More than one female toilet for RSM
All but one female toilet was removed from the Goldsmith’s Wing by College Estates over the summer but now they’re getting changed back
Women in the Goldsmith’s wing of the RSM building had a bit of a shock after coming back over the summer: all but a single female toilet had been converted to men’s only. This meant that women had to either queue to use one loo or walk to another building if it was out of order.
A survey into the problem was commissioned by the new Head of the Department of Materials, Peter Haynes, and it was obvious from the 100 responses from staff and students that change was needed.
Both male and female responses were strongly in support of more female toilets across the department.
The case for having changed the toilets in the first place was not a strong one, as there were already a set of men’s toilets close by.
However, without consultation with the deparment, Estates had changed them anyway. Although there were technical reasons as to why the space could not be evenly divided, they had still left only one female toilet.
Haynes’ survey proposed making the four grouped toilets unisex, as well as the single accessible toilet, to please anyone uncomfortable with the idea of mixed loos.
The survey results were shown to Estates, who agreed the situation was unacceptable. Instead of making the toilets all unisex, there was strong support for making the men’s toilets women’s and making the single female accessible toilet unisex.
One RSM member told FELIX: “As a woman in male dominated departments with usually around half the number of women’s toilets as men’s (meaning walking ten minutes to toilets if any are out of order), having our Head of Department take charge and do something about it is amaze”.
The department of materials holds an Athena Swan Silver award, which is an accolade given to Higher Education or research bodies that can prove they are actively advancing female staff and students in an attempt to achieve gender equality in the workplace.
The works are to be completed over the 5th and 6th of March.
Female toilet users of RSM can collectively breath a sigh in relief.
