{"id":2373,"date":"2016-07-01T10:41:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T05:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/women-dont-visit-ladies-loo-alone\/"},"modified":"2016-07-01T10:41:43","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T05:11:43","slug":"women-dont-visit-ladies-loo-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2373","title":{"rendered":"Why Women Don\u2019t Visit the Ladies\u2019 Loo Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

s it in?<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span>\n\n\u201cTry your finger!\u201d<\/span>\n\nIn the ladies\u2019 room at a posh London bar, I stood anxiously in front of a cubicle. Inside was my sister, trying to insert an unfamiliar menstrual cup, and I was coaching her through the door as best I could. Barely a minute went by before a couple of girls walked in on this peculiar scene. Without missing a beat, they figured out what was going on and pitched in, one girl troubleshooting like a seasoned <\/span>IT professional<\/span><\/a> while the other consulted the manufacturer\u2019s website. Before long, half a dozen strangers had been in and out, each one stopping to offer a word of encouragement or an emergency tampon. <\/span>\n\nWelcome to the world of the women\u2019s loo, where the spirit of <\/span>sisterhood<\/span><\/a> runs deeper than the drunk 2am conversation you have with the girl who just puked her pitcher of sangria into the commode. You never learned her name, but you held back her hair and told her to dump her cheating fianc\u00e9. If you haven\u2019t been the one playing nursemaid, then a woman has certainly consoled you in the confines of the loo. <\/span>\n\nYes, it plays into the that old clich\u00e9 \u2013 straight out of a man\u2019s imagination \u2013 of women unable to visit the <\/span>loo<\/span><\/a> on their own. Now you know why. There\u2019s always someone to convene with in the ladies\u2019 room. I can\u2019t count the number of times I\u2019ve gone out and, having misplaced my group, made a beeline for the bathroom. I know I\u2019ll always find friends there, even if they\u2019re not the one I came with. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nThis phenomenon is so widespread, it inspired a whole <\/span>Reddit thread<\/span><\/a> on the unspoken etiquette of women\u2019s bathrooms, ranging from telling someone when there\u2019s no more toilet paper to letting the most desperate girls go first. Commenters even agreed that however awful a girl is, she must never be allowed to leave the loo with her skirt bunched into her panties or toilet paper stuck to her shoe.<\/span>\n\nWhile \u201cetiquette\u201d implies a modern-day <\/span>Debrett\u2019s Handbook <\/span><\/i>on how to piss with elegance, women helping each other in the sanctuary of the bathroom goes beyond that. It\u2019s a full-fledged global subculture. Like black mould, a unique sisterhood flourishes between the damp, grubby walls of the bathroom. Here, society is kinder and gentler, with help always at hand and threats temporarily at bay. This is where you go to escape the creep at the bar, the <\/span>bloodstain<\/span><\/a> on your jeans, the thumping bass of a concert, or your boss\u2019s latest outburst. It\u2019s also where you\u2019ll meet the <\/span>aunty<\/span><\/a> who buttons your shirtsleeve before a job interview and the teen girl who gives you a pad when you don\u2019t have any. For me, this is the place to collect yourself before you confront the challenges that wait without. \u00a0<\/span>\n\n

We\u2019re ready to offer whatever is in our purses, our pockets, and our hearts, knowing that down the line, in our hour of need, another woman will do the same for us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nWe live in a world where women are judged for everything from having <\/span>periods<\/span><\/a> to having emotions, and the bathroom is one of those few gender-exclusive places where we can let it all hang out \u2013 a brief but cathartic loosening of corset strings. Women go to the loo in pairs not because they can\u2019t take a dump alone, but so they can take a glorious moment to be themselves. <\/span>\n\nThey can talk about how much they hate swimsuit shopping, and be a drunken mess without worrying about roofies. They can cry and be met only with tissues and understanding. They can tell a stranger that she\u2019s beautiful, because in the ladies\u2019, the only <\/span>boundaries<\/span><\/a> necessary are the ones between the stalls. <\/span>\n\nI\u2019m reminded of a <\/span>Community <\/span><\/i>episode<\/span><\/a> in which a character is never invited to be a bathroom buddy, since she\u2019d rather rant about fascism than provide a listening ear or a warm hug. The other women have to induct her into the arcane rituals of the loo in order to protect their sacred space, teaching her the code of conduct that most of us take for granted. <\/span>\n\nHow did we all develop this sense of sorority, seemingly by instinct? Is this what a woman\u2019s world looks like? <\/span>\n\nPerhaps this is why we guard it so closely, deeply cognisant of the principles that govern our paradise \u2013 even if it occasionally smells less than Edenic. We queue for what feels like hours with the patience and efficiency of assembly line workers, never mind the screaming <\/span>children<\/span><\/a> and the steady decline of the paper towels. We clean up after ourselves in deference to the girls who will follow us. We\u2019re ready to offer whatever is in our purses, our pockets, and our hearts, knowing that down the line, in our hour of need, another woman will do the same for us.<\/span>\n\nIn a strange <\/span>bar<\/span><\/a> in London, thanks to the combined efforts of the entire women\u2019s loo, my sister successfully inserted her menstrual cup. It\u2019s a small, deeply personal victory. But in the ladies\u2019 room, triumph, like sorrow, is always shared.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We live in a world where women are judged for everything from having periods to having emotions. The women\u2019s bathroom is one of the few gender-exclusive places where it can all hang out \u2013 a brief but cathartic loosening of corset strings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":2374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[4786,4787,4788,4789,4790,4791,4792],"class_list":["post-2373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","tag-bathroom","tag-bathroom-buddy","tag-ladies-room","tag-sisterhood","tag-toilet-humour","tag-womans-world","tag-womens-loo"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Women Don\u2019t Visit the Ladies\u2019 Loo Alone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We live in a world where women are judged for everything from having periods to having emotions. 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