No doors on stalls is usually a deliberate restriction of privacy in public restrooms. They do it to prevent guys from ‘visiting’ each other by taking away a reasonable expectation of not getting caught. Check to see if the stalls show signs of recently having had doors. If so, it’s a good bet that there’s just been a minor public sex scandal…
And of course, women don’t do that at all.
Actually, I’ve never seen doors on a stall in a mens room in school. Ever.
Step A: Get some guys organized and serious about this. Get their parents in on it wherever possible.
Step B: At various intervals, seize a girls’ bathroom, post one guy out front, and other guys make use of it. Distribute a “Why we are doing this” manifesto.
The doors in the stalls in my HS (boys for sure, but maybe girls, too) were removed because of vandalism. They were quickly replaced after an outcry from the students.
The visiting high school basketball team usually gets the girls locker room(in older schools w/o visitors locker rooms) -at least in my day. I was always impressed with how much privacy they got- but never understood why-now I know.
Tristan - UK Doper here
I can’t imagine any toilets with no doors to the stalls (no outside door perhaps if stalls are out of line if sight)
There is no way I could take a dump in a stall with no door
At a sporting club I used to belong to the men had horrible changing rooms- grey lockers, cold floor and all. Meanwhile, the women had wall-to-wall carpeting, flowers, little soaps. Why? The women got together, decided what they wanted and redecorated the place by themselves. Nothing was stopping the men from doing the same.
As for this whole doorless men’s room (the stalls, at least), it is incredibly creepy and disrespectful. Go see someone abou that now. Call a local paper.
I had no idea that men’s rooms don’t have doors !
Although I’m reluctant to contribute to possibly sexist generalizations, I have observed that men’s rooms are often a bit … um … riper than women’s, for possibly a few reasons.
My main source of this feeling comes from when I worked at a coffee shop with two washrooms, one for men and one for women. The men’s was always skankier, sometimes just a little but sometimes by orders of magnitude. Sometimes it was so skanky we closed it and the men had to use the women’s. But when they did, they left it pristine. So I don’t think it’s necessarily the men (these ones seemed quite capable of not shitting on the walls, etc, when they were in the ladies’) but the room somehow invites nastiness.
Of course there is a bias in my reasoning, having spent substantially more time in ladies’ rooms than mens. But I have never seen people doing/selling drugs (except in nightclubs), having sex (obviously enough for me to notice), smoking illicit fags, or shitting on the walls. (These are things that my experience in above-mentioned coffee shop as well as popular culture has led me to believe goes on in men’s rooms. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
A point re: couches and flowers in ladies rooms. Some ladies spend quite a lot of time in there. It’s not just a matter of draining the dragon (or taking a dump); as mentioned, the contortions of replacing feminine hygeine products can take time and also requires some degree of sanitation and privacy, there are pantyhose to adjust and make-up to apply, chats to have, hair to adjust, etc. Many of these are things that men also probably do (or could do), perhaps they don’t because their facilities are nasty?
Hey, men, if men’s rooms were kitted up like women’s (couches, fragrances, flowers, little boxes of tissue etc) would you spend the amount of time in there that women spend?
One last thing: some women’s rooms are pretty skanky as well.
True 'nuff! When I did the McDonald’s thing, I was in charge of cleaning up the restrooms. The devil-may-care attitude about proper disposal of used feminine-hygiene products boggled my mind. If I never fish another used tampon out of the toilet again, it’ll be too soon.
And if they gave us couches, oral sex would not be the primary sex act engaged in by…erm…adventurous gay men in public restrooms anymore…
It’s not just high schools. At my gym, the women’s locker room has 12 individual shower stalls, and they all have shower curtains so women can take private showers. My SO tells me the men’s showers are open, no curtains. The women’s locker room also has changing rooms so women who want to change clothes privately can do so, no such choice in the men’s area.
Females are the weaker sex. They require more protection and pampering than do the stronger, more self-assured males. Thus, they get doors, extra mirrors, lounges, individual shower stalls, while males have no need of such fripperies. It is a concession society makes to the innate greater frailty of the female.
We may make up all kinds of rationalizations, but this is the real reason. Our society still considers females to be the “weaker sex” and treats them accordingly.
Is it the same in the military? Everyone has seen those toilets with no stalls in movies like Full Metal Jacket. Are women given more privacy than men when going through boot camp?
Girls may enjoy public bathroom nirvana while in public school, comparatively speaking, but it seems that turnabout comes in the adult world. From my own observation, there are never enough restroom facilities for women in crowded places. At stadiums, amphitheaters, and movie houses, the bathrooms of which gender invariably have the long lines snaking out the door?
This isn’t right either. Schoolboys shouldn’t have to endure the demeaning experience of taking a crap in public, and adult women should be better provided for.
In England (and incidentelly, the rest of the UK and probably Southern Ireland and the Isle of Man, channel islands and from what I remember, France) there are generally doors at the Entrance and in the stalls. Individual shower cubicles aren’t exactly uncommon either.
Crazy Merkins…
Its true here in the states to, I’ve never been in a public restroom with no doors except at public schools (but never at colleges).
Eww!
That’s just manky.
I don’t know any bathrooms without doors in any school, and certainly not STALLS without doors. Male or Female, anywhere.
My all- girl school put shower curtains up, because they realised the girls would rather wait until they got home to shower, rather than shower in front of others.
On another note, women tend to do things in bathrooms, outside the stalls, that aren’t necessarily for general consumption. Things like; changing their clothes, washing their panties out in the sink, breastfeeding and changing nappies (if they can’t do it anywhere else on the premises).
Another UK Doper here!
I too find it pretty strange that “bathrooms” don’t have entrance and/or stall doors. I personally have NEVER encountered bathrooms like you are describing over here in the UK.
In my high school we are blessed with the joys of privacy when it comes to depositing various unwanted’s (I love how I phrased that 
) There are entrance doors and stall doors and that’s the way I like it! I believe that peeing and pooping is something not to be shared and I can’t imagine having to “take a dump” (as it has elegantly been put) in front of my peers.
However, I also believe in this “double standard” between the two sexes bathrooms. Female bathrooms tend to be better decorated, furnished and cleaner than their male counterparts. Whereas it is pretty easy to find male bathrooms with mirrors and soap dispensers (as examples) over here regardless of it being school, public, restaurant or a shop owned restroom, the facilities are somewhat overshadowed to those that the “fairer sex” enjoy, so I am led to believe.
However, when it comes to male shower rooms in the UK it can be pretty mixed to whether it is communal or cubicles. Most male shower rooms I have come across have been communal with no partitions or curtains etc. But, at the same time I have rarely seen these being used to a great extent. In my High School at least the guys prefer to wait until they get home to have a proper wash. This is not being dirty; it is just that I think the mentality in the UK differs to that in the US. In the US, so I am led to believe, it is the norm “to hit the showers” and communally wash after a game or whatever. I don’t know how far this is true but I believe most Brit’s find this a bit strange. I have never washed (naked) in front of my mates, nor do I wish to, it’s just not the done thing. In the UK Physical Education normally only lasts an hour so there is precious little time to change and get to the next class, let alone take a shower. Many of the PE lessons tend to be towards the end of the day as well so it isn’t really a big deal. However, I should note that with the newer buildings and refurbishment of older buildings I have noticed that cubicles tend to be replacing communal areas. That goes for showers as well as changing rooms. On speaking to a female friend, ALL of the shower rooms she has seen have been cubicles with curtains etc.
So, when it comes to privacy for going to the toilet (in the UK at least) I don’t think a double standard exists. However when it comes to facilities it does, I think that is the same the world over though. When it comes to shower rooms in the UK however, I think that females tend to enjoy more privacy than us blokes do. But, as I have already said, this is not really an issue as I have never seen the shower facilities used in my High School, in sports centres however I have never seen more than one or maybe two people using the shower areas at any one time.
If I am wrong about US shower habits, please correct me.
If anyone in the UK has found what I said to be different to their experiences I would be interested to hear what you have to say.
(Oh, by the way, I was speaking to a female friend of mine about the facilities she has experienced; I am not a perv (nervous laughter). Really I’m not (more nervous laughter).
A little more nervous laughter.
This arrangement is now changing, albeit quite slowly. In any new schools or community centres with showers / changing facilities the board responsible for funding the works are requesting individual cubicles for all shower rooms. Mainly this is not for the purpose of realigning gender inequalities, but for the practical purpose of providing changing rooms which will be comfortable for use by anyone at any time.
In that, I mean that if the facility has only two changing rooms (generally in schools a male & female changing is provided), then if they are booked by two girls teams they can both be used without concern. As many schools are now designed to allow the hiring out of their sports halls / pitches to local teams or for community events, this change in the approach to design makes perfect sense. Plus, it has the added advantage of also providing a level of comfort and privacy for shy / self-conscious males who also have to use the rooms.
Interestingly though, the changing facilities at the University I attended went the opposite way and made all its changing rooms with open communal shower rooms regardless of the sex of the users.