Wed 29 Nov 2006
Is there a topic more fun than co-ed bathrooms? Not at EphBlog. Consider this recent thread at College Confidential.
I visited a few week ago, and I noticed that there are co-ed bathrooms. Can you request not to have a co-ed bathroom??? Not to be a prude or anything, but they’re totally horrif! I mean, am I being totally unreasonable in expecting same-sex bathrooms? I was too embarassed to ask my hostess about it… so if you know anything about that, let me know! Thanks.
…
That said, coed bathrooms are no big deal and I don’t think there are any complaints about it on campus. It might be weird the first few days, but eventually it doesn’t really matter if it’s a guy or a girl brushing their teeth next to you, you know? There’s a door on the toilet stall and a curtain on the shower, obviously.
…
I agree with gardenstategirl that coed bathrooms are a concern. Sorry but don’t want to use a bathroom with a guy next to me.
Recall that Wendy Shalit ‘97 became famous for an article in Commentary on this topic.
I first became interested in the subject of modesty for a rather mundane reason — because I didn’t like the bathrooms at Williams College. Like many enlightened colleges and universities these days, Williams houses boys next to girls in its dormitories and then has the students vote by floor on whether their common bathrooms should be coed. It’s all very democratic, but the votes always seem to go in the coed direction because no one wants to be thought a prude. When I objected, I was told by my fellow students that I “must not be comfortable with [my] body.” Frankly, I didn’t get that, because I was fine with my body; it was their bodies in such close proximity to mine that I wasn’t thrilled about.
Comments:
0) Can we get the basic facts straight? What percentage of first year bathrooms are single sex? I had thought that the living arrangements in Mission made single sex bathrooms the default option. Is that wrong?
1) Since there are clearly plenty of first year female Ephs who would prefer a single sex bathroom, why does the College refuse to accommodate them? Why won’t it at least ask for people’s preferences on the housing form?
2) I think that it is because the ruling mindset at Williams allows people to have different preferences for food (I am a vegan!) but not for personal modesty. Don’t want a Charlotte Simmons experience in the bathroom? Tough! If this isn’t the explanation, what is?
3) By the way, is there still a housing form for first years which asks about your noise tolerance, neatness and the like? What questions are on this form?
4) Back in the day, the College asked first years if they would prefer to live in a single sex entry. Can you imagine? Turns out that many female first years wanted this. When was this option removed and who removed it?
November 29th, 2006 at 9:20 am
I lived in Fayerweather as a freshman, and had a single sex bathroom. It felt a bit awkward at first, but we all got used to it, and while this may seem really arrogant, I think it’s good for people to relax a little bit about this kind of stuff. Sure, kids fresh out of high school are going to be a little scandalized by mixed sex bathrooms, but going to college is all about growing up, and being scandalized by something as trivial as a coed bathroom is pretty childish.
As for privacy/modesty issues…well, I don’t think you have any more or less privacy in a dorm bathroom whether the people using it with you are men or women. Even though I tend to dislike it when the college does the whole “We know what’s best for you, and you don’t” kind of thing, in this case I think that this is what is best for students’ personal growth.
However, I doubt that is the motivation behind the reluctance of the college to change this. I suspect it’s just a headache they’d like to avoid. I doubt coed bathrooms are going to be a deal breaker for many students, or if they are, I’m sure that the applicant pool is just as rich in promising prospects when restricted to people who aren’t afraid of running into a groggy member of the opposite sex in a bathroom in the morning. Until there’s a real sense that the college can’t attract good students because of this, I don’t see that the college has any motivation to address it.
November 29th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Dammit, I mean I had a coed bathroom! Grr.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:00 am
I have to disagree with Steve on this. My understanding of his argument is that its important (or at least OK) for the College to force students to share bathrooms with people of the opposite sex, because “its all part of growing up.” As far as I know, there are very few public, coed bathrooms anywhere in this country, so learning how to use one is not of paramount importance to social growth.
I don’t have a problem with coed bathrooms if all involved vote for it (I guess it saves some from a longer walk to another bathroom), but I would give every student a veto.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Now that the odd quad is upperclassmen I think the vast majority of frosh bathrooms are single sex. I was in the frosh quad my frosh year and had a single sex bathroom and would wager that about 3/4s of frosh quad bathrooms are single sex (so there might be 1-2 co-ed bathrooms per entry). I believe Mission is a slightly higher %age single sex. In the frosh quad and Mission, bathrooms typically are co-ed when there is no choice…ie: when a JA is sharing one of them, when there is an uneven amount of girls or guys in the entry, etc, etc. First year housing seems–for the most part–to be designed to avoid co-ed bathrooms.
Given the low number of co-ed frosh bathrooms at Williams and the even lower number of students who care about such things, I don’t think it’s much of an issue in practice.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Boring! Get on with life.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
I’m not saying that sharing a bathroom with a person of the opposite sex is an important life skill BUT I do think that the losing the squeamishness that leads to freaking out about it IS an important life skill.
November 30th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
I second Frank’s opinion.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:28 pm
In reference to comment #3, the following eight questions were on a recent housing survey for first-years:
“1. Would you prefer a single or a double? Please choose one of the options listed below. (We will try to accommodate your request but can’t guarantee that the kind of room you indicate will be available.)
Single
Double
2. How do you think you will feel towards visitors to your room?
Enjoy frequent visitors
Like periodic visitors
Prefer to have visitors only rarely
3. How do you like to relax?
Listening to music
Talking to friends
Web surfing/computers
Outdoor/athletic activities
Other
4. From the list below, indicate the music you would MOST like to hear on a regular basis.
Classical
Rock/pop
Heavy metal
Jazz
Rap/hip hop
5. From the list below, indicate the music you would LEAST like to hear on a regular basis.
Classical
Rock/pop
Heavy metal
Jazz
Rap/hip hop
6. What is your preferred study setting?
Lots of noise/people
Some background noise/music
Silence
Don’t care
7. Which option best describes the condition in which you expect to keep your room?
Impeccably neat
Relatively organized
Somewhat cluttered
Hidden/buried floor
Disaster area
8. Which option best describes your wake/sleep patterns?
Early riser/morning person
Early riser/daytime person
Early riser/evening person
Late riser/daytime person
Late riser/evening person
Late riser/night person
SPECIAL NEEDS: Are special rooming arrangements advisable for you because of health problems? If so, please explain below and have a physician’s statement mailed by … to …
If you so choose, please include any additional comments below.”
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:53 am
Coddling. Fifty years ago it was “here’s your room; here’s your roommate; go to class”.