alisonlittleblog

The London Marathon, Women’s Urinals, are you taking the pis*?

Feminism or fucked up thinking?

A two hundred person queue for the women’s toilets at the start line of the Virgin London Marathon ran this previous Sunday. Six months of training rolled into one day of nerves waiting for the queue to go down for a quick pee to ensure I didn’t have to stop during the race. The length snakes and ladders style of those assembling in order seemed to be going down rather quickly for the ladies.

In waiting, making chit-chat with the other competitors I look at the sign reading ‘Women’s Urinals’. I assume that it was some kind of printing error, women don’t use urinals, they can’t. I assume there would be portaloo’s inside, perhaps not that discrete and with no toilet paper, but suitable for relieving yourself on. As I am nearly at the entrance I view those ahead picking something out from a cardboard box, from a distance I think they might be neatly packaged wet wipes.

As I get closer to the front I pick up one myself and realise it’s some kind of foldable tube. In this, I wonder what I am supposed to do with one of these? As I enter the ladies area I see an assortment of female runners attempting to pee standing up through the cardboard tubes into a urinal area. The tubes seem to be an instrument replicating a man’s penis. With very little time before the race starts I give it a go. Trying my very best I couldn’t get the urine to flow. Very little time….then I hear a girl say:

‘I am just going to squat!’

Good idea, I join the other squatting at the side of the tent, pee flowing directly into the natural environment of the grassed area.

For a girl who fights for equality on a daily basis, frequently being accused of penis envy, it was simply my worst experience of using a ladies toilet to date. It even beats the faces inscribed portaloos of the Old Glastonbury Festival.

Women were just not built to stand urinating like men, say no to female urinals!