Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing

Contents; Acknowledgments viii; 1. Introduction: Learning from the Loo 1; Harvey Molotch; Rest Stop: Russell Sage Foundation 28; Part I: Living in the Loo 29; 2. Dirty Spaces: Separation, Concealment and Shame in the Public Toilet 30; Ruth Barcan; Rest Stop: Erotics at Harvard 57; 3. Which Way to Look? Exploring Latrines in the Roman World 61; Zena Kamash; Rest Stop: Judgmental Urinals 84; 4. Potty Training: Non-Human Inspection in Public Washrooms 85; Irus Braverman; Rest Stop: Times Square Control 117; Part II: Who Gets to Go 119; 5. Only Dogs Are Free to Pee: New York Cabbies' Search for Civility 120; Laura Noren; Rest Stop: Trucker Bomb 148; 6. Creating a Non-Sexist Restroom 149; Clara Greed; Rest Stop: A Woman's Restroom Reflection 175; 7. Sex-Separation: The Cure-All for Victorian Social Anxiety 178; Terry Kogan; Rest Stop: Menstrual Dilemma 215; 8. Pissing without Pity: Disability, Gender and the Public Toilet 216; David Serlin; Rest Stop: Flirting with the Boundary 242; Part III: Building in the Future 243; 9. The Restroom Revolution: The Unisex Toilets and Campus Politics 244; Olga Gershenson; Rest Stop: Thai Students Get Transsexual Toilet 268; 10. Why Not Abolish Laws of Urinary Segregation? 270; Mary Ann Case; Rest Stop: Infinite Corridor, Now Shorter for Women 291; 11. No More White Wash: Taking Toilets Seriously 292; Barbara Penner; Rest Stop: Toilet Bloom @ Bryant Park 323; 12. On Not Making History: What NYU Did with the Toilet and What It Means for the World 324; Harvey Molotch; About the Contributors 345; Index

"An incredibly smart book about the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers. I will never look at a toilet the same again." Mitchell Duneier, author of Sidewalk "The politics of the loo, sexual as well as cultural, are taken up in a new book, Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Harvey Molotch and Laura Noren. It aims to tackle the language around toilets and open up debates that have gone on, so to speak, behind closed doors and that never get resolved. Why, for example, are we so resistant to unisex toilets? How bad would it be to have men and women going to the loo side by side? ... With contributions by sociologists, anthropologists and architects... the ideas are fascinating." - Gemma Tipton, Irish Times "[T]his book offers precise insightsowant to keep a public bathroom clean? Stick some flowers there. And it often cleverly illuminates what's in plain sightosay, the reasons why New York has so few female cabbiesobut is usually ignored or assiduously avoided." - The Atlantic