What's so interesting about toilets?

Toilets have revolutionized the world in terms of sanitation, humor, and so much more. so clearly there is some significance to toilets.

I'm currently at a public talk on toilets with Harvey Molotch from NYU. He's talking about the politics of toilets and the space that they create. Specifically, Molotch theorizes that bathrooms are gendered spaces, and that these spaces are hurting us through their support of heteronormativity. How does the setup of bathrooms create a gendered taboo? Colors, lighting, textures, accessability, and the lack of privacy all support heteronormativity. The lack of privacy in public bathrooms allows for the male gaze. The male gaze makes it so that men compete with eachother in penis size at the toilet while making sure that they don't seem gay and so that women compete against eachother at the mirror. This is a result of heterosexual norms in society; norms that have permeated all the way into where we piss.

Gender specific bathrooms also support the segregative norms of gender inequality. Having a "men's" room and "women's" room is extremely essentialistic and stuck on the concept of binaries in sex, gender, and orientation. Gender-neutral bathrooms are necessary, but don't necessarily solve the problems of heteronormativity in the bathroom. A redefining of the bathroom space is necessary to break the inequality.

My review of Harvey Molotch:

This guy gets it. He's clearly an epistemology feminist with a background in queer theory and sociology. He speaks about intersectionality between race, class, and gender. He makes it clear that actions must be made to make space equal. I like the way that he explains the need for affirmative action with humor and simple rhetoric. And guess what? He even mentioned intersex individuals and transgendered people as victims of our heteronormative bathroom spaces.