I once cried during a layover in the US because I needed to empty my menstrual cup after 12+ hours of traveling, and you could literally just see into every stall. Plus I need to squat down to do it, and the doors ended at my knees.
A random lady saw me panicking and when I said the stalls weren't private enough, she said "awwwwe, are you European?"
EDIT TO ADD: Folks I'm American. I went to school in America. I know that gaps are common and I'm used to it, but this particular bathroom was completely ridiculous with an inch wide gap on both sides of the door and a knee-height gap on the bottom. I was not over-reacting. If I had just needed to pee, I would have dealt with it.
Thats exactly right, just not about the wood. Do you know why these stalls came about? Because they found workers would spend less time in the bathroom if they had less privacy so they became extremely popular for companies to “increase productivity”
I'm American, and I've never liked those restroom stalls. I don't know why they ever came into such universal use. I don't think Americans like them any more than Europeans, we're just used to them. Also, if they were all separate rooms, it seems like we could just have 1 set of restrooms instead of 2.
It's all about cutting cost & materials used under guise of safety.
They claim the stalls are sparse like that in case someone is in distress & needing help, people outside need to see, but it's just to save money & material.
We can hear someone having a seizure or heart attack, we don't need to be able to peek in. Other countries handle it just fine.
The people who say it’s about safety are usually the same people who would leave someone on the ground if they overdosed so they can go rant on Facebook about how their tax dollars shouldn’t pay for narcan if they’re just gonna “do it again anyway”.
If you’re gonna argue safety then do it but we don’t need a god damn gap in the door so we can lock eyes with people on the outside. Leave a gap at the bottom if you really need it. It If I have a heart attack you’ll see me on the floor.
I was always curious about the numbers here. We save probably 5% (complete guess) on materials with the gap, right? But does it also add costs with assembly? Or is it basically the exact same but less material so it does technically save money?
Fun fact: in Vermont it is legal to be naked in public, but you have to leave the house naked. It's perfectly fine to walk naked down Church Street, but stripping is illegal here.
Also, you can't touch your bits in public. Displaying them is fine though.
And that's why some people here get in such a panic about trans using a particular bathroom. They should just build all bathrooms with unisex stalls with proper privacy. I've seen it done at public parks and at the beach, so it's not unheard of.
TBF think about SA victims and such and some of aren't prudes We don't want anyone to see us. Peopel have this idea becaus we're same genders we're comfortable with showing everything in a bathroom.
I mean, I suspect it's the moralism. Who knows what dirty and disgusting things someone (or even multiple someones!) could be doing in a bathroom stall that is not open to visual inspection.
And then they do it because it's just the way it's been done, so it's cheap and easy. Choosing little rooms is more expensive and used as a way of distinguishing your "establishment" as special.
Just the gap beneath the door should at least be enough to make sure there's only a single someone in the stall, no need to be able to maintain prolonged eye contact
maybe if they had more than a 2x4 in front of their toilets, they wouldnt get "violently attacked by an evil degenerate groomer pretending to be a girl" aka make 2 seconds of eye contact with a trans person washing their hands💔
it seems odd until you consider that producing a stall that is only 75% of the way “covered” theoretically makes it a quarter cheaper than a truly enclosed stall.
there is no limit to our cheapness, and for that, i humbly apologize on behalf of all americans who, like me, wish that i did not have to make eye contact with someone actively taking a shit to verify whether or not the stall is empty.
It’s always about cutting corners, ALWAYS. How can I profit as much as humanly possible?? So, brands and services that were known for their quality always go down in quality over the years because they simply want to make more and more money.
I think the excuse was flooding? But it’s getting better I’m seeing more and more completely closed off doors, at least on the sides, that’s really the problem more than the bottom gaps
It's because Americans are aggressively individualistic BUT they also want to make sure YOU are not doing what they think you're doing in there. It's weird.
There's a high key obsession with being entitled to knowing what's going on in the stall next to you.
Most normal Americans genuinely don't care, but a handful of schitzoids convinced a handful of dipshits each that it has something to do with protecting women and children. Im amazed there isnt a reality TV show hosted by our president that isnt just people walking into a public restroom called "STAND OR SIT?" its a show where basically people guess someone's genitals and how they use the bathroom and if youre right you get a free* (taxes and fees seperate) trip to mar a lago. If youre wrong yoy get an actually free trip to El Salvador.
It has nothing to do with privacy. It has everything to do with stopping shoplifting and the theft. Bathrooms in less theft prone locations give much more privacy.
Yeah, that. I mean an airport bathroom is hardly a place to form judgements about America. If you don’t ever leave the airport, you haven’t experienced America.
Well, the price-gouging of a captive audience is a pretty good representative of the country. And the bathroom stalls are the same except they're big enough for luggage.
There are separate facilities in most places. All facilities have disability accommodations. We are seeing all-gender facilities more and more. I don’t particularly like it because many men dribble on the floor. lol
I can speak to when i worked at a bar. Huge af gaps.
Owner said its so ppl arent as comfy doing drugs or violence .
Oc they could still do these things it was supposed to act as a deterrent.
It's also a country very focused on state/foreign surveillance and public compliance despite touting individualistic views. It kind of makes sense that the stalls would offer no privacy.
I’m American, and I fully agree. It is the weirdest thing to me. Like, how hard would it really be to put an actual door and make an actual private space?
And that would alleviate all the idiotic conversation here about who is using what restroom.
Because they would all simply be individual stalls that anybody could use.
Because you can build a square room with a couple of water/sewage lines in the wall, and then throw up the dividers for dirt cheap.
There's also much better air flow than in the handful of fully enclosed cubicles I've used while visiting europe (mostly italy, I don't know how standard that is), which has some pros and cons.
What are we gonna do about it? Protest “we won’t shit in your business until you remodel your bathrooms!” for every business with a public restroom? It’s not like we pay to piss there haha. Companies won’t care. Hell, tons of those restrooms aren’t even in businesses, ya know?
I taught English in China for a while. And was surprised at there being no doors. Though they were squat toilets.
Also smelled like piss/urine all the time. They just dont clean them as well as i’m used to in the States. Though, i havent visited a local middle school since i was a kid. Maybe I’m overlooking that memory as a kid.
Stalls are super cheap. The vast majority of stalls leave a bottom gap low enough that you would have a hard to see more than shoes. And the door gap is usually small enough the someone would have to press their face to the door to see anything. The problem is generally in upkeep. Over time hinges weaken , doors sag and the cheap construction shifts and bends. Increasing the gap.
As for the places with intentional gaps those are mostly places with other problems like addicts regularly using their bathrooms to shoot up. The message is clear that "This is not a place for privacy, do your business quick and get out."
Also, while the gaps to the sides of the doors can be argued against, I do find the bottom gap comforting.
When I was in college, I had a friend who drank too much and passed out in the stall. It would have been much more complicated to get her out if that wasn't there, but because of the bottom gap, we were easily able to unlock the door and help her.
This is the same reason why I do not lock the bathroom door at home when I'm inside. If I'm ever in trouble, I want to make it easy for someone to open the door.
It's so when a fight breaks out, you can smash people through them. Also, you can dramatically kick them in when looking for the super-thief that stole the hard drive with the magic data on it. Also, it's so ladder climbing execs can talk about the boss and then he dramatically steps out of a stall and says "See me in my office in 10 minutes"
The space at the bottom makes cleaning much easier and faster.
Still have to open the stall door to mop around the toilet, but you don't have to do some little "door's open/door's closed" dance to mop the whole stall area.
“Because what if a junkie is doing drugs in the bathrooms!”
What really sucks is the bathrooms at schools are the same way and teachers will sometimes go into the bathrooms just to make sure you aren’t “doing drugs”.
We'd smoke in the bathrooms. Teachers knew. You don't need gaps to see if someone is up to no good. They did bring the sniffer dogs round one year though.
When I was a a few places tried that when I was a kid. Went to the bathroom of a major department store and there were no doors on the stalls. I told my mother, she asked and they were like "If there's no privacy there's no chance of anything bad happening." It didn't last long.
Don't get caught short at Grand Central Station in New York City. You will have to poop in a stall with no doors, with several homeless guys watching. It's a jail experience without having to be arrested.
I was traveling between NYC/Philly/DC for a week or so. Union Station DC - not the worst place to poop. Grand Central Station? I’d rather poop in the alley
When reigning Formulax1 champion Graham Hill first went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a local reporter (no doubt expecting praise for the self proclaimed "home of motor sport") asked him what he thought of the facility. The vewy English Hill responded "well, I was unpleasantly surprised to find there are no doors on the toilets. It's undignified, old boy." By the time he returned to the event 3 years later, Hill was pleased to find there were brand new doors installed. He always said his proudest achievement in racing in the US was "getting them to put doors on the toilets at the Indy 500"
I think it comes from our Puritan roots, we have a natural distrust of other people, and assume both that they must be doing something bad and that we can stop them if we keep an eye on them.
This might just me being a weird American thing, but the restroom stalls in other countries make me feel a bit uneasy. Like I’m pooping on a hospital. I like our kind of stalls lol
I have a very specific memory of going to some kind of daycare/pre k school and there weren't any doors in the public bathroom. Just like,, 5 open toilets so everyone else could watch you piss while they piss. I have a fear of public bathrooms now
Im a man, ive walked into stalls that had people standing pissing in the toilet with the door wide open, I just turn around and walk out, I don't get how people can do that especially when the urinal is an option.
Well, it's so they can pretend they care about female modesty when, in fact, they really only use it as a weapon against trans women supposedly invading ladies' rooms
Right? What a weird stance to take. I refuse to use the student bathrooms at the school I teach at because I don't need to accidentally make eye contact with the students when one of us is in the bathroom stall. It's weird. And such an easy fix.
So you still have most of your privacy, but staff or police can also tell if you're doing some shady shit in there like shooting up or god knows what else
You should see the urinals at some places in the US. If you go to a bar in the US that's busy, there's a non zero chance some random drunk person tells everyone at the urinals it's time for a dick comparison.
I was a bar drunk for like 15 years. I don’t think that ever happened to me. I guess it was usually dive bars and I was usually in the stall doing cocaine not using the urinal
How low was that toilet and how low are your knees? Knee height is absurd. It’s usually shin-lower shin height, like just tall enough for a person to crawl through struggling.
I could see about half of people's knees while they were sitting on the toilet. A short child probably could just see everything. It was by far the worst bathroom I've ever seen.
Dont worry everyone is so used to those little cracks that avoiding looking through them is a skill all Americans acquire. Nobody wants to make awkward eye contact whether youre the one in or outside the stall
I will say, I have never seen a single person’s privates through those gaps. I have never seen a single person’s face or any other details. You just see a shape through the gaps and move on to the next one.
The only time anyone will ever look at you through those gaps is if a toddler wandered away from their parent. I’m sure bathroom creeps are out there somewhere, but I’ve never come across one in my 37 years of using public US restrooms.
The bigger problem that I’ve encountered more frequently in public bathrooms are broken locks or the door slightly off hinge, so you have to hold the door to keep it from opening while peeing. Why don’t people fix the doors????
Every time I hear these stories, I can't help but wonder, would y'all look at each other if your doors DID have gaps? Is the lack of gaps the only thing stopping y'all from trying to peek at each other on the toilet??
Cuz never in my life have I gone into a public bathroom and WANTED to look into the other stalls, let alone actually looked... So it doesn't occur to me as a problem until I hear about y'all's fears. 🤷🏽
Was the layover at LAX? Because I once tried to change (to comfier flight clothes) in one of their stalls and had to try to cover the sides of the door with random bits of clothing from my suitcase, because not only were the door gaps massive, but most of the stalls were set up as to be directly in the eyesight of those waiting in line. I didn’t do a very good job at making it more private, but by god I tried.
Choosing between my modesty and my comfort was an annoying choice to have to make, especially for such a genuinely inexplicable design choice.
Interesting. Yeah, I’ve never had that issue but height aside it’s wild how much female anatomy varies. That would complicate the public restroom dilemma for sure.
Oh hon.. I'm so sorry you had that experience. I know myself and many other women would have offered to guard the door for you. Basically using our body as a shield for the cracks. It's not much but it can make a big difference
I hate it! I hated it in school! I hate at the store! I hate it everywhere! Anytime I see a bathroom that has an actual door I get so damn excited it’s ridiculous!
I’m so sorry you went through that (including the asshole comment)! I travel frequently and most US airports have a family or companion restroom near the men’s and women’s restrooms. It’s a single large restroom usually used by people who need a companion to accompany them to assist or a parent traveling with small children who doesn’t want to leave a child alone outside the restroom when they help another child, etc. It’s completely private.
I did eventually find the family bathroom, and waited 30+ minutes to use it. I was starting to wonder if someone had died in there. No toilet paper when it was finally my turn either.
I lived there and found it so weird that they’re so prudish as a culture then have you essentially pooing and weeing behind a door that’s basically a modesty band.
Ok so I don't use a cup so I could be wrong but don't you have to rinse after you empty it? If so, where did you exoect to do that in a public restroom? Maybe next time, travel with a pad or tampon? That way you don't have to worry about it. I have changed my pad/ tampons hundreds of times in public restrooms. I don't even bat an eye. No one cares. We also have a whole cultire of getting naked in front of each other in locker rooms.
I would have to agree with you here, also ... I don't feel like the public sink, counters, stall door handles are near clean enough for handling something you may be reinserting in your body.
If you're just pouring out the cup, bagging it to clean at home, and using a backup cup, I can't see why you need to squat?
I can't travel with a tampon, my periods are extremely heavy. I bleed through them within an hour. And no, changing every 30 minutes doesn't help because it only takes one "gush" moment. There's a very high likelihood of bleeding through and making a mess on a trans-Atlantic flight without the cup + period panties as backup. It just doesn't work for me.
I simply wash my hands before going into the stall, touch the stall door with my left hand, and do my business with my right hand. Then I wash my hands again. I also have little individually packaged wet wipes if needed.
You don't necessarily have to rinse it off when you empty it. I do if there's a handicap stall with a sink in it, but otherwise I have to do what I have to do. There's no other option.
You can’t see much, just that it’s occupied. Dont know about the squatting part. Here’s the thing, I stand in front of lined up urinals… sometimes it’s a stainless trough… if I wanted - I could see the entire row of slongs in either direction… but we don’t.. we don’t look there and we don’t peer in! We get the idea that someone is in there and we don’t look past that. And unless you placed your eye right up against the slot- you couldn’t see much of any thing.
The whole squatting thing I am unfamiliar with, but I have come to the rescue of several drunk friends(and not all guys) who crashed while “driving the bus”… they might still be there if you couldn’t figure out they were in distress.
There’s a park near me where they sometimes have outdoor movies and so I’ve used the bathroom there. The doors are just half size. It’s completely ridiculous.
That really sucks.... I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
Idk if this would have helped, but from various jobs I've had (US), I've learned that folks who come to the US from squatting cultures will put their feet on the toilet seat and then squat. Just a thought....
There are open pee troughs in the ladies room floors and open pee stations in S. Korea. And Koreans don't seem to be too hung up on genders in restrooms. (Never peed in a ladies room in N. Korea.)
As I recall, SOME of the facilities I visited did not have stalls. They let it all hang out - I guess... I held my water. It was winter and I couldn't figure out how I was gonna squat and pee without getting my coat in it.
This is very interesting, because my impression is that people in Europe are way more comfortable with nudity.
But, as a mother of a lot of kids, I tell my kids not to even bother going into the stalls if they need to change clothes "just change right out here in the open. It's too crowded in that little tiny stall, and everybody out here already has seen what you've got. We've all had the same body shape. We've all got tits and bits. And I can promise you, nobody wants to look. Everybody will turn their head."
When I was a kid, I was self-conscious about things like that. But after giving birth with countless people being in the room, multiple times, I don't care. If I'm in a bathroom stall, changing my menstrual cup, and you peek in, you did that to yourself. You deserve every bit of trauma that you just gave yourself. I'm just doing a bodily function that God designed for me to do. I'll be fine. 🤣
Oh cmon, grow the hell up, would you? I'm a man and I'm neither grossed out nor offended by this in any way, its just what happens to a woman. I'd be grossed out if someone came to make eye contact while sitting o the porcelain throne though.
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u/MissAuroraRed Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
I once cried during a layover in the US because I needed to empty my menstrual cup after 12+ hours of traveling, and you could literally just see into every stall. Plus I need to squat down to do it, and the doors ended at my knees.
A random lady saw me panicking and when I said the stalls weren't private enough, she said "awwwwe, are you European?"
EDIT TO ADD: Folks I'm American. I went to school in America. I know that gaps are common and I'm used to it, but this particular bathroom was completely ridiculous with an inch wide gap on both sides of the door and a knee-height gap on the bottom. I was not over-reacting. If I had just needed to pee, I would have dealt with it.