into another world.
36
The thing that will cure this is more private toilets.
Americans are sick of pooping in semi-public stalls. I have access to a private, single user bathroom at work and it has made all the difference. Otherwise, I would only go at home.
Pooping in private is peaceful. There is no stress.
Also, if you have to go, just say you're going to file some "paperwork."
29
I think the point of the article is to encourage people to be less shameful about using a public bathroom to do the do...do! It's unhealthy, otherwise; (or can be.)
5
@Joe
And your desire for extra privacy should be subsidized by everyone who doesn't care, or who at least realize that it's a luxury? Would you accept a pay cut to fund the extra building and especially on-going maintenance expense of cleaning more bathrooms. There's an efficiency to US/Canada semi-private bathrooms that you're dismissing.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy privacy too. I've also done a lot of cleaning and home improvement to have a keen sense of the extra efforts you're asking for, free of charge.
7
Wow, this must be an American cultural thing. As an immigrant to this country who spent my formative years elsewhere I had never heard or thought of “poop shame”. Really? What’s next “sweat shame”?
14
@Sunnysandiegan
there is absolutely sweat shame in the usa. women 'glisten' they don't perspire or sweat.
hogwash.
19
@Lu "Horses sweat, men perspire, and women get a healthy glow"
@Lu:
women also"glow"...
I do not poop in public. Period. I just can’t go if there is any chance someone else is waiting for the bathroom. Can’t blame it on men though. Maybe on being an only child.
26
@Samantha Kelly
My mother is the same way. But can you at least imagine the power you'd have, the true freedom, if you could shed this shame?
7
There should be different heights of the porcelain convenience in every bathroom. As a tall woman, I am in the "squatting" position in most public women's loos. We could even go to the "hole in the floor" commonly found in Asia too.
3
@Natalie J Belle MD:
Naw! What I want is the antique Roman style in which everyone sat side by side and shared the same "cleaning stick" (made from sponge, attached to a stick)....would get rid of ALL our inhibitions!
2
To me, the biggest issue with bathrooms being designed mostly by men is that stall doors open INWARD, meaning that if you are in the stall, you have to back up--sometimes touching or straddling the toilet fully clothed in small bathrooms--to even get the door open. This is even harder to do when you're a woman who is carrying a purse, tote bag, or backpack and need extra space. Who thought of that??
102
@Rebecca I would rather fumble with a backpack than having a small kid get a bloody nose because she's standing too close to a stall door that opens out. Many people are very forceful with the way they open doors. Now not having a hook is my bane. Supposedly people steal them if they are not securely fastened to the door.
18
@Rebecca inward-opening stall doors also have the advantage of being easier to block should the latching mechanism be flimsy or non-functional.
28
@prokedsorchucks When there's no hook, I try to hang the strap of my bag over the corner of the door (if there's enough of a gap to wedge it in there). And if the door won't lock, I put the strap over the little divot in the lock to keep it fastened. Works most of the time!
9
As an American living in Switzerland, I really appreciate that gender neutral stalls with floor to ceiling doors are the norm here. As an engineer and designer, I also appreciate how the Swiss have invested in civil infrastructure that meets people’s behaviors and needs where we’re at (not vice versus). Yes, the authors are spot on here, it’s time to get over it. But until then cheers to human-centered design.
61
@Waternerd
Yes, the Swiss spend more on luxuries. So you're advice to Americans is to spend more. OK, you pay.
1
The dreaded “plop.”
I don’t like anybody hearing my plop, nor do I care to hear the plop from anybody else.
If I do have the occasion to be within earshot of another’s misfortune I am sure to give an acknowledging “that’s OK I feel your pain” glance to help mitigate the situation.
10
I’m a man and I hate to poop in semi-public. I hate seeing some pair of shoes in the stall next to me straining away and flatulating (is that a word?). Why can’t we have civilized bathrooms like they do in Europe ( where I am traveling now) with little rooms with ceiling to floor doors where everyone can do their ugly business in blessedly humane privacy? As it is, I go to the furthest and most quiet bathroom I can find.
162
@Sam Francisco I'm sorry, I'm with the authors. The problem is that we think of pooping as "ugly business." Why is it ugly? Who came up with that? It is not ugly. In a way it's a beautiful thing. Your body ridding itself of the unneeded. People have too many hang-ups, in my opinion. That's the problem.
21
I remember a friend of mine in college in the 1980’s who told me that during his freshman year in high school in Rhode Island a cute girl was called up by the teacher to solve a math equation on the black board. Unfortunately, while standing there in front of the class she passed gas loud enough for everyone to hear. My friend told me that after that she was given an embarrassing nickname and no one would date her for the rest of her time in high school.
7
@Joanne Lafleche
Nonetheless, she solved the math problem, and went on to head a successful Silicon Valley startup (while her detractors play video games in their moms' basements). So who gets the last laugh?
14
Ladies,
I’m a man. I work in corporate America. Guess what? Take your time. We all need to use the bathroom and the best part is, most men don’t care about ladies using the bathroom and taking a long time. As far as I am concern we are all humans.
29
@Angelo R
Wish this were the case for those who work in education. There, the answer is, “You’d better not have to use the bathroom, and if you do, it needs to be done in less than four minutes.”
21
@Angelo R
hmm. Health care workers - nurses in particular - can't dillydally. In fact, we rarely have the time to eat.
Which, I suppose, solves the problem (I wish...).
20
@Angelo R
Oh my god guess what? This has nothing to do with men. We don't want to poop around other WOMEN. We're not afraid men will barge in, but rest assured, Karen in accounting will happily tell all her colleagues that Nancy in receivables clearly has some disgusting issues.
13
As a frequent flyer around the world, I can say that most airports abroad have private bathroom stalls. I look forward to getting off the plane with it's private but teeny tiny bathrooms and having enough space and privacy to even change my clothes if I want to.
22
European offices have bathrooms stalls with doors ceiling to floor. Why is it necessary to see the feet of the occupant in the USA?
108
@Kim Jefferies
It's not necessary to see the feet, but I'm surmising that it is far easier to clean the floors without having to contend with the doors. Cleaning the lower part of the door would be problematic.
16
@Kim Jefferies
Honestly - why does it bother anyone to see someone’s feet while they defecate. Everyone does it. We need to get over it.
1
I work in a public hospital and it’s useful if someone ODs or otherwise passes out in the stall to be able to see under the door. Also helps if you share TP when your stall is empty. BTW Nurses have to hold it a lot too😂
2
When I first went away to college I noticed the dorm bathroom stalls had no closing doors, only partitions between.
I thought I would never be able to have a bowl movement. But after a few weeks it became common to engage in conversation with a person in the bathroom while in full view squatting doing your business. A relaxing moment, almost a time to look forward to.
2
Now try working in education, a predominantly female field, where you can only use the bathroom if someone else is with your students. This means a quick dash — and the knowledge that if you take longer, a bunch of giggly kids know why.
34
@liesel
In the high school in which I taught, we had only one toilet for about 20 faculty and staff, men and women. Add that to having four minutes between classes, and a long walk through an overcrowded hallway to reach said bathroom, which was most often occupied.
After 26 years of fighting for a bathroom to use and several health crises which required access to a toilet, I was done with teaching.
24
Poo-pourri was invented for this purpose. You can purchase pocket spray from Amazon. The royal flush takes care of the rest!
11
I think this is a bad plan. I think spending money, packaging, and resources towards this end is a waste.
11
@Sue T
I love Poo-pourri! We have an employee-only women's restroom at my small office building. Pooh-shaming is rampant. I bought an air freshener and enough Poo-pourri for all the stalls. All the women have been asking who put those in there and thanking me! My husband totally doesn't understand the stigma of pooping at work; he's a plumber.
24
@Sue T:
the scented fragrance used to cover up "bathroom smells" really bothers my asthma, true, and just sayin'.
4
Isn't this why Poo Pourri was invented?!
10
I worked with a guy whose office was across the hall from one of our restrooms. He sent out a memo chastising people for using it to poop which lives in infamy as “The Poop Memo.” Those of us who worked with him laugh about it still. He, on the other hand, would stand up from his desk in the middle of a conversation, grab the WSJ, and walk out of the office to a bathroom in a distant location every morning to do his business. I assume he had a bad experience being toilet trained.
29
'... a squat, with the knees at a 90-degree angle to the waist, and not a seated position.' Very poorly worded.
Giving up on female embarrasment around pooping matters and such would take away yet another major category of difficulty traditionally blamed on men. I'm not sure we're ready for that!
4
In my opinion, as a man, most women seem to be taught to be protective (or ashamed) of exposing their bodies and anything associated with things going in or out of their bodies. For example when on a first date, most women order their meal with a plan in mind and eat as daintily as possible (maybe fear of “poop shame”). Another example, how many women put on makeup before their husbands wake up (and always before going out in public), if you live in the South, it is more than you might think. My experience is that most men are uncomfortable thinking that women poop, but that is about as far as male “poop shaming” goes towards women (unless you are family, then all bets are off). From what I’ve seen, it is women who seem continue to follow and pass down “a Lady never does that in public” mentality. Women can be so much more critical and hurtful than the majority of men. Of course I am a man without sisters, so my inputs regarding women are mere conjecture, but my input regarding males towards female “poo shaming” is accurate. What do I know, I do not allow the “open door policy” at home, I don’t use the restroom at work unless no other option, and it needs to be an outright emergency before I’ll use a general public restroom.
15
@Are Privates only for the Private
I think you're right, especially in conversation with women who tend to say "society makes me wear heels" or "society says no one can know that I poop" and I have to remind them that i am part of society and neither me nor any other male friend of mine has ever told a women to wear heels and not poop. I do see plenty of other women telling women this though!
10
I wear cloth flats and refuse to wear dresses or makeup. Everyone thinks I'm gay and men don't bother me anymore. I like men a lot more now that we are just friends.
1
@Are Privates only for the Private - I find it hilarious that you busily bash women for any hangups they may have about pooping and then finish by telling us about your own, which actually seem fairly extreme to me, a woman.
3
This is such privileged baloney. Oh no! Gather our petticoats--it's just so "fraught" when I poop at my upscale office job! Let's give it a name--"poop shame." Yes. Because I have nothing else to worry about. And let's pretend this has to do with the "patriarchy" and is exclusively a trial and burden for the poor fraught women who work in offices. At least they can go to the bathroom. I mean, I'm a teacher and can barely take time to pee much less poop. Men and women who work outside - construction workers, garbage people, landscape, oil workers, etc etc - they have *no* bathroom to run to. And people in high stress jobs that require their presence before their physical needs - pilots, bus drivers, teachers (me), surgeons - can't go when they have to.
I can't with this. You guys are so privileged you have to dig to the bottom of the barrel to find ways in which white upper class female workers are put upon by the "patriarchy." Ya'll have nothing to worry about so you invent new ways. Talk about neurosis and fragility. Talk about female Victorian stereotypes. Give me my smelling salts, my poor fragile body cannot handle the arduous task of pooping under less than perfect conditions that many many many many lower class, working class, and MEN deal with *all the time.*
Just stop it. You're hurting women. You are not helping us. You don't 'like the bathroom system? Either deal with it like most normal people do, or, if it really bothers you, advocate for a new design.
333
@d Great post. It was truthful and made me laugh at the same time!
33
@dL
I was an OR RN, now retired. Once a surgeon (male) walked out of the OR trailing lumps of poo behind him.....he was a very nice man and I felt so sorry for him.
7
@d
Thank you. You said it better than I could. And if I had said it, I would have been just another oppressive insensitive patriarchal jerk.
15
I get it! I am a 64 year old male and when I was about 8, for the first time, I needed to poop in the school restroom which, for whatever reason, had no doors on the stalls. About half way through, a group of older boys, maybe 11 or 12, came into the restroom and teased me relentlessly. From that day on through college, I never again pooped at school - I suppose I was pooped-shamed into changing up my bodily function. It became a lifelong adjustment because, to this day, I will seldom poop at work either.
BTW, no one in my life knows this story.
107
Women deserve to be a lot angrier about this stuff. In any public place or gathering with any sizable crowd I've ever been, be it a concert, airport, restaurant, nightclub, etc, women must always suffer through a slow moving line for the simple privilege of relieving themselves. And of course it's usually the ladies who have to take the children in as well...
At this day in age, it is a travesty that building codes do not require larger, more extensive facilities for women. It's just biology that we as a society ought to have the collective decency to accommodate.
680
@Orwellsdisciple I remember the old department stores and theatres from the 50's through 70's. The women's room usually had a 'rest area' and many cubicles. I don't ever remember lining up then.
Quite often there was an attendant as well who kept the place tidy.
There is one old department store still standing in my city, it has a heritage designation and they haven't stolen any of the room for more displays.
I still find it a pleasure to be able to us it. It has a fold down shelf and a hook for placing packages and purses instead of having to put them on the floor.
One thing I have noticed lately is the much smaller size of the cubicles. I am not heavy, but I do wonder sometimes how larger women manage.
There didn't use to be any wheelchair accessible cubicles though, and this is now a good thing.
118
Google it. A simple search shows that while your indignation is appropriate, there have been laws on the the books to create "potty parity" for the past 20 years. Now, given the expense of changing older buildings and venues to reach parity isn't going to happen anytime in the near future. Many newer public facilities: airports, stadiums, have the 2 to 1 female to male bathroom ratio.
28
Hallelujah. Change the building codes, and women involved in building design, please start or keep making a stink about this. Codes to accommodate handicapped people came about partly because people made a stink before the laws were changed.
24
Great new product that is helping to address this is called OdeToilette Pretoilet spray. Chemistry being used in a good way, oil does not mix with water, so the oil in this spray creates a layer on top of the toilet water and traps odor under the water line and has a fresh, clean scent to leave behind.
12
@Grant But the issue isn't necessarily the smell, it's the sounds. The Japanese have great little machines next to their toilets that make masking sounds. Very inventive.
24
@Grant This is a terrible product in sealed buildings where air is recirculated among floors. Anyone with asthma or allergies is exposed to those droplets, even if the recirculation removes the scent. When I worked in a sealed building, OSHA gave a presentation that included a warning NOT to use any sprays in bathrooms.
37
@Grant more chemicals to be washed into the water shed? not a good idea -- also, eliminate "flushable" wipes, and stop throwing other non-body items down the toilets.
22
We all know this so I don't see the big deal. Seems to me like women want be all feminine and girly when it works for them and then whine about pooping. It's the women who have the problem with pooping because it doesn't fit in with the image they want to project and on how they want to be viewed by others.
15
@rd - Apparently you missed the comments from the men who have the same problem.
2
My favorite "Ladies Room" was at the I. Magnin store in San Francisco. Fifth floor? You entered through a comfortable lounge with sofas, mirrors, into a large room - green marble everywhere, the door to each "stall" was floor to ceiling, brass handles, and brass fixtures on the sinks.....it was so luxurious, private, and one of my favorite places ! When I. Magnin went out of business it became a Macys - and I'm not sure if it's still there.
14
An "afterthought": In my former line of work, I received and shook hands with numerous clients all day long, every day. I made darned sure I kept a bottle of hand sanitizer on my desk, and I used it thoroughly each time a client left my office. This practice followed from observing the percentage of men do not bother to wash their hands after using public toilets. I dream that women were trained better -- but I also dreamed that women don't poo, either, so I'm not taking any chances!
5
To blame the ‘patriarchy’ for one’s own shame when using the bathroom is ludicrous. I think/hope this article was tongue in cheek. There are many more pressing (ie real) issues for journalists to engage...
21
@Richard Ludicrous? Have you forgotten Donald Trump's shaming of HRC ("disgusting!") when she briefly left the stage during one of their debates?
61
I recall that and thought it was bizarre. As if he doesn’t do the same thing.
5
@CKathes
If Hillary had any real moxie, she'd immediately have retorted: "Stiffing contractors and workers, bad-mouthing judges... now, THAT's disgusting!"
Kvetching about "shaming" (and implying that Donald Trump's behavior is indicative of men) is just a way of letting it stick.
1
I really don’t understand the shame. We are humans. Humans excrete. Sometimes at work. What’s the big deal?
17
No more body function shaming!
5
I hate being in a restaurant that only has one toilet. Nothing is worse than trying to go and someone knocking on the darn door. Give me a large stadium bathroom with tons of stalls or freeway rest stop where I can take all the time I need and no one cares. Or I can just stay home.
27
Thanks for writing this article. If it is not too much of an aside, I want to point out that it's remarkable that we still rely on the "irritable bowel syndrome" label. This describes a collection of symptoms -- and a very broad and diverse collection of symptoms at that -- and not the underlying mechanisms that give rise to them, which can be quite different across individuals (and which can have significant implications for treatment decisions). Michael Camilleri from the Mayo Clinic has written extensively about this (for an example, see here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491678/). If it were more routine for people with "IBS" to pursue further testing, then I expect that this label would fall into disuse, and be replaced by more specific, informative diagnoses. The fact that this testing isn't routine might in part be attributable to similar social norms as are described here (although of course insurance and other factors are an issue).
9
Some years ago I was in a dump bar and went to the mens room. Typical bar - urinal and stand alone commode. Went in and a guy was sitting on the commode. I went to pee and looked at him sympathetically. He said, "Yeah, it's that bad.
16
I think Americans are especially squeamish and insecure about bodies and bodily functions (maybe it's all that Puritan baggage from centuries ago?). I'm from Europe and have never had such misgivings about using the toilet wherever I happen to be when I need to go. That's what bathrooms are for. Another striking example was when at a conference in France a bunch of us went to the beach. My American coworker and I are in our 30s and she was horrified that an Italian lady in her 60s, also a conference attendee, wore a two-piece bathing suit - and in neon blue at that! Again, it would have never occurred to me to give it a thought.
37
@UA Americans aren't squeamish. Do you think Europeans are all defined by upper class people in office jobs? And just because you have a single coworker who is 'horrified' that a woman in her 60s was wearing a bathing suit, um, you might want to consider that that person is close-minded, as opposed to a representative of American culture.
16
Thanks for this fantastic article. Years ago, after starting a new job as the director of a department of social workers, I prowled the large facility till I was able to find a single stall toilet. It was actually marked for “clients”, but I used it furtively rather than have to share a stuffy, hot, and airless multiple stall toilet with my subordinates!
22
@Susan Greene Subordinates are the worst.
15
@bill
HA!
3
@bill....next week's article "How to poop at work......with subordinates!"
Good grief.
I wonder if the feeling that bodily functions should be done privately stem from our basic instinct for self-preservation. When one is squatting and distracted, one is vulnerable to attack. Ditto for bashful kidneys that males experience; who wants to be prone to attack by nearby alpha-males?
23
Mmm that does not explain the cultural differences... it seems to be an American problem. Although Japan also has sounds you can turn on so others don’t hear splashing sounds you make ...
6
@Maria Holland Japan is never a good example of culture. Quite the opposite.
1
@Nightline - Interesting. I read recently that dogs feel safer when leashed while pooping.
1
A good reason why gender neutral bathrooms are generally a poor idea.
61
@scott ochiltree:
one of my doctors has a gender neutral bathroom and its absolutely no problem at all.
3
Let us not forget the immortal words of Donald Trump about Hillary Clinton taking a bathroom break: “I’m watching the debate and she disappeared. I know where she went, it’s disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting, let’s not talk.”
153
@Larry D
Fat Donny's probably just jealous because I doubt he's had a healthy BM in years, with his diet and sedentariness. In fact, I think his 3 am Twitter habit is evidence of a nightly attempt, the frustration resulting in his Tweet explosions instead ; )
4
I know plenty of guys that just won't go till they get home. I see articles like this, and I have to wonder how many guys the author ever talked to about the subject. Two women writing about women, and making assumptions about men that don't match my own experiences.
218
@Ben Totally agree and I'm a woman. They want to see themselves as victims and therefore ignore men's experiences, as it would bely their victimhood here.
36
@d Rather than slam women for writing about their experiences, how about advocating for an article by men about men's experiences?
39
@MLChadwick Would you say the same thing if men wrote and article that had wild assumptions about women in it that were off base?
18
Recently I participated in an animal tracking class which involves 6 hours of identifying tracks, marks on trees, trails,etc - and of course, poop. I have IBS and was fearful of having to leave my own contribution in the woods, which would later be seen by a fellow tracker! “OMG it’s Bigfoot!”
31
Carry a trowel!
12
@Clover
...and a copy of the NY Times! ;-)
2
I have been "poop shamed" by someone complaining vociferously about the smell and then liberally dosing the air with scented air "freshener" (actually polluter) which I am allergic to. I promptly had a major coughing fit (artificial fragrance is like sandpaper in my lungs), and had to stumble out after struggling to open the window. It was more important for her delicate nose not to be offended than for me to be able to breathe, apparently.
16
Courtesy flush. As soon as it hits the water, just flush. Eliminates most of the smell. Even as a guy, I hate going at work. But there are ways to mitigate the inevitable.
86
How about just breath through your mouth?
1
@Jasiu Clark:
some people are obsessive about "air freshener", and as I also have asthma, is not funny at all for me.
3
Intersectionality and social justice has gone off the rails. Poop shame at work? I mean, I know these same people are all about gender-neutral bathrooms, but are there a bunch of men in women's bathrooms, shaming women who poop, that I'm unaware? Because in my experience, no one knows or cares what you do in the bathroom, male or female.
24
@Paul W
Indeed! We don't need "bathroom bills," as advocated by either side. What happens in the stall stays in the stall!
1
Participating in endurance sports will help get you over the embarrassment. I did a race recently, and walking to the start with a woman I had met only 2 days before I asked, "did you poop"? She answered yes, happily, and shot the question back to me. Neither of us considered any part of this exchange inappropriate.
26
@Jill Exactly! I was just thinking - the authors have never been distance runners or triathletes!
6
@clm Or backpacked in third world
6
Oh boy (I mean girl.) This is a question for the courts, surely. "Disparate Impact" of women pooping at work must have a role to play in the discrimination suit that is sure to follow. We are nearing Fonzi land and getting close to "jumping the shark" regarding the trials of women competing in a world full of men. As Moses (for the record, a man) once said, "Let my people go." As far as we can tell, he was including women in that statement.
16
What is going on with that graphic???
Two women in one stall, someone standing to pee and the last woman took off her shoes?!!
That said, just poop as the need arises ladies.
33
The author states: “Girls aren’t born with poo shame — it’s something they’re taught.”
I must have missed that lesson. I’ve never had any shame about pooping.
But, I’ve also been a vegetarian for close to 50 years, and most recently switched to plant based whole food eating — no animal products and minimal to no processed food. And I’ve been regular all my life — lucky me, usually in the morning, before work.
My husband became a vegetarian when he met me 12 years ago, and started eating my cooking. And we both recently switched to PBWF eating. So we fart. And we both laugh and laugh about it. Much healthier, I think. It’s also a sign of healthy gut bacteria.
It helps to be retired. So I hope that these crazy sexist “work place norms” change. So we can all laugh, all the time. Or, just ignore it.
12
How about having a fan that sucks out the air while someone is present and sounds so loud, like a jet airplane engine that you can't hear anything else.
11
@KR
Don't the Japanese have toilets that play music, to drown out the dreaded sounds? So I've heard. They're even more self-conscious than Americans.
5
I have to poop at the office quite often and I hate it. We have a couple private bathrooms which I use when necessary but I still hate it. I supply most of the bathrooms on my floor with air freshener for myself and/or others. I have severe poop anxiety that I wish I could get over. I don't even share a bathroom with my boyfriend of 6 years! This is REAL and it's nice to read an article about it for once. I certainly wish I could get over it but it hasn't happened yet!! Also, my office is moving soon so I don't know what the new bathroom situation will be and I already have anxiety over that!!!
55
@OfficePooper Congrats on the new source of anxiety!
2
@OfficePooper
For the 22 years my late husband and I were together, I never used the master bathroom when I had to poop -- I had the luxury of two other locations in the house -- and even though our bathroom had a window that opened, I still didn't use it. No one, not even he, needed to smell the aftermath.
12
This article should be shared often.
I'm not ashamed to poop at work nor are my work friends. I spent almost 3 years working in Japan in my late 20s and the first 15 months constipated. The memory of the pain resulting from said condition is so strong, that I have zero bleep to give when it comes to public pooping.
If ladies are worried about public pooping and the smell, please invest in a bottle of Poo~Pourri. It covers a multitude of "sins".
9
@Teresa
Doesn’t work so well in eco-friendly toilets that have so little water in them!
4
@Teresa:
please don't.....you don't know who coming after you may have life threatening allergies/ asthmas.
2
Years ago, I worked in an office with 12 women and one bathroom with two sinks and one stall. After lunch, we basically queued up to take care of business. I was the youngest, and not yet "schooled" in the politics of office pooping, which is to say, I was naive enough to think I should just go if I had to go.
Wrong.
I went. One of my coworkers went in after me. (In hindsight, pun intended, she should never have gone in "right" after me, given how much time I was in there.) Anyway, she went it...and got hit with a brick wall of stink. Even with a courtesy flush, it was baaaaad. She talked about me to her cubicle mate, loudly, for the rest of the day. The next day, she brought in a can of Lysol and banged it down on my desk.
From this I learned, go when you need to, but "own" your stink. (This is good advice for a lot of things.)
My favorite places to poop are: 1) at home. Can't beat it. You can pass gas, poop, read, whatever and repeat the cycle as many times as necessary; 2) airport restrooms. So much noise and bad smells, your contribution will not matter one bit...; 3) restrooms in really nice hotel lobbies, you know, the ones with the doors from floor to ceiling. If they have those, they usually also have the auto-air freshener.
77
Public libraries are good in my area. They’re always spotless and usually no one is in them.
7
@Laura
She was much ruder than you!
33
@Laura You were not the problem in this situation!
15
Having watched "Office Space" last night, then seeing this piece this morning, I must offer my sincerest thanks to the NYT for serving me up yet another fabulous reason to be extra grateful that I'm self-employed and work from home, or wherever the hell I feel like.
It's Wed, 9:49 am and I'm sitting in my garden with the flowers, the birds and the bees, plus my wife, my laptop and a pot of hot coffee, loving life, waiting on the next project brief, wasting my own sweet time reading about poo, imagining zillions of overdressed, overstressed corporate slaves living in fear of pooing at work, while I am looking forward to visiting to my clean and well-ventilated loo in, oh, about five minutes.
Offices: They really are about the most terrifying, soul-scorching invention we've come up with yet. I used to sell Steelcase Series 9000 office cubicles in the '80s... which is why I came to loathe the entire pantheon of office so thoroughly.
Every day, I witnessed what offices did to good people. After a few years of it, I vowed never to have anything to do with that awful, petty universe of sterility again.
70
@Paul
"Offices: They really are about the most terrifying, soul-scorching invention we've come up with yet."
Amen.
23
Having had stomach problems (IBS) ever since I was a kid I could care less about what other people think about my use of the potty. If I gotta go I go. What I hate is going somewhere like to a theatre or a stadium and there is a mile long line outside the women's restroom and no line outside the men's. So why not go into the men's? I've done that a number of times, saying as I enter, tell them a woman had to go"!
As to perfumed sprays to mask smells, I would take the smell of poop any day over getting an asthma attack from those horrendous, carcinogenic sprays. Poop smell will never give you cancer, those will. And a flush or two will suck the odor away.
12
@Leona "A flush or two will suck the odor away?" Not mine. Mine need a woodsy smell, either an aerosol spray or a candle lit, or half of the house will stink for a good half an hour. Longer if the a/c is off and/or we've eaten beans.
5
@Jackie
thanks for sharing that bit.
13
@Leona:
Its actually not your stomach that is the problem.
Being a woman who admittedly feels revulsion at the sights, sounds and smells of pooping (by myself as well as by others), I can relate. I always just assumed that everybody secretly is likewise disgusted, regardless of gender, but apparently not. I always worked office jobs and hated having to poop at work...there was definitely a "shame" factor. If I'm going to someone else's home, I carry matches in case I might need to go and they don't have air freshener in the bathroom. In addition to all this, I regularly experience uncomfortable dreams that involve my being forced to poop in a toilet that is out in the open, with lots of people around, because in my dream there are no closed-off restrooms anywhere. So I attempt to disguise (in vain) what I am doing. Of course I am always the only person in my dreams who ever needs to go. I have no earthly idea where my feelings about defecation come from. I don't remember any particular incidents from my childhood or attitudes on the part of my parents that might have led to my own feelings toward this natural process.
18
@Cheryl I have that same dream. I'm usually in a train station or someplace very public, none of the stalls have doors, and I am the ONLY one using the toilet while hundreds of people walk by. I also wonder what causes me to have these nightmares.
7
I have that dream too and find myself burrowing into the bowels of buildings looking for a place to go. I was terribly pee shy for decades but it finally eased up. Terribly poo shy too, but that’s eased up too as I get older. I would have a difficult time adjusting to a lack of doors or partitions in a men’s room. Best public bathroom I was ever in was at Harrod’s. Thick floor to ceiling doors.
4
@Terry Good to know I'm not the only one! :)
2
I think most people would prefer not to have to poop at work or even in a public restroom. But if you've got to go, you've got to go.
But if women already have an issue with pooping in a gender specific public restroom, isn't the problem going to get a lot worse in a gender neutral restroom? If you're anxious when you know the other person is a women, how will such women feel when they know it's a man and he's happily emptying his bowels?
11
@Hunter, Gender neutral restrooms I have encountered in the US and abroad are a small single-user rooms with a toilet and sink. They are the norm in most public buildings in the Nordic countries. The one on the executive floor of my firm's Stockholm office included a shower. Pure bliss when you have just got your sleep on the overnight plane from New York.
13
@carol goldstein:
One of my doctors has a "gender neutral" bathroom and its no different, and no more trouble, than any other type.
It has a lock for the door, a sink, a toilet.......what else do you need?
4
Very refreshing article. But, I don't know what I liked more...
The illustration showing two women in the left stall and a woman with her shoes off in the right stall. What could be going on in the NYT restrooms?
Or
"the patriarchy has seeped into women’s intestinal tracts. Let’s call it the pootriarchy." Bingo!
Yet people dare say that the progressive left's so-called cancel culture has destroyed comedy and made it difficult to make jokes. Poop shame on them, I say.
9
As someone who grew up spending part of their summers among farm animals I have witnessed this human behavior and just don't get it. I can still tell you whether the manure I am smelling comes from pigs, chickens, cats ,or horses/cattle. Humans, as omnivores, have a wider range of stool odor as do dogs. I've used many modern toilet facities here and abroad as well as enough latrines and pit toilets in my travels to know that. In the US I'd say this poop phobia is an issue for urban and suburban natives.
In fairness I've also been in a few places overseas where the local women were expected not to be seen using the village toilet facilities.
Travel tidbit: When I was in St. Petersburg in 1990 (then still Leningrad) I spent a Sunday afternoon at the Hermitage. There was a very large women's restroom. About half of the stalls had conventional "Western" toilets. The other half had porcelin, flushable squat toilets which I decided to try out. You basically end up with your knees near your face and the younger me found it a useful position. The pentultimate paragraph of the article reminded me of that experience.
11
Every single job I have had, including at the NYT, I have watched men enter the bathroom with reading material. Ready to hunker down without shame. Sorry, just like grooming on the subway, some things should be kept at home unless absolutely necessary
17
@shelley
In an office I used to work in, one of the men would always borrow my NY Times in the morning. A couple of weeks after I started working there, I realized he was taking it to the bathroom. I stopped lending it to him. Ew.
18
My dear people, get yourself some Poo-Pourri or some OneDrop, which are natural products you spray/drip (respectively) onto the surface of the toilet water *before* you go. It creates a smell-resistant barrier, so once your, um, output submerges, the stink molecules (scientific term) can't escape.
These products are an absolute godsend.
In other news, I used to work for an international consulting firm, and in addition to the usual restrooms, they also had a separate, self-contained, single-serve restroom with a 747 jet-engine for an exhaust fan. The fan noise covered up all sounds, and the fan's massive power also took care of all smells as they were jettisoned into high orbit in 2 seconds. That was some thoughtful bathroom engineering.
68
@Joliet Jake
You have no idea of the pain caused to chemically sensitive people by these products. Please don't.
Plus, the smell doesn't always come from the stuff in the water. The gap between you and the water allows for plenty of stink.
17
First world problem.
15
To everyone who thinks this is ridiculous and not a real issue, all I can say is...bless your hearts. You are lucky. The women's bathroom in my office has a posted list of etiquette guidelines, which includes the flush-many-times strategy. Women make a beeline to the handicapped stall which is 1) larger, 2) on the end and offers the illusion of some privacy, and 3) affords a window that opens to the outside (and is open year-round, regardless of outside temps). All of this, however, is much better than one of my first office experiences where a senior person (woman) lectured us that we all needed to train our bowels to defecate only at home, NEVER in the office.
60
@Lynne F. our State office in Fresno was posted with "Don't use your foot to flush" signs..Go figure..I thought it was one way I could avoid germs, by flushing with my foot. Needless to say, I ignored the directive..
6
remember the incredible scene in "Hidden Figures" where the NASA executive [ one K Costner ] takes an axe to the MEN sign on the closest WC?
7
@-ABC...XYZ+
I believe he took an axe to the "white only" sign as this was during segregation and the black people on his staff were having to trudge to a far-away "colored" toilet.
That said, the "men" sign needs the axe too--as a woman scientist I've been to meetings and conferences where in a science building (MIT was the most recent I remember) there was a men's toilet on every floor, but not women's.
9
@-ABC...XYZ+ - note to self as stated in the article WC was actually "WHITE ONLY"
2
@-ABC...XYZ+ I worked in a chemistry building at the University of California years ago. The women's restrooms were on Every Other Floor; the men had a restroom on Every Floor. I got a lot of exercise in that job, especially in the latter stages of my pregnancy, from walking up or down the stairs to the restrooms.
3
There's an indispensable product (I won't give the name, because this is not an advertisement), that both men and women may appreciate knowing about. Adding a drop or two to the toilet bowl before sitting down does a great job of keeping any unpleasant odors to a minimum. It comes in a small bottle no larger than that of ordinary eye drops, and is easy and discreet to carry, and it works instantly. Using this product, you'll be doing both yourself a favor, and those sharing the restroom, too - both at home and at the office.
If you're interested, Mr. Google will help you find it, I'm sure.
4
I work with 21 women. We have three bathrooms, single toilets, that we share with an average of 100 plus patients a day. One of my coworkers finds it necessary to complain of bathroom smells and streaks in the toilet even when she knows 1) it was a coworker who needed to desperately use the restroom 2) we have one brush. It has gotten to the point that most of the coworkers now use the building restroom located on another floor to spare themselves from her tirades. Women are who teach us to be ashamed of being human.
35
Hilarious article about a real problem. Nice use of humor to get us gals "going "
5
I'm trying to figure out why there are two pairs of legs in the left most stall in the illustration. what am I missing?
5
@Beth Maybe they are gossiping?
@Jackie
Inside a toilet stall? Together?
Not an office custom I am familiar with ...
2
@Beth Someone helping a sick friend.
Long ago a female co- worker at a Federal agency announced to several of us that “poo is for home.” I Had not been aware of that rule, nor was my body always able to abide by it so I took to going to restrooms on other floors. Was not sure if I was the one who had offended her, but I was more self conscious at the time.
6
I wonder what was going through the mind of the illustrator who drew the picture that accompanies this article. On the left, what are two women doing together inside the same stall?? On the right, what person in her right mind takes off her shoes and puts her bare feet on the floor inside a public restroom stall?? (As for the man in the middle stall, are we to assume he is standing to one side because of something on the floor?)
9
@Diogenes the Cynic, I think the person in pants might be a woman. I get your other points.
1
@Diogenes the Cynic
I have observed women in the stalls next to mine with bare or stockinged feet on the floor.
I have also heard people say they cannot defecate while wearing shoes. There seems to be a culture of rituals around pooping. I don't know if it is a result of a person's toilet training or just the act itself.
3
My wife found a product that truly stops bathroom odors, it's called Pooh Pourri; it's in all 3 of our bathrooms and it works completely.
A little spritz before you go and no one else will ever know.
Even Santa Claus has to go somewhere....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9TTz3R5SmI
4
@Mike:
and its bad, really dangerous bad, for those like me with asthma.
3
@Mike. It helps a lot with poop odor but not at all with gas odor.
@RLiss - I get how it could be bad for people with chemical sensitivities because of the fragrance, but not sure how it would be so dangerous bad for people with asthma. It's not an aerosol. Where does the problem come from?
1
The most interestimg thing in the article wasn't the claim that bathrooms are designed by and for men, but that they're designed for white men. Sadly, there apparently wasn't space to provide any examples.
12
@arka Every article is required to disparage white men; it would be racist otherwise.
11
@arkady - Just curious--what would be the difference in bathrooms designed for black or brown men? Is there plumbing different? Clothing? Need of privacy? What?
2
So stunning! So brave!
Literally *everyone* is clapping right now!
10
@Tollwut
Oh look it’s the man! The man is here to keep us in check!
12
I never knew this problem existed and I have never given a thought to using the facilities as I needed. However, I once had a co-worker, a young attorney, who suffered from morning sickness and I happened to be in the multi-stall bathroom when she came in to vomit. I felt bad for her and waited to make sure she was okay. There were no private bathrooms anywhere in the building. Having bathroom stalls designed with more privacy and sound proofing definitely would have been helpful in this instance.
32
@Connecticut Grandmother In my native country there are private sitdown stalls. For all. Americans are to cheap to adapt to normal needs.
14
Ouch! is all I can say. I’m guilty of MANY of the actions to cover up my bathroom use even though I’m a 58 year old professional. Was surprised and amused to learn I’m not the only one doing this...I thought I was a genius to think of these ideas. Am so relieved my 27 year old doesn’t have issues like me. I think it might be generational. Gosh, I can’t even say the word publicly.
33
I haven't had this issue often at work, where there are single-occupancy restrooms, although it can be weird if a colleague goes in right after and create self-consciousness. I'm not sure this is an all-female problem, though. I know men who can only use the bathroom in the home, have seen male colleagues ducking to another floor, and my brother, when having GI distress before being diagnosed with a related autoimmune disease, spent much of a year of college leaving his friends to use a far away (private) bathroom. Maybe it's a human thing. While we're having this conversation, I think it's worth considering how much we all use the bathroom and how much clean, fresh water it wastes... can we rethink toilet design or use gray water, if it's just going to be soiled?
40
I'm a retired Baby Boomer and this article was a pleasure to read because: 1) back in my early working days in NYC, I also used to go to hotels to poop; 2) I rarely if ever poop other than at home because I do not sit on public seats as I have no desire to clean them first; 3) unless I'm sick to my stomach, I need time to poop.
I'm reminded of some years ago when I stayed at a new age institution in Massachusetts. Their more expensive wing had toilets with floor-to-ceiling wooden doors. One day I snuck over there, thinking, ah, now I'll be able to poop with some privacy and take as long as I need. Not so, for within a few minutes someone was knocking on the door, saying "Are you OK in there?"
I'm also reminded of when, a few years before I retired, a few of us women at work were talking about pooping habits and we all laughed with recognition when one said, "I do my pooping on the weekends!"
Finally, I've read most of the comments here and the one that sums it up best for me is "Who wants to hear and smell someone else's pooping?"
36
@DB
Many of us can relate to the anxiety-inducing “ARE YOU OK IN THERE (door handle jiggles repetitively?!”.
10
@DB There's a product that has been on the market for a few years now. It's called Poo-Pourri. The say it is used is to spray it into the water of he commode prior to using it and it totally eliminates the odor. Of course the sounds are another issue, but at least one issue has a solution.
3
@Elaine
The other issue has a solution, improve the product with a medley of songs — a potpourri — to mask the natural bass sounds of pooping.
2
My favorite poops are in airport bathrooms - probably because of the high traffic and the fact that I’m always wearing headphones. Maybe that’s the key to pooping with abandon. I can’t hear anyone else, so I don’t care if anyone else can hear me.
15
@KMR
I, on the other hand, am terrified of airport bathrooms! Come to think of it, I'm frightened of most bathrooms.
2
As a women with interstitial cystitis (bladder disease) and bowel issues, I have to use the bathroom often— at least once an hour. Before these various problems, I experienced bathroom shame. Now, I could care less. I’m more worried about losing my job for being in the bathroom “too much.”
Most importantly, and you failed to mention, this shame regarding bodily functions prevents many women from seeking medical care. In fact, it’s a large part of why our medical profession is woefully behind on research regarding women’s health issues.
Bathroom shame is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg regarding women’s bodies, shame and our health.
72
@MJ
I hear you, sister. That’s why when I turned 50 I decided to switch out my male doctors in favor of female MD. Especially when it comes to internists. And, my male gynecologist who has been treating me since I was in my 30s (decades ago) didn’t have a clue that his days were numbered as my doc when he referred to “vaginal atrophy” and that it is a fact to be accepted or subject myself to hormones. Hmm, I doubt his urologist would tell him to accept penile atrophy as glibly.
20
@MJ thank you for this, the comments in this section are so attacking and shockingly lacking in empathy for anyone who isnt perfectly in control of their functions. People would never judge the capabilities of those less a limb but having a serious bodily function condition is open season. Awful double standards. No wonder there is so much shame.
5
@MJ you may have overlooked data coming out of the ACA debate that shows women are far more likely to seek medical care than men. It was one of the reasons that insurance companies had differential pricing in some cases, charging women more. That was made illegal.
But don't let the facts get in the way of an opinion.
1
And how many stalls have we been in that have no hook on the door for bag or jacket? Men design for themselves!
149
@ABaron As a man, I also make use of the hooks if I'm wearing a jacket or carrying a backpack (which by no means would I be comfortable resting on a cabinet floor).
31
@ABaron
Right! Having a hook on the inside of the door should be mandatory! No way is my bag going to touch a bathroom floor.
31
The reason there aren't hooks in some bathrooms (like airports) is because it's a common method for thieves to steal bags while your pants are down. Some airports removed all hooks just to find that the thieves actually reinstalled them!
3
Maybe this is a UK-US difference? I grew up in England, and didn't recognize these attitudes at all. I worked in the US in a male dominated industry and none of this even crossed my mind.
15
@Kathy
Yeah I think this could be related to our (In the U.S.) having puritanical shame of bodily fluids.
4
@Left Coast Do you mind? I'm peacefully reading my NYT and you have to bring up shameful and disgusting 'bodily fluids?' That really stinks.
3
Interesting material but the article stretches things to suggest this is a specifically female problem since the investigation does not make a comparison. We could also interview women about whether they get hungry (many, if not most, do) or tired at night, but I’d be uncovering something true of humans not women.
15
I enjoyed this article tremendously and commiserated with so many of the anecdotes. I would add that, as someone who's worked her adult life in medium-sized nonprofits with open offices and genderless, shared bathrooms, all of this anxiety is real.
75
@K So maybe, ohh I don't know, not have gender-less bathrooms and have bathrooms segregated by biological sex, like sane people?
4
@Paul W Though, from the comments, it doesn't seem like separate restrooms are to blame. Seems like women are the ones shaming other women. But, you know, smash the patriarchy and all.
8
This is what I like about being older. I now longer care. Relief and comfort and health are all I care about, so I go.
102
@Jenna
I thought you'd say what you like about getting older - being retired & pooping whenever & where ever you want to
3
@Jenna
On the other hand, getting older means it's harder to control flatulence and bowel movements.
2
@Jenna - That’s all I care about now in terms of the bathroom, and I’m not old. I don’t care if anyone has a problem with the fact that women have bowel movements and that they may, in the course of the day, have to have one in a work restroom. If someone has a problem with that, it’s their problem.
6
The real shock is that one of the women mentioned here had to carry air freshener and matches. Why don’t bathrooms have their own air fresheners that refresh the air periodically, say every few minutes during the work day?
23
@Victor Sasson
Perhaps because a lot of people don't want chemicals spraying on them every few minutes.
32
@Victor Sasson
You never know what chemicals are in those air fresheners.
23
@Victor Sasson many do, and it's usually highly perfumed which triggers reactions among the chemically sensitive like me: burning eyes, swelling inside nose, lips swell. Seriously, just deal with the natural odor for the brief time, breathe through your mouth. No one should have to be in discomforypt for an hour after being exposed to perfume on steroids.
13
The Japanese bathroom fixture company, Toto, has a toilet that plays music in order to mask natural sounds coming from the bathroom or stall. Toto has elevated defecation to a science with all the features incorporated into its toilet fixtures.
157
@Bellota
Toto also zsells a $70 Portable Bidet, battery powered, which can be kept.in a purse 9r backpack, other companies also make these, which come in handy for both women and men.
As people age and travel, the lack of known, public access.bathrooms is a huge problem. Between kids, aging bodies with their issues, and a family member with issues, we now know every public bathroom between here and the Bay of Fundy, and West to Texas. (Hint- owning an RV makes this much easier, if fairly small!)
13
I have a Toto washlet. There is a learning curve. But I love it.
6
@Bellota )In honor of Toto (I apologize in advance):
The wild dogs cry out in the night,
as they grow restless, longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had (ooh, ooh)
Credit Poarch/Tocaro
4
It is amazing that in 2019 we basically have the same public restroom layout as we did 50 years ago. Men's vs Women's restroom habits/performance is not the issue, it is that there should be complete and total privacy when one enters a "Stall". How much can it really cost ? and I am sure everyone would subsidize it including folks just going in there to check their look or wash their hands. The stink can be out putting especially if you are blamed because the other guy escaped and you were the only one in the restroom. You have more privacy in Porta John than you have in a public restroom.
91
Maybe we can give The Patriarchy a pass on this one.
25
@GuyeFaux - nope. It's too pervasive. See the part about bathroom real estate. Own it.
32
not so fast. it took them until 2011 to install a women's restroom for the House of Representatives.
28
I know. I'm a janitor, the women's bathroom is exactly as nasty as the men's.
155
Here's a start -- make office bathroom stalls more private, so the door and walls extend all the way to the floor. That way nobody can see your feet. That's how most European public toilet stalls are, and that's why many Europeans are totally freaked out by the public restroom experience here.
545
@Nicole Some of the high end stores like Lord & Taylor have walls floor to ceiling in the women's bathrooms and doors that don't have space at the bottom. Only thing is they take up more space, hence fewer stalls!
17
@Nicole yes, America is not a civilized country (this and Healthcare).
36
@Leona
With claustrophobia these bathrooms freak you out!
3
I remember once, a zillion years ago (early 60s), my parents had friends over for dinner and one female guest kept the water running in the sink. Couldn't figure out why. Another time, at my gym, a woman was flushing the toilet over and over and over again. I asked if she was okay and then later just assumed the toilet was broken. Now I get it. I learn new things from the NYT everyday!
75
Women of the world unite! Smash the poopriarchy!
38
Clearly the author does not read her own text to the logical conclusion. All her examples seem to point that it is the women who are a) enforcing this behavior in small children and b) judging each others pooing habits. Women can always find the smallest of faults in other women to bring them down a notch or two in the inter-female office hierarchy (yes, every place that employs females has one). And naturally, the few brave stinkers will get heavily gossiped and looked down on.
So, sorry ladies, but this is a problem of matriarchy or of women-self-policing their pooping.
95
A small group of women friends and I have recently started Project: With Abandon. The object is simple: when we have to poop in public restrooms, we do so with abandon. Unapologetically.
So far the returns have been great. I don’t know what we were so afraid of! Mostly no one acknowledges anything about what they may have heard happening behind closed stall doors. One friend reported a hilarious drive by stink face and hand waved in front of the nose from a teen after pooping in an airport bathroom, but she found that amusing rather than shame inducing.
My own win was at a conference for work. In my stall I did what I needed to do without any attempts at covering up. As I dried my hands with paper towels, I heard a resolute fart from a few stalls down. Solidarity! Freedom!
384
@Ellie 'I don’t know what we were so afraid of!' Your 'image.'
6
I am 65 years old and have never had poop issues. I also have an efficient system and poop around 3x a day.
The issue with pooping with others is the stinky factor. Who wants to smell their let alone someone else poop? Most public facilities do not have appropriate ventilation or odor control. So I carry a spray or run out quickly when it stinks.
Some people are self conscious about their smells with good reason, some people poop once a day and want to only poop at home. Some people like to use poop time to read or only poop in the nude. To each his own. But ...Bottom line no one should be holding their poop due to the stinky factor.
In my workplace someone put up signs asking others for a courtesy flush! Good sentiment and practice.
42
@Windy
Frequency does not equate to efficiency. Normal frequency for a healthy adult is anywhere from as infrequent at three times a week, to a frequency of 3x a day.
Again, it's not a beacon of efficiency to go often. It's just your digestive system.
20
@Euphemia Thompson
Definitely let's get competitive about this.
16
@Windy
I'm on the same schedule.
However, please ditch the spray. Some of us have chemical sensitivities and get migraines or worse.
I'd rather smell the poop.
19
It's everyone else's fault but the women themselves, apparently. Modesty is a choice, ladies. Get over it and poop!
22
The authors are really serious in trying to blame men for women’s pooping issues. Another fatuous, made up attack on the alleged patriarchy. When are women going to be accountable for their own poop?
28
I'm the proud father of a 2 year old girl. Her vocabulary is still extremely limited. Coincidentally, her newest word is "poop."
She already appears to be ashamed of pooping. So does her best friend (a boy). Before either of them have been socialized to be ashamed of anything, really. They happily run around the world naked, but they're very private, and seemingly embarrassed, when it comes to pooping.
I'm not going to claim that patriarchy doesn't have a hand in the problem women face when it comes to pooping at work. But you might not be so quick to assume this is purely a social problem. As far as I can tell, there is a biological/instinctual factor at play.
55
@Tyler the shame all about the bad smell, I think
I thought I was normal but maybe I'm lucky. I go, at home, in the morning, right after I have my coffee. I can't imagine having to go at work. And it a quick and not-unpleasant routine, which I attribute to eating yogurt for breakfast every day and keeping roughage in my diet.
37
@DavidB "I can't imagine having to go at work"
but why? What is there to be embarrassed about?
5
@erg79
Why not go at home? More comfortable, more privacy, your body generallyl eliminates in the morning, after a restful night.
I hear you David. Pooping at work is a rarity for me. Never step into the rest room after lunch. It's not embarrassment, but some coworkers smell like they are rotting inside... other people's poop smell reeks. It's why some non-bio dads are set off changing a lovers' child dirty diaper studies have shown. The smell is affecting of what others consume.
I pull my shirt over my nose and hold my breath, get in and out quickly to urinate, when the heavy-set women who eat the processed freezer lunches are in there.
8
I would wonder if there is a relationship between parcopresis and introversion?
8
Women’s bathroom doors used to push out from the toilet, now they push in and you try to open the door with barely three to four inches between the swing of the door going in and you trying to go out. My idea is that was changed because if potential liability if getting hit by a door going out. Another issue is that the gaps on the bottom are to make it easier to mop around the toilets. Design is not intended to be helpful to the user at all. Of course, the Romans who invented flushable toilets had them lined up outside without walls, with holes to sit on not for hovering, and with brushes to wipe not toilet paper. These were not built for women at all. We in this civilization are not too advanced from the idea of public toilets being ‘public’, not much privacy at all.
12
@Pamela H
Pushing in the door also pushes the foul air out the window, if there is one.
1
This is one of the silliest things I have ever read, and I'm a woman who worked for decades in a male-dominated environment. I never worried about anyone's thoughts about what I did in the bathroom, and neither, so I supposed, did anyone else.
I do recall, as a young girl, being counseled to do everything possible to conceal the fact of menstruation. It was a relief to get married, and find out my husband couldn't care less.
188
Random thoughts:
(1) Last year I toured Scotland with a group of men and women (mostly Americans), most of whom did not know each other before the trip. At one historical site with a museum, the only restroom was a small single-room annex consisting of a sink and a row of about four or five adjoining stalls, each open at the bottom, serving both sexes on a first-come, first-served basis. As all on the buses needed to go as soon as we arrived, we all lined up, each of us awaiting the next available stall. Soon we were "cheek-to-cheek," four at a time with our fellow tourists, men and women, whom we soon came to know more (ahem) intimately than we anticipated!
(2) The office I worked in for many years had no dedicated single-sex restrooms. Each of the three separate restrooms consisted of a single toilet and sink for use by either sex. There was no avoiding the knowledge of which coworker, man or woman, just exited the facility.
(3) In the early days of cell-phones, I was appalled the first time I overheard someone conversing on his phone in a stall, accompanied by all of the background noise (to put it politely) in the men's room with a half-dozen or more other occuoants. Nowadays the practice seems all too common (in multiple meanings of the word). I still think it's rude; the "executive washroom" is no place for multi-tasking!
13
@Diogenes the Cynic - About (3) Why is it rude?
@Annie
Because others are waiting to use the bathroom and you're taking your time in there
2
When are people going to start taking responsibility for their "issues" and not look for others to be enablers. The best paragraph of the article was the final one, which, if placed earlier, could have 'eliminated' (sorry, had to throw that one in) the rest of the paperwork.
As they say, "The job isn't finished until the paperwork is done."
6
If the doors came down to the floor and there weren't giant gaps between the stalls, I think we'd all have a bit more privacy and sound buffering and feel a bit more relaxed.
1040
@Caitlin I've been told such things are typically against regulations in the USA. Something about a rescuer needing to crawl under or over the door in an emergency,
Our European neighbors have it much easier - it's like a little apartment in the toilet cubicles that I've seen inside major offices and public spaces.
80
In Amsterdam and the Netherlands everybody gets their own little restroom with a (complete) door. It is very civilized. In homes they also place the john away from the shower, in it's own room. Again, very civilized.
204
@Caitlin Like they do in Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark)
38
I don't think there is a causal connection between being ashamed to defecate in a public toilet and the incidence of IBS and IBD - only that those conditions only make it more likely that the person is forced to use a public toilet more frequently.
39
Btw, I see this with younger men (under 40ish, mainly) - men going to other bathrooms other than of the floor on which they work, among other things. (And also a certain increased cluelessness about what not to put in toilets, possibly from utter lack of familiarity with the rules thereof.)
Perhaps relatedly, this has to do with a dramatic ebbing of the formerly dominant American cultural practice of numbing boys from sensitivity against lack of privacy, which practice was designed to prepare boys for an utter lack of privacy in the armed services.
13
@Karl
There could be another reason for that. Younger men are often plagued with hormone related distraction. The first time I dealt with that in a public restroom was in 11th grade. Gawd was I embarrassed, but I'd been so distracted the previous hour during English class, which I loved, that I couldn't wait any longer.
I got more blase about this as I got older, to the point where in introductory biology at UC Berkeley, we had a reproduction lab during which we looked at preserved sperm and ova, and the like, from various animals. I grabbed for microscope slides and headed for the loo. When I got back to the lab, pretty soon everyone was lining up to see what I had! "Where did you get this?" they asked. I just said, "from me".
I continued occasionally relieving myself in this manner at work into my mid-30s. I'm sure plenty of other men, and likely some women, do so as well.
Thanks to Jessica Bennett and Amanda McCall for this fascinating romp.
2
Thank you for this discussion. Women’s socialization around bodily functions have led many of us to also have issues with frequent urination caused by overly tight muscles that do not allow us to fully void and also, over time, cause our bladders to be incapable of holding large amounts of urine. Pelvic floor physical therapy can help to retrain some of these behaviors and loosen tight muscles, yet so many women do not know about this and suffer from incontinence and general discomfort related to our bowels and bladder and assume that it is normal.
48
@Kae H If a woman has a bladder prolapse after pregnancy this can be a problem as well.
7
pelvic floor therapy rocks.
Ahem. Men's rooms should also be designed with changing tables for babies. Men care for babies too.
309
@Amy Pretty much all men's rooms have changing tables. For as long as I can remember, most public men's rooms I have used have had changing tables.
12
@Michael Andersen changing tables in men's rooms in California are common, but less so in some other states, unfortunately.
12
@Amy They are becoming more widely available, and men do utilize them. Not sure what the 'ahem' is for. Women still mainly deal with the small kids in public, partly because not all men's bathrooms have the changing tables. That's just logistics.
5
Individual bathrooms with floor-to-ceiling walls would solve so many problems, from gender identity matters to parcopresis (who knew there was a word for it?). Privacy for all. If most European countries can do it, why not the US?
825
@Susan
Which is why we need more girls in STEM, especially architects!
35
@Susan, there are myriad ways in which America could learn from other countries. But we arrogantly refuse because we’re special, and I mean exceptionally so.
62
@Susan "Individual bathrooms with floor-to-ceiling walls would solve so many problems,.................If most European countries can do it, why not the US?
Most European countries don't do it.
11
God, the women's restroom in my office is the absolute worst. The walls are cavernous, the silence deafening, the giant gaps between doors unnerving. There is no relief in trying to relieve yourself in there, only misery. If I had it my way, each stall would be completely closed off from the others and also soundproofed, and every toilet would come equipped with a bidet that plays anything from rain sounds to Megan Thee Stallion.
483
@Female Defecator Why not put a radio on?
4
@Female Defecator Yes! This article blames women for being uptight (and society for making them that way). But honestly, who wants to hear or smell what someone else is doing on the toilet? Public and office bathrooms are terribly designed. Let's fix that.
69
@Female Defecator Check out Totos, the Japanese toilets. Bidet, toilet, music players all in one! Very popular in Japan and now making their way around Europe and North America.
3
Flush the patriarchy!
155
If my 20 year old daughter is any indication, younger women seem to have less poop anxiety than older women. My daughter and her friends have openly acknowledged when they have to poop or if they've just pooped. She and her friends are also much more open about using period products.
82
@mf - I see no shame in bodily functions and if you’ve got to go, go and go without worry about who is the next stall and what she might think of you and the fact that you’re - gasp! - having a bowel movement into a functioning toilet. We don’t exist in Victorian times and we shouldn’t act like we do, and that goes for menstruation as well. That being said, I don’t need anyone announcing to me that they have to poop or that they just pooped. We’re adults, not toddlers being potty trained. I’m 37 and no prude, but for God’s sake not everything needs to be announced. Go to the bathroom, come back, and resume your adult life. I’m not going to break out the balloons and the brass band for a 20-something adult because her body functions as it should.
3
Nobody cares if women poop at work. Its like thinking everyone is looking at you but in reality its all internal. Great work NYT.
174
I can not believe I am the only woman who looks forward to pooping at work because there I get to close the door and my kids don’t interrupt.
415
@A Wall - loved your comment, been there. Can I just add that although my kids are no longer at home, now it’s my cats that can’t stand being left out of my “bathroom time.”
61
@Susan
Solution - get rid of the cats
7
@A Wall
That's funny!
4
I don't understand this. I always just went into the cubicle and pooped. I never thought about what anyone else thought of me pooping. Silly me: I assumed they were all preoccupied with the comfort of their own bowels.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
27
Good God.. I’m at a conference this week where they are serving heavy food and the bathrooms are very far away from the meeting rooms. Plus, it is heavily attended with long lines waiting anxiously for a stall. I’ve had two horrific accidents in the past 24 hours because I couldn’t get in fast enough to relieve myself. I’ve decided I’d rather skip the next 36 hours than to have to face the fear of this again. We need more discussion about our bodies. Thanks for this article.
175
@Suzie I'm with you on this! And as we get older, and for those of us who had babies and especially multiple births, our pelvic muscles aren't what they used to be!
42
You have had two accidents in the past 24 hours? Why are you waiting to go until the last minute? I teach preschool and one of my jobs is to remind the kids to check their bodies and go to the bathroom. Check yours before you have accident.
6
And as usual, then candidate Donald Trump set a new low in misogyny when he said about Hilary Clinton taking a bathroom break before a Democratic presidential debate in 2015- “I know where she went. It’s disgusting. I don’t “wanna” talk about it.”
That remark sure sent a positive message to women about their natural bodily functions!
744
@Susan - given that horrible man’s remark, why does article end with a recommendation for girls to be educated? Equality cannot be achieved without changing boys, too.
84
@Susan
Moreover, men have “their natural bodily functions,” too. This includes presidential candidates.
16
Think of the movies you've seen over the last 10 or more years that include any evidence that humans defecate. One, a few, zero? The famous series All in the Family had a few episodes where Archie or Meathead used a toilet but not Edith.
29
@A Goldstein --- actually, I remember one episode, where the door of the bathroom is temporarily removed. Archie tells Edith to sing when she's on the toilet so the family will know to stay away --- naturally, when archie wants to go upstairs, we hear Edith singing . . . =)
27
@C Sherr - Oh my gosh, I never saw that episode. Thanks for pointing it out.
3
@A Goldstein - opening scene of WaterWorld
2
Women are taught not to sit on the seat because it’s dirty. You can hover to pee but it’s hard to hover to poop. My mother freely admits she will hold it to the point of risking soiling herself, but she’s never pooped in a public toilet.
14
@Di
I confess to pooping in any toilet I can find. Private. Public. And feeling tremendously relieved.
Also, I sit on the seat.
If the toilet's on the Autobahn (the German highway) I lay out a few pieces of toilet paper on the usually icky seat.
Hand sanitizer is God's gift in those situations.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
29
@Di Do you seriously believe men's seats are any cleaner, when there are guys who insist on using a commode to urinate and refuse to lift the seat?
This is what wipes and seat covers were invented for.
17
@Di
So wipe the seat or cover it and sit. There’s no difference for men and women there
22