In case you wanted to know
Did ya ever wonder why women go to the bathroom together? And why it's called
a "restroom"?
"In modern times, mating pairs appear naked to each other and are even likely
to employ a bathroom at the same time. But beyond this, the mature genitalia
of one sex is not supposed to be exposed to the eyes of the other sex.
Furthermore, although it is recognized that persons of both sexes are somewhat
similar in the question of waste products and their elimination, the
environment in which females engage in this act ought (we in America
apparently feel) to be more refined, extensive, and elaborate than that
required for males. Presumably out of consideration for the arrangement
between the sexes in general, and the female sex-class in particular, it has
come to pass, then, that almost all places of work and congregation are
equipped with two sets of toilet facilities (a case of parallel organization),
differentiated with respect to quality. A case of separate and unequal.
Therefore, in nearly every industrial and commercial establishment, women will
be able to break off being exposed to males and their company and retire into
an all-female enclave, often in the company of a female friend, and there
spend time in toiletry, a longer time presumably, and perhaps more frequently,
than males spend in their segregated toilet, and under more genteel
environmental conditions. A resting room that is sex-segregated (as many are)
may extend this divided realm. There is thus established a sort of
with-then-apart rhythm, with a period of the sexes being immersed together
followed by a short period of separation, and so on. (Bars, gyms, locker
rooms, pool rooms, etc., accomplish the same sort of periodic segregation, but
from the male side, the difference being that whereas female redoubts tend to
be furnished more genteely than the surrounding scene, male redoubts [at least
in the U.S.] are often furnished less prepossessingly than the surround.)
This same pattern seems to be extended outward from toilets and resting rooms
to larger domains. Large stores have floors which merge the sexes by also
smaller zones which offer one-sex merchandise patronized very largely by that
sex alone. Schools provide coeducational classes, punctuated by gym, sports,
and a few other activities that are sex-segregated."
Goffman, Erving (1977). "The Arrangement between the Sexes."
Theory and
Society 4(3):301-331, pp. 315-316.
Posted by Ally at December 7, 2004 08:46 PM