{"id":612,"date":"2017-02-17T06:44:28","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T06:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/?p=612"},"modified":"2017-02-17T06:57:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T06:57:22","slug":"bathroom-materiality-reflection-of-gender-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/2017\/02\/17\/bathroom-materiality-reflection-of-gender-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bathroom Materiality: Reflection of Gender"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The sign reminding girls to clean up their hair. It reveals the tendency and ideal that women take care of their long hair.<\/p><\/div>\n

Our group examined various gendered and gender neutral bathrooms in an effort to discover how their materiality reflects the perceptions and ideals of our society.\u00a0In the dormitory, we observed little contrast between the men’s and women’s bathrooms. A few notable gender specific objects included the reminder on the mirror asking girls to clean up their hair after a shower. This might reflect\u00a0the social perception or the practical tendency of girls having and\u00a0being responsible\u00a0for their long hair.<\/p>\n

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The feminine hygiene unit. The sign forbids us from throwing anything other than hygiene wastes. Therefore it serves as an effective gender indicator.<\/p><\/div>\n

Another gender indicator was the feminine hygiene unit placed in each stall. They are for women to dispose of their feminine hygiene products such as tampons. Since men do not use such products, we concluded that the hygiene unit is particularly indicative of gender.<\/p>\n

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Emory policy stating equal opportunities for all individuals.<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite what\u00a0was mentioned above, the two gendered bathrooms looked fairly alike. It would be hard to distinguish which is which at first glance. By digging deeper into the rationale for\u00a0such similar designs, we looked up several policies on the\u00a0Emory Policies and Procedures website. The Equal Opportunity Policy claims\u00a0that “Emory provides equal opportunities to all individuals regardless of gender.” It is also stated that Emory does not support stereotypes. Therefore, the similar design and bathroom essentials reflect\u00a0the effort made by Emory to provide equal opportunities to every student, as well as its rejection of gender stereotypes prevalent among society.<\/p>\n

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Men’s urinal in the Business School. A\u00a0way to save water and space.<\/p><\/div>\n

However,\u00a0in the Goizueta Business School,\u00a0we did find an interesting discrepancy with our previous conclusion. The urinals in the men’s bathroom clearly distinguish gender and are incompatible with the inclusive environment Emory intends to foster. We believed that Emory did so in order to save on utility costs. Urinals use less water than toilets, the small size of which also saves much space. Personally, I see this discrepancy as a result of the trade-off between efficiency and equality.\u00a0Achieving one to some extent sacrifices the other.<\/p>\n

Kaldi’s gender neutral bathroom. Large in size, nice-looking and convenient.<\/p><\/div>\n

We also found out the society’s expectation for women to be a caring mother, as can be seen from the baby-changing station in the restaurant\u00a0bathroom. We then brought up the question\u00a0whether there is a need for gender-specific bathrooms. Overall, this was a very informative experience. Our group\u00a0examined the differences of the materiality under multiple settings, and explored the ideals embedded inside such differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our group examined various gendered and gender neutral bathrooms in an effort to discover how their materiality reflects the perceptions and ideals of our society.\u00a0In the dormitory, we observed little contrast between the men’s and women’s bathrooms. A few notable … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4409,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assignment-2","category-xinmei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4409"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/archaeologyofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}