The Restroom and Gender Identity

We encounter instructions each day. Instructions to remain law abiding by following quick, recognizable signs: "Stop", "Yield", "Don't smoke","Don't park", "Walk" "Don't Walk", etc. Specific colors, shapes and symbols are so commonly used to represent an action that they are automatically associated with that action (or refraining from it). Red automatically provokes a sort of danger: alerting an individual to stop for fear of an accident (or, at least that inevitable traffic ticket), be aware of high fire danger, and possibly the worst: the terrorists are coming! Yellow=yield. Be very aware. Move through the light with caution. Don't necessarily stop, but know that at any moment we may be at severe risk of terrorist attacks. Or someone may cross the street. Green seems to bring a bit of ease, we are good to go. It is safe to move forward.

I wondered for a while what I would explore for my semiotic analysis. I thought of street signs, advertisements, I noticed myself becoming hyper aware of signs I had not really questioned before our class discussions. Before I started my analysis though I had to continue the dreadful moving process. My apartment was finally ready, and so was I, to get all my things out of my boyfriends (very cluttered) room, kitchen, bathroom (etc). I went down to an equally cluttered leasing office thinking it would be a quick process including a sublease agreement a background check fee. I was so wrong. Tons of people flooded a kind of mean woman in a tiny room. I decided I would go in, take my form, and leave (for fear of getting yelled at). I saw my sign: the men and womens bathroom instantly caught my attention. I knew immediately that I wanted to explore these seemingly simple, yet actually immensely complex signs. Sadly, my camera and cord are still packed away with all other stuff. I thought I would have no trouble finding pictures of these signs online, we see them on almost every public bathroom door. I knew there were variations of the signs, but was surprised to find that pictures of the "standard" signs were actually not too common.

There are two bathrooms right next to each other in the leasing office. On each bathroom door are two blue placards with white writing. On the door to the left is a circular placard with a stick figure of a person wearing a dress in the middle of it. The word "women" is written in capital letters beneath the figure. Directly left of the door is a smaller rectangular placard. This one has a line down the middle of it, with the same stick figure on the left side, and a figure of a person in a wheel chair on the right. Like the circle, this placard had the word "women" written in capital letters underneath the figures. The other door has a triangular placard (tip facing upwards) with a stick figure of a person presumably wearing pants in the middle of it. The word "men" is written in capital letters beneath the figure. Like the first door, this one also has a smaller rectangular placard with a line down the middle of it. The man figure is on the left side of this line, while the wheelchair figure, identical to the one on the womens placard, is on the right. The word "men" is written underneath these figures.



















I will begin with the colors in these signs. They are a pretty neutral (not neon, light, dark, or shiny) blue with plain white writing. I take the use of white and blue as a sort of direction. They are not using cautionary reds or yellows, or green which is recognized as a "go" color. They are simply distinguishing the gendered rooms for you, so that you will not walk into the "wrong" one. Initially, I wanted to say that these colors were not warnings but simply direction to the bathroom specifically designed for you and people of your same sex. In the mens bathroom you find urinals and stalls, and in the womens you only find stalls, as it is difficult for a woman to use a urinal. I noticed though that the colors used for bathrooms parallel those of handicap parking spots, which if ignored, entail a great fine. While there is no fine for using the "wrong" bathroom, there are definite social norms discouraging individuals from doing so. The simplicity and directory implication of the color have made it another that we take for granted, a law to follow so as to not get sanctioned by our peers.

Another, and perhaps not so blatant, gender "sign" is the shape of the placards. The womens bathroom is always signified by a circle, while the mens is a triangle. A woman's sign has no corners, while the man's has three sharp ones. Women are "softer", a continuous orbit rarely diverging from its usual path. Not to say that ciclical patterns are not complex, I actually think that the movement away from, but the inevitable return to the beginning all along creating a perfect path is fascinating. That perfect path though, is hard to achieve. It is very difficult to draw a perfect circle, let alone live a perfectly balanced life. Men (triangles) seem to have more power here. The corners may be where they command attention, where they may make their own rules. While triangles do always have three corners, their degrees vary and there are thousands of shapes and sizes that come about from them. It may seem to be "reading too much into it", but one would be surprised at the way we unconciously attach shapes and colors to each gender.

I began to think of the sex and gender implications of these signs. My initial concern is the lack of distinction between these two concepts. Sex is biological and gender is socially constructed. Over time, the physical differences (notably hormonal differences) between the two sexes have manifested themselves socioculturally into normative patterns of behavior distinguishing the two sexes. We have an incessant desire to identify and group individuals in clean cut social categories. That is gender. It is also race, and class. We use these socially constructed groups to understand people. By grouping the sexes, we can sanction against "bad" behavior. Women have children, wear dresses, cook and clean while men wear pants and act as the breadwinner, supporting his family given his "inherent" strength mentally and physically. Gender roles are "taught" almost as soon as one enters the world. Boys' rooms are made masculine with shades of blue while girls' rooms are pink and fluffy, assuming the "soft" nature of women. Throughout our lives gender differentiation is greatly encouraged. These differentiations are not biologically based, but like all social manifestations have been taken to be unquestionable truth. Those who do not adhere to traditional gender roles are discriminated against.

The distinction between the mens and womens rooms is one of the ways that gender is played out in our particular society. The words "men" and "women" are written on the door in English, which unlike the stick figure, is not universal. Those who cannot read the language simply look to the figures to see which bathroom is the right one for them. It is understood that the woman wears a dress, while the man wears pants. The problem here: many women do not wear dresses, many men do. Under "Gender", New Keywords discusses the conflict between gender identity and biological sex. Transsexuals are often said to feel as though they were "born in the wrong body". There is a disconnect between the definition of who they should be based on the socially assigned roles of their sex (gender), and how they feel they truly identify. Which bathroom should these individuals use? Physically, each sex can easily use either bathroom. It is the social implications that keep us from doing so. We are directed to one of two groups, if one cannot define themselves in such terms they are greatly discriminated against.

The last part of these signs I found interesting was the smaller, rectangular handicap sign next to each door. I found a third group here, the disabled individual. The rectangular shape appears identically beside each bathroom door. I wondered why this shape is not gendered, and began to think again about discrimination and movement from societal norms. Don't get me wrong, those signs are important, they announce that there is a stall easily accessible to individuals in wheelchairs. I wondered though, don't all bathrooms have that larger stall? If not, shouldn't they? If we can take the time to differentiate by putting urinals in one restroom and only toilets in another, shouldn't it be assumed that those rooms will accommodate to all individuals of that specific gender (at least)? I saw these signs as another way to divide and group "like" people in our endless attempt to understand (in a wildly stereotypical way) each and every individual.