FT 161012 男女共用厕所兴起

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Unisex loos are no refuge for a gossip

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The rise of the gender-neutral toilet in the workplace is not an entirely good thing, says Lucy Kellaway

从前的从前，在办公场所，不同阶级连用的厕所都不同。待众生平等废除阶级后，大家用一样的厕所，但是男厕女厕还是分开的。现在咖啡店和书店里兴起了男女共用，起因是考虑到变性人的选择困难。但在职场上，男女共用厕所存在一些不方便，譬如女职员嫌男厕脏，女厕可以提供给女职员化妆，哭鼻子，以及暂时逃离工作。虽然这些理由不起决定性作用，但男厕女厕分开还有另外一个好处：在女职员稀少的行业，女厕值得保留。

相关词汇

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lavatorial segregation n. 男女厕所分开; gender-neutral toilet 男女共用厕所

the rank and file n. 某组织的普通成员，与领导和官员相对

hierarchy n. 阶级； equality n 平等

transgender n. 变性人

prevail v. 占据上风

canvass v. 详细检查，细究

unconcerned adj 无所谓的; less keen adj 兴趣寥寥的; forthcoming adj 热心回答问题的

cloggy mascara n. 粘糊糊的睫毛膏

短语句子

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shoulder to shoulder 肩并肩

While Salesforth leads, the rest will follow. 一呼百应

in no instances 在任何情况下都不

参考文本

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Peeing at work is traditionally being a segregated business. In the old days, directors relieve themselves in different Swisher places from the rank and file. But later when hierarchies went out of fashion, the executive washroom was abolished in the name of equality and chief executives peed shoulder to shoulder with office juniors. Howerer, the lavatorial segregation of men and women at work has endured. In private houses, on planes, and on trains, the sexes happily use the same toilets. But at work, they don't.

This segregation is now threatened by the rise of the gender-neutral toilet. This time it has nothing to do with equality of man and woman. It's because if you're transgender, it's not clear which loo you should go for.
In California, a law was passed this month insisting that any single store toilet must be gender-neutral. Starbucks is busily introducing them, while the Barnes&Noble book store is encouraging people to use whichever loo they prefer. Last week, at Salesforce's annuel festivel of self-congratulation in San Frasico, there were gender-neutral loos. More than that, each of 150,000 participants was given a cute badge on which to put a sticker with their preferred pronoun: "he him" "she her" "they them" or "ask me". This I suspect is big news. While Salesforce leads, the rest will follow.

But are unisex loos are a good idea at work? Making eveyone pee in the same place surely makes sense. On average, we get out of our seats and go to the toilet three or four times a day. But instead of this being an opportunity for the broadest and most saradipitous(?) sort of networking, we arbitrarily limit ourselves to only one slice of the work force.

I just canvass views around my office and find the big divide less by gender than by age. All the millennials shrugged and said that making office loos gender-neutral was fine. They looked so unconcerned that I found myself feeling sheepish for having asked the question at all. Yet older workers were less keen. The men mostly said they didn't like the idea but couldn't say why. The women were more forthcoming. Variously they said the men's loo smelt; they didn't want to put on make-up in front of male collegues; the lady's loo was a perfect place to cry, or to gossip, or was a much needed refuge.

Yet none of these five reasons is conclusive. All loos stink if they're not cleaned often enough. So the answer is more frequenct dousing with her peak(?). As for make-up, I put my own on so amateurishly that I dislike being observed by anyone. Given the choice, I'd rather battle with cloggy mascara in front of an oblivious man than in front of a woman who would see what a hash I was making of it. The similar arguement applies to crying. It's true that women cry more than men. And as blubbing at one's desks is not acceptable, we tend to do it in a loo. Yet a few time I've wept at work, my main aim was not to be observed. Men are possibly less likely to take notice and to comment. And so having them washing their hands next to you as you dab your red eyes might not be too bad. It's also true that more gossiping girls are in the women's loos than in the men's where I gather silence usually prevails. Yet for either sex, the loo is a dangerous place for chatting as you never know who's in the stores. As a refuge, the office toilet is much better. There are times when the privacy afforded by a lot cubical doors is just what one needs . But in no instances, I can't say as it matters much whether the invisible people in neighbouring stores are men or women.

Yet there's another better reason for segragated loos. Where half the techworld was gathered in San Fransico, I was at a rival tech conference in Europe. As almost everyone in my industry appears to be a man, at coffee time I had wierd experience that there was a long queue for the men's loo, and none at all for the women's. As I dried my hand, I started an interesting conversation with the three of these in there about why there're so few of them in tech. And the thought occured to me, when women are in such a minority, a loo of their own is a park worth keeping.