ABSTRACT
Public toilets are essential to creating accessible and sustainable urban spaces for all sorts of men and women. Yet women endure unequal and inadequate toilet provision that limits their mobility. Although this is a human rights issue, successive governments have done little for women’s toilet needs. In contrast, progress has been rapid to provide Gender-Neutral Toilets and to desegregate public toilets. While gender may now be seen as a continuum, women’s biological differences and reasons for needing the toilet have remained the same, including menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. This chapter also discusses, with particular reference to the UK, whether the new toilet agenda benefits women, or perpetuates long-standing patriarchal toilet attitudes, albeit under a new guise.
