Posted on 05/31/2005 2:23:22 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
| Call for Papers Toilet Papers: The Gendered Construction of Public Toilets Editors: "You know what they say about men who hang around women's lavatories. They're asking to have their illusions shattered." - Georgina to Albert, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover We invite contributions for the edited collection Toilet Papers: The Gendered Construction of Public Toilets. Public toilets are amenities with a functional, even a civic, purpose. Yet they also act as the unconscious of public spaces. They can be a haven: a place to regain composure, to ‘check one’s face,’ or to have a private chat. But they are also sexually-charged and transgressive spaces that shelter illicit sexual practices and act as a cultural repository for taboos and fantasies. This collection will work from the premise that public toilets, far from being banal or simply functional, are highly charged spaces, shaped by notions of propriety, hygiene and the binary gender division. Indeed, public toilets are among the very few openly segregated spaces in contemporary Western culture, and the physical differences between ‘gentlemen’ and ‘ladies’ remains central to (and is further naturalized by) their design. As such, they provide a fertile ground for critical work interrogating how conventional assumptions about the body, sexuality, privacy, and technology can be formed in public space and inscribed through design. We welcome papers which explore the cultural meanings, histories, and ideologies of the public toilet as a gendered space. Any subject is appropriate: toilet design and signage, toilet humour and euphemisms, personal narratives and legal cases, as well as art sited in public toilets. We invite submissions in the format of traditional academic papers of no more than 7000 words (including footnotes). We also welcome the submissions of design and art projects that expose the gendered nature of the 'functional' toilet spaces and objects.
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Just give me a urinal target featuring Hillary and I'm good to go.
THIS has got to be a joke. . .right?
W...T...F...
Thank you, hippie. I didn't realize such complex societal implications existed within a porcelain piss-bowl.
***Just give me a urinal target featuring Hillary and I'm good to go.***
I don't want to look at Hillary, much less see her AND my manhood at the same time. That would scar me for life. =P
There are some universities that have unisex showers and bathrooms.
Or Howard Dean
I suppose that's the difference between me and a college professor. I don't ponder the social implications of where I empty my bowels...
How progressive of them! //s Nothing I'd rather do then to walk in on some drunken frat boy unloading in a toilet. eeeewwww....
When I was a freshmen, the girlfriends of guys I lived with on the same hall, would come in bathroom/shower room and use the bathroom when I was in the shower.
your tax dollars at work prolly
Ok, you've officially proven me to be a prude. I've always been shy about bathroom stuff. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to embroider my full-back, knee-length swimsuit!
"Cultural repository for taboos and fantasies?" Good heavens, I must be using the wrong ones. The one I just left was a slightly antiseptic-smelling room with old-fashioned porcelain hardware that was a repository for nothing more romantic than pee and poo. There were, to be sure, sociological papers lying around, but they're the kind that come on a roll.
...and ideologies of the public toilet as a gendered space.
That's a sort of small hook to be hanging any ideologies on, IMHO, but I'll flow with the jargon. If by "gendered space" they mean a space that has no sexual nature of its own and hence is assigned one arbitrarily and by social construct, then ignoring the presence of such things as urinals, I'd have to agree. People, however, are not like that.
I could write my entire paper in 25 words or less, but then I would probably get less than an "A" for this stupid course.
Tell, me. Don't these jaded perfessers and their silly students have anything better to do?
My only fantasies about public restrooms is that they will be reasonably clean an have adequate ventilation. These fantasies are regularly shattered.
I'm sorry, too many Chomskyisms in there to interest me.
Think I'll go, "Drop my load on the giant toad."
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