What is sex free public toilets? What are the advantages and disadvantages of sex free public toilets
4hw.org: Recently, a new public toilet without gender was built in Shanghai, which has aroused heated discussion again. First of all, many people want to know what the meaning of the public toilet without gender is? What is the meaning of the public toilet without sex?
Most toilets are divided into men and women. As the name implies, the non-sexual public toilets, namely the public toilets that can be used by men and women, solve the problem of women queuing up to go to the toilet. They share the same idea with women standing toilets, which originates from the maximum efficient and reasonable application of resources.
The asexual public toilets refer to the public toilets for men and women, which are mainly mobile environmental protection public toilets. The architectural design adopts the structural form of "single compartment type", which improves the service level and utilization efficiency of public toilets by humanized design regardless of gender.
In the past, public toilets were generally divided into two spaces: Men's and women's, but in some prosperous commercial areas and scenic spots, it is often difficult to guarantee the demand. There are both long lines of women's toilets and men's toilets, and it is not convenient for parents to take care of children or their parents who have special physical conditions.
The existence is reasonable: shy and asexual public toilets open quietly
By re examining the existence of gender free public toilets through various voices, we will find that the so-called gender free public toilets are literally independent public toilets that can be used by both men and women and accompanied by heterosexual relatives.
Traditional public toilets are generally divided into two spaces for men and women, but in some commercial areas and scenic spots, it is often difficult to guarantee the demand, the long line of women's toilets and the vacancy of men's toilets exist at the same time. Due to the different physiological structure, men and women really need different space and time to go to the toilet. According to the survey of relevant institutions, 88% of men said they didn't need to wait to go to the toilet in large shopping places, while only 44% of women thought they didn't need to wait. The average waiting time for women is 5-10 minutes, some of which is up to 16.8 minutes. If you wait too long, you will feel upset psychologically. At the same time, the traditional toilet 'men and women are different', and it is not convenient for parents to take care of children or parents with special physical conditions. The appearance of sex free public toilets has indeed brought convenience to some people, such as the cross gender group with children, the mother with son or father with daughter; it also helps pregnant women or the elderly; in addition, the cross gender, transvestite, transgender people also benefit from it.
At present, the "asexual public toilets" built around the world are mainly mobile environmental protection public toilets. The architectural design adopts the structural form of "single compartment type", which improves the service level and utilization efficiency of public toilets by humanized design regardless of gender. At the same time, in terms of economic benefits, compared with the general men's and women's public toilets, the "asexual toilet" must occupy less land area when it is first built, and the building area of the house is also less, which saves a lot of initial investment. In the later maintenance and daily management, it will save a lot of manpower and material resources.
There is a basis for tracing the origin: asexual public toilets are actually the product of the movement of equal rights
Historically speaking, asexual public toilets have been "imported", which was born with the rise and maturity of feminism in the United States, South Korea and other developed countries. According to the New York Times, in 2005, there was a campaign of "people looking for safe toilets" in the United States to build non men's and non women's toilets in public places. The purpose of the campaign was to ensure that transgender people, homosexuals and people with ambiguous gender orientation could use toilets safely without fear of being attacked by strangers.
The public toilets in the United States, which used to be a place to fight against Apartheid and the rights of the disabled, are now a symbol of cultural or political differences. In response to this movement, case, a law professor at the University of Chicago, once pointed out that asexual toilets are a cultural 'fault line', and there is little space for gender differentiation in society. The asexual toilet movement has aroused great repercussions among young transgender people, especially college students. College students are struggling to find the right to express their psychological gender, which is a necessary stage in everyone's growth. Many college students are in favor of the less strict culture of gender distinction, emphasizing the psychological gender rather than the gender at birth on the basis of toilet.
The universities in North America are even more unequal. Under the long-term appeal of activists, they take the initiative to build asexual toilets. In that year, in addition to the male toilet and female toilet, the new University of California built a new "asexual toilet". Of the 100000 students at San Francisco University, 10-12% are gay or transgender. The management of the university has recently changed some male toilets to neutral toilets. In 2007, there were three kinds of toilets in two new dormitory buildings: male, female and neutral toilets.
In the early 1990s, 12 states in the United States passed bills to ensure "toilet fairness", which required the construction of more public toilets and tripled the number of female toilets. Once in most states of the United States, people were not allowed to use toilets with heterosexual signs, otherwise they would be regarded as sexual harassment or endangering others' safety. So generally speaking, no matter how urgent people are, they will not easily 'break into' the opposite sex toilet. The passage of the bill also objectively seeks a new starting point for the promotion and construction of gender free public toilets, and strongly promotes the public opinion to pay close attention to the difficult and implicit issue of women entering the toilets. In May 2005, the New York City Council passed a bill that required the ratio of women's toilets to men's toilets to be 2:1. Before signing the bill, Mayor Michael Middleton blomber said: 'almost every woman has had the experience of standing in a long line in front of the toilet, but the men's toilet next to her has been empty. "Just before and after the New York City passed the bill, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania and California passed similar bills, which stipulated that the proportion of women's and men's toilets should be 2:1.
At the same time, the trend of men's and women's right to go to the toilet also spread to Japan, South Korea and other Asian developed countries. In 2009, Seoul, South Korea launched the "happy women" plan, which invested 127.8 billion won to build a "city where women feel happy". One of the projects is to increase the number of women's toilets. The plan calls for an increase of 3100 women's toilets in public places in one year, and another 3800 in the next year. The ultimate goal is to make the proportion of men's and women's toilets reach 1:1. Seoul has promised to reduce the number of women queuing up to go to the toilet, while also increasing efforts to build non-sexual public toilets in the city.
Chance and coincidence: promotion and practice of gender free public toilets in China
Compared with the promotion of non sexual public toilets in foreign countries, the germination and rise of non sexual public toilets in China is more or less a bitter color of behavioral art. In February 2012, several female college students in Guangzhou staged an activity of "occupying men's toilets" in the public toilets of Yuexiu Mountain Park, hoping to arouse the government and society's attention to the imbalance of men's and women's toilets, eliminate the phenomenon of women queuing in public places, the organizers sent out a call letter to the public, hoping to legislate to increase the number of women's toilets and make the number of women's toilets and men's toilets reach 2:1.
On November 19, a year later, across the country, young women's rights volunteers in Beijing, Harbin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Chengdu, Lanzhou, Hangzhou, Shantou, Kunming, Changsha and Zhengzhou held up signs - "we need more, gender friendly toilets", which appeared at the door of many local KFC and McDonald's stores. According to media reports, 870 appeal letters were sent out in total. In the letter of appeal, volunteers intended to solve the problems of balancing toilet opportunities, solving women's toilet difficulties, meeting the needs of neutral temperament and cross gender groups, and solving the problems of family travel. At the same time, relevant organizers have made it clear that "these problems can be solved through the construction or reconstruction of" gender friendly toilets ". '
These movements objectively aroused the public's deep concern about the difficulty of women's toileting. Related to these movements, such improvement measures as increasing the proportion of toilets, opening gender free public toilets and so on began to gradually turn from the level of folk appeal into an important issue on the table of governments at all levels.
According to nandu.com, in 2012, dozens of famous lawyers and scholars represented by Pang Kun from Guangdong Dena law firm responded to the "occupy men's toilets" campaign organized by domestic feminists through practical actions. After a comprehensive analysis, they jointly sent a citizen's proposal letter to the Ministry of housing and urban rural development on improving the proportion of women's toilets. It is pointed out in the proposal that in order to avoid ambiguity and inconsistency in implementation, the concept of toilet space should be defined in the design standard for urban public toilets (hereinafter referred to as the standard) implemented by the Ministry of construction (now the Ministry of housing and urban rural development) since December 2005. The men's toilet space includes squatting position, sitting position and stand position, while the women's toilet space includes squatting position and sitting position. In the standard, it is compulsory to stipulate that the proportion of women's toilet (including squatting position and sitting position) and men's toilet (including squatting position, sitting position and standing position) must be 2:1, among which the proportion of women's toilet and men's toilet must be 4:1, and the area of women's toilet must be increased accordingly. According to the standard, accessible toilets must be added to public toilets, and a third toilet (similar to the asexual toilets on trains and airplanes) shall be added appropriately.
At the same time, relevant departments around the country are also actively studying the construction of gender free public toilets. For example, in November 2010, more than 210 steel structure 'steel structure environmental protection standard public toilets' were built in Xiamen, Fujian Province, which introduced the concept of gender free toilets. It is divided into five small rooms. From east to west, there are administrator room, special room for the disabled, two independent bathrooms and urinal for men. Among them, there is only one squatting position in the independent toilet, regardless of gender, for one person to use the toilet at a time. For example, in March 2012, the establishment of gender free toilets in Shixin University in Taiwan also attracted widespread attention. After that, Taiwan's Civil Affairs Bureau also extensively collected plans for public toilets of municipal government departments, hoping to find demonstration sites and launch a public version of the sex free toilets within two years. From the point to the surface, everywhere blossoming, the construction of non sexual public toilets has gradually changed from a social advocacy trend to a municipal project of caring for women.