2008 Woodie Awards
Play it right: use the "wrong" bathrooms, even when you're stone cold sober
By: Ola Switala
Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 2 next >
|
From the moment that they discover their genitals, many of the westernized world's children understand that the bathrooms in their houses are not inherently gendered. At home, bathroom doors act as veils of privacy, allowing both visitors from all ends of the gender continuum to sit upon a single private throne. Public bathroom doors segregate entrants by gender. The possible danger of hearing the opposite sex tinkle ensures that bathroom doors must designate who may and may not enter and shower, defecate or even brush their teeth in the same space.
An important question to ask is whether Macalester's residential bathrooms should be considered private or public. The first and second-year dorms are segregated by either single-sex floors with one single-sex bathroom (Doty) or coeducational dorm floors featuring two sex-specific bathrooms (Dupre and Turck).
As juniors and seniors, students discover that upper-class housing is gender-open. Gender-open housing allows a mixed group of male and female students to occupy a multi-room, suite-style living space, as long as no two members of the opposite sex share the same room (students often subvert this policy). The suites in George Draper Dayton (GDD), Kirk Hall and Grand Cambridge Apartments (GCA) simulate mini-private residences, some equipped with personal kitchens, and others equipped with personal bathrooms. Students in GCA and GDD can choose their suites' bathroom gender policy.
In spite of these freedoms, this year's Kirk Hall residents are seeing the advent of a hypocritical reversal in upper class dorm bathroom policy. At last weeks' floor meetings, Kirk residents were told that the bathrooms that were gender-open upon their arrival on Sept. 1 were now gendered. The arrival of new signs in the coming week will officially re-segregate the restrooms. The logical dissonance that justifies single sex bathrooms in a building with gender-open housing is only the start of the trouble.
Be the first to comment on this story