Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
Hurray for ladies demanding more loos
By Ni Tao |
March 2, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Occupy Movement has finally arrived in China.
But unlike the campaign in the United States, where it originated and flourished, the local variation of the protest doesn't seize public squares and university campuses, but an unlikely place - toilet facilities.
A handful of women students in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, briefly occupied the male toilet in a local park teeming with tourists on February 19, calling attention to the lack of sufficient toilet facilities for women.
The bottom line: It is well-known around the world that it takes women longer to use facilities than men, yet this fundamental truth appears to elude the most enlightened urban planners.
In Guangzhou, the women blocked the entrance to the men's room, which was almost empty, and urged the men inside to finish quickly and turn the toilet facility over to women waiting in lines outside the fully occupied women's room next door.
Gender bias
Most men considerately vacated the restroom. The siege lasted two hours and was welcomed by many onlookers. This escapade has caused quite a stir, triggering a serious discussion online about gender bias in the design of urban amenities.
The chief protest organizer, a 22-year-old female student of gender studies named Zheng Churan, said they didn't mean dominate the men's room, but to demonstrate the serious shortage of women's lavatories nationwide that inconvenience women every day.
This is demonstrated by the long queues in front of female toilets in shopping malls, theaters, hospitals, airports and many other facilities.
Guangzhou's toilet occupiers were joined by their sisters in solidarity who besieged a men's public lavatory on Sunday near Deshengmen area in downtown Beijing. "If you love her, don't have her wait too long!" read their signs appealing to gallant men to respect the call of nature that typically takes women longer to answer.
Chinese women protesters' tactics are quite tame, compared with the occasional audacious displays of nudity and semi-nudity when Western women engage in protests (note the successful semi-nude protests of PETA, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals and naked protests in the US for acceptance of public nudity and revealing clothes).
Chinese ladies are much more conservative.
Many may laugh off sit-ins in smelly toilets as the most eccentric of all types of women's protests, but organizers definitely don't agree with the label of "extremist feminist" applied by their critics.
For them, the campaign is a source of civic pride.
They have good reason to be angry and to occupy toilets. Women spend roughly 2.7 times as long in toilets as men.
In the run-up to the World Expo in 2010, Shanghai authorities commissioned a five-year study of fuel station washrooms along Shanghai highways and toilets at the Shanghai Auto Show.
It found that the ideal men-to-women toilet ratio should be set at 1: 2.7. This means most public lavatories are in need of significant overhaul, and a few legislators are considering the need for gender reform in toilet construction.
Following the toilet drama, Guangzhou's urban construction officials pledged to build and expand toilets to a proportion of 3:2, male to female cubicles. That's not enough, but at last it's a step forward.
Male Internet users are contributing ideas to ease the toilet plight of the fairer sex.
A young man identified as an engineering major has posted online his design of an updated men's room, which is also accessible by women. It basically works like this: Cubicles have two entrances, one for men and one for women.
Through smart switches controlling doors, women can enter men's stalls invisibly from the women's side. Once inside, the door is automatically locked and won't open until she exists.
This design would guarantee privacy but the amateur engineer joked that it can't prevent voyeurs from peeping through hidden cameras.
Restroom sharing
Given its traditional suppression of sexuality, Chinese culture may not tolerate the kind of toilet design common in Sweden, where men and women learn to share the restroom at an early age, as part of their sex education.
The toilet episode is not just a microcosm of the growing sense of rights among Chinese women, but also their boldness in asserting these rights and seeking inspiration from Western peers.
Chinese men are not typically known for male chauvinism, but neglect of details important to women, such as toilet design, is widespread, and shows the insensitivity of our urban planners to social trends.
Much as critics dislike what they term the antics in Guangzhou, it may have the effect of keeping the government on its toes. And that's definitely a good thing.
But unlike the campaign in the United States, where it originated and flourished, the local variation of the protest doesn't seize public squares and university campuses, but an unlikely place - toilet facilities.
A handful of women students in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, briefly occupied the male toilet in a local park teeming with tourists on February 19, calling attention to the lack of sufficient toilet facilities for women.
The bottom line: It is well-known around the world that it takes women longer to use facilities than men, yet this fundamental truth appears to elude the most enlightened urban planners.
In Guangzhou, the women blocked the entrance to the men's room, which was almost empty, and urged the men inside to finish quickly and turn the toilet facility over to women waiting in lines outside the fully occupied women's room next door.
Gender bias
Most men considerately vacated the restroom. The siege lasted two hours and was welcomed by many onlookers. This escapade has caused quite a stir, triggering a serious discussion online about gender bias in the design of urban amenities.
The chief protest organizer, a 22-year-old female student of gender studies named Zheng Churan, said they didn't mean dominate the men's room, but to demonstrate the serious shortage of women's lavatories nationwide that inconvenience women every day.
This is demonstrated by the long queues in front of female toilets in shopping malls, theaters, hospitals, airports and many other facilities.
Guangzhou's toilet occupiers were joined by their sisters in solidarity who besieged a men's public lavatory on Sunday near Deshengmen area in downtown Beijing. "If you love her, don't have her wait too long!" read their signs appealing to gallant men to respect the call of nature that typically takes women longer to answer.
Chinese women protesters' tactics are quite tame, compared with the occasional audacious displays of nudity and semi-nudity when Western women engage in protests (note the successful semi-nude protests of PETA, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals and naked protests in the US for acceptance of public nudity and revealing clothes).
Chinese ladies are much more conservative.
Many may laugh off sit-ins in smelly toilets as the most eccentric of all types of women's protests, but organizers definitely don't agree with the label of "extremist feminist" applied by their critics.
For them, the campaign is a source of civic pride.
They have good reason to be angry and to occupy toilets. Women spend roughly 2.7 times as long in toilets as men.
In the run-up to the World Expo in 2010, Shanghai authorities commissioned a five-year study of fuel station washrooms along Shanghai highways and toilets at the Shanghai Auto Show.
It found that the ideal men-to-women toilet ratio should be set at 1: 2.7. This means most public lavatories are in need of significant overhaul, and a few legislators are considering the need for gender reform in toilet construction.
Following the toilet drama, Guangzhou's urban construction officials pledged to build and expand toilets to a proportion of 3:2, male to female cubicles. That's not enough, but at last it's a step forward.
Male Internet users are contributing ideas to ease the toilet plight of the fairer sex.
A young man identified as an engineering major has posted online his design of an updated men's room, which is also accessible by women. It basically works like this: Cubicles have two entrances, one for men and one for women.
Through smart switches controlling doors, women can enter men's stalls invisibly from the women's side. Once inside, the door is automatically locked and won't open until she exists.
This design would guarantee privacy but the amateur engineer joked that it can't prevent voyeurs from peeping through hidden cameras.
Restroom sharing
Given its traditional suppression of sexuality, Chinese culture may not tolerate the kind of toilet design common in Sweden, where men and women learn to share the restroom at an early age, as part of their sex education.
The toilet episode is not just a microcosm of the growing sense of rights among Chinese women, but also their boldness in asserting these rights and seeking inspiration from Western peers.
Chinese men are not typically known for male chauvinism, but neglect of details important to women, such as toilet design, is widespread, and shows the insensitivity of our urban planners to social trends.
Much as critics dislike what they term the antics in Guangzhou, it may have the effect of keeping the government on its toes. And that's definitely a good thing.
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