genderless bathrooms & anti-porn equivalent of "Bash Back"/

[The F-Files]

I think the anti-porn activists need a group like this:

http://anarchistnews. org/?q=node/9295

Oh, and by the way, I can't stand when someone says "I've been a woman since birth." What the heck is that? If you're against the gender binary, wouldn't it make sense to acknowledge how biologically determinist that statement is???

Also, any opinions on genderless bathrooms? I mean, I can understand the argument and I'm all for blurring the gender line but doesn't this seem to overlook the fact that women are stalked, harassed and sexually violated routinely. I can see if it was one of those one person only bathrooms but I'm not really comfortable sharing a multi-stalled bathroom with other men. I haven't really thought about it till now and haven't read much on this debate so I'm curious to hear other people's opinions and knowledge on the topic.

[radical_feminist]

While I can understand why genderless bathrooms could ne introduced or whatever, I'm not too comfortable with the idea. Do you honestly think a man wouldn't imagine what is going on in your cubicle while you are in there and he is in the same bathroom. I think that things will get nasty and men will just perve at women. Genderless bathrooms are just another excuse to assault women.

[AmazonLaur]

I am for single gender-neutral bathrooms to cut down on waiting for women (as compared to men) and also because this makes it easier for people who are differently abled and/or have small kids.

[sam]

There's a brewpub here with one mixed gender bathroom and one private bathroom. A few months ago I tried to pee with a man using the urinal next to me and found it too uncomfortable to repeat the experience, and since then I've been trying to find the words to explain why.

I guess what I keep coming back to is that men haven't given me reasons to trust them in such intimate situations, and they have given me many reasons not to trust them. Rape is more often a crime of opportunity than well-planned in advance, and many stranger rapes happen in bathrooms because they are small, out-of-the-way rooms where women are in a movement-constricting stall already pulling their pants and underwear down.

As a former girl child and female teenager I have some experience with the many places and varied ways men take advantage of opportunities where women and children are partially unclothed. Once at a party in college I went to pee in a bathroom stall and a man followed me and waited in the bathroom. "No big whoop, maybe he didn't want to wait outside," I said to myself until I emerged and found him holding the door closed and telling me he would only let me out after I kissed him. My best friend started prostituting as a teenager after men continuously solicited him in all-male mall bathrooms.

If men could show some culture-wide evidence that they can watch women and children drop their pants and pee without a significant minority taking it as a chance to get themselves off regardless of how it affects others I might reconsider, but I'm still waiting for men to stop harassing and raping strippers so I'm not expecting the ball back in my court anytime soon. The problem isn't genderless bathrooms, it's men pornfed into predatory mindsets who exploit the increased opportunity to rape which all bathrooms (and strip clubs) provide by their socially-constructed nature.

[AmazonLaur]

Yeah, my aunt witnessed a man hanging out in the woman's restroom presently just to sexually attack women. He felt no fear about lying about why he was there; why would he? It's not like women give men reason to fear using their power.

[feminamist]

Heh, I was reading "Self", Yann Martel, this evening while feeding my youngest to sleep, and I read this and thought I'd share,

Once at the McDonald's near the school, at an unhappy moment of tension, I stood in front of the washrooms with Sonya, sweet Sonya. MEN said one door, WOMEN said the other. I thought, "No, no, this isn't right. It shouldn't be this way, not MEN, not WOMEN. It should be FRIENDS and ENEMIES. That should be the natural division of things, one that would better reflect reality. That way Sonya and I could go together through one door, and the others through the other."