Library Ladies’ Loos: Are they taking the piss?!

As a 4th year, I spend a lot of my time in the library. Ever since my first year, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have to queue […]


As a 4th year, I spend a lot of my time in the library. Ever since my first year, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have to queue for the loo there. Since then, we’ve received a fabulous new library with fantastic new facilities, more seats, and much needed power sockets. And yes, they did up the toilets – ladies now have one more toilet per floor. Fantastic, you might think. However, the new library is now more popular than ever, with a 50% increase in footfall amounting to 6000 visitors per day. At peak times the building has around 800 people in it. The problem of queuing for the loo has therefore not been solved, and from my experience, this has left our ladies loos woefully inadequate. Government standards for female facilities in the workplace require 5 toilets for every 75-100 persons. The library is my workspace, and it’s clear to me the loos are seriously under quota. 

Pretty much everywhere I go I am haunted by a queue for the loo, with a male relative or friend outside asking incredulously ‘what the hell are they doing in there?!’ You know what we’re doing?  Queuing. Facilities are inadequate for 50% of the population and it’s something that is just accepted. Because loos are gendered spaces, there is no way of knowing what the facilities are like for the other gender, which perpetuates this inequality. The problem is exacerbated by the assumption that equal floor space means equal provision and, therefore, equality. For physiological and social reasons, women take twice the amount of time to use the loo. Space is further restricted because women require cubicles, which happen to take up more space than urinals. This is not to mention the feminine needs that men don’t have to deal with, such as menstrual cycles and pregnancy (often resulting in longer and more frequent use).

My own personal grievance hit boiling point when I saw the new maps on the first and second floors. It clearly shows that the male toilets are larger than the female.

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Thanks to an obliging male friend brave enough to measure the toilets, we know the difference in loo size to be true. Male loos contain three urinals and one stall to the three stalls in the ladies. Considering that the library was built in the ‘60s, this is understandable, as there was a higher percent of male students here at the time. But why, especially considering our multi-million pound facelift, do we now continue this disproportion? According to UCAS, St Andrews has a significant majority of female students (58% female compared to 42% male undergraduates). It’s even worse when you consider that the majority of library users are Arts students with an undergraduate ratio of 63% female to 37% male students.

I can’t help wondering whether this disregard for women’s needs reflects a lack of women in positions of authority. The library was keen to stress that they had a female architect and a female sabbatical officer on the redevelopment team. It’s not deliberate discrimination on the part of male architects and policy makers, but the majority of them have not experienced the daily frustration of having to cross legs whilst maintaining patience and composure in line.

I can’t be the only one who gives a s***. Let’s flush out the sexism and wipe away the inequality. Stand up ladies so you don’t have to stand around any longer.

images  © Lauren Hepburn