A local grocery store does this. There are two separate bathrooms. The men’s room has a single toilet and a sink, with a lock on the door. According to a female relative of mine, the women’s room is the same setup.
What’s the point of the segregation when only one person can go in there at a time?
It could be building codes require >1 restroom to be separate.
I know some places only have 1 restroom and they list it as family restroom. Which means anybody can use it.
Also I know that in big places like arenas and stadiums the codes require more restroom space for women , in some cases they have 2x as much space as men. The idea is it takes them longer.
Our office does it. I assumed it was because men are messier and the women didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe it’s the other way around.
The city I live in recently passed a law requiring businesses to label such single-occupancy restrooms as gender-neutral.
http://kxan.com/2014/08/28/austin-city-council-approves-gender-neutral-bathrooms/
They could have at one time have had two stalls or one stall and a urinal but changed it when they were required to make the stall accessible, and then just never changed the gender signs out of inertia.
In many cases it’s written into the building codes. (Cite with discussion) Whether that’s the case in your locale, or it’s simple inertia, is a different matter.
The Army kills me with this. They label portable toilets as either male or female. Worse yet, if there are two Porta-Johns next to each other, one will be Female Only. So 5% of the base population is allocated 50% of the shitters. What sense does that make?
I don’t most men would want to use a bathroom that a container for women to throw away their used ‘pads’ and tampons . And most woman do not like having to put the toilet seat that been used by a guy with a ‘bad’ aim. I will uses the men room if the woman is busy and it’s busier than the men.
Does the label prevent you from entering the toilet? In everyday circumstances, why is this a problem?
No, the Sergeant Major does. There is no punishment like mass punishment. As soon as the CSM gets word of males in the female shitter I guarantee there will be a 24 hour guard duty roster coming out quick.
I doubt most men would even get it. I remember one unisex toilet situation, and it was years before I figured out why there was a small trash can with a lid next to the toilet. I paid no more attention to it after I figured it out as I did before.
Physically prevent me? Of course not. But the fact that disobeying lawful orders is a federal offense which carries a maximum penalty of Bad-Conduct Discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and confinement for 6 months, not to mention the fact that I would most definitely be relieved of duty for violating the Army’s Sexual Harrassment/Assault Response Program, I tend to not enter any facility or area designated Female Only. We are talking about an organization that puts more C-Wire around the Female Showers than the Ammo Holding Area!
Even if I wasn’t caught, if someone reported that they saw a male go in there, we could all expect to be in full gear guarded the Porta-Johns for at least a week.
Most guys don’t want to have to deal with that either. Are you saying that because a guy made the mess, it is okay for only guys to deal with it? That is sexist!
WAG: It’s psychological, not logical. There’s a not-insignificant fraction of the public who are uneasy about going into the “wrong” public restroom. Maybe they’re worried about a member of the opposite sex walking in on them if they forget to lock the door or if the lock doesn’t hold. Maybe they have trouble adjusting their instincts between single-occupancy and multi-occupancy restrooms. Maybe it’s just a deep-seated taboo against being in a “forbidden” place.
o does not support the SHARP program or possess any of the seven Army Values
It makes me crazy in places where there is a long line for the woman’s bathroom but the men’s is zipping in and out. Just make them gender neutral! I am personally of the opinion that nearly all public bathrooms should be gender neutral (I mean ones with just toilets, not changing rooms) but I HATE waiting in the long ass women’s lines.
I was probably 35 years old before the first time I saw a bathroom in a retail store or restaurant that was labeled for either-sex use. Up to that time 100% of everywhere I’d ever been was separate and labeled as such. And by that time I’d lived in several states and two countries.
It’s a matter of local custom and codes. Where I first encountered it was in old (1900-1940s construction) buildings that had only 1 bathroom, period, for each storefront. And darn near every older building in that city was set up that way. In the suburbs of the same city I later began seeing the two-bathrooms-labeled-for-either-sex installations in newer construction. I suppose that since folks there had grown up with either-sex public restrooms it was OK to keep doing it in newer buildings where it wasn’t a necessity.
But in newly built areas of the country with almost no buildings predating 1940, separate-sex was the way 100% of them were done. At least in my experience.
We’re only recently (last 5-10 years) seeing the expansion of “family” restrooms and along the way a growing recognition that the world won’t fall in if we have solo occupancy either-sex facilities.
When I used to go to concerts at the soon-to-be-forgotten Nassau Coliseum, and this is probably true of many other venues, during intermissions/breaks/whatever, when everyone wanted to go to the bathroom, the lines at the ladies room would grow long enough that eventually ladies would enter the men’s rooms. They would use the stalls, and us men normally would use the urinals (since men from Long Island are naturally well-endowed, we were not embarrassed by this at all). No problem. 
However, that brings up a bit of a question- I find that the labeled “one-seater” Men’s rooms around these parts (in fast food places, supermarkets, etc.) are normally 1 and 1/2 - Urinal and Toilet. I think there’s only a toilet in the Ladies room, but I generally stay out of those unless the men’s room is busted (which is not unheard of).
So, should businesses simply install urinals* in all “one-seaters”, and label them simply as “Restroom**”, so that you have two restrooms, first come - first served? I’m OK with that - would the ladies care about the urinals?
*Urinals are damned useful and shall NOT be removed! :dubious:
**I wouldn’t mind the label “Toilet” I found everywhere in New Zealand - more concise I think.
Women also have a tendency to squat & hover rather than make contact with the toilet seat. Or try to flush feminine hygiene products instead of using the bin by the toilet. Or just leave them on the toilet seat or floor. Women are not intrinsically less messy than men.
Consider, OTOH, this sensible variation on the theme:
I worked on campus at UCBerkeley, circa 1971, in an office in a small old bungalow that housed only our little group. There was one bathroom, with two stalls (I don’t recall if there was a urinal too). The personnel in our group consisted of mixed company.
On the door were two hand-lettered cardboard signs, hanging from strings so they could be turned around with either side facing out.
One sign said “Occupied” on one side and “Vacant” on the other side.
The other side said “Shy” on one side and “Gregarious” on the other side.
It’s been my life experience that women’s public toilets are several magnitudes dirtier than men’s public toilets. The only exception is a business that has strict cleaning rules for its public toilets, in this case, both are immaculate, all of the time.