"No queue at all for the women's toilet, but a great long one for the men's. What fresh hell was this? This wasn't a world any of us in this queue recognised. For the avoidance of doubt, I neither court nor expect sympathy from any woman here. I am obviously aware that, for women, having to queue to use a public toilet is the norm."
"It was decidedly bracing to get a taste of it myself, watching the other sex breeze through the door while I was forced to stand solemnly in line with my fellow fellas, angling away at whatever we had in our pockets and consulting our phones. There's a whole conversational genre here toilet queue chitchat of which men have scant experience. Women, I imagine, have learned to be rather good at it, exchanging pleasantries and an interesting observation or two."
A man arrived at a busy pub and found a long queue for the men's toilet while the women's restroom was empty. The experience produced inconvenience and a sense of humiliation usually felt by women who habitually queue for public toilets. Men in the line lacked familiarity with intra-queue conversation and resorted to phone-checking and awkward postures. Consultation with female acquaintances suggested that communication in queues is minimal, often limited to eye rolls and pragmatic decisions to use the men's facilities. The episode prompted reflection on gendered differences in public restroom access, social norms, and the small but meaningful everyday inequalities.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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