Ladies and Gents

by Gershenson, Olga; Penner, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9781592139408
• ISBN10: 159213940X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-28
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

Public toilets provide a unique opportunity for interrogating how conventional assumptions about the body, sexuality, privacy, and technology are formed in public spaces and inscribed through design across cultures. This collection of original essays from international scholars is the first to explore the cultural meanings, histories, and ideologies of public toilets as gendered spaces.Ladies and Gentsconsists of two sets of essays. The first, "Potty Politics: Toilets, Gender and Identity," establishes the importance of accessible, secure public toilets to the creation of inclusive cities, work, and learning environments. The second set of essays, "Toilet Art: Design and Cultural Representations," discusses public toilets as spaces of representation and representational spaces, with reference to architectural design, humor, film, theater, art, and popular culture. Compelling visual materials and original artwork are included throughout, depicting subjects as varied as female urinals, art installations sited in public restrooms, and the toilet in contemporary art. Taken together, these seventeen essays demonstrate that public toilets are often sites where gendered bodies compete for resources and recognition-and the stakes are high.

Author Biography

Olga Gershenson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of Gesher: Russian Theatre in Israel—A Study of Cultural Colonization.

Barbara Penner is a Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, author of Newlyweds on Tour: Honeymooning in Nineteenth-Century America and co-editor of Gender Space Architecture.

Table of Contents

Judith Plaskow / Foreword; Olga Gershenson and Barbara Penner / The private life of public conveniences;Potty Politics: Toilets, Gender, and Identity; Clara Greed / The role of the public toilet in civic life; Kathryn H. Anthony and Meghan Dufresne / Potty privileging in perspective: Gender and family issues in toilet design; Claudia Mitchell /Geographies of danger: School toilets in sub-Saharan Africa; Andrew Brown-May and Peg Fraser / Gender, respectability, and public convenience in Melbourne, Australia 1859-1902; Jami Anderson / Bodily privacy, toilets and sex discrimination: The problem of "manhood" in a women's prison ; Alison Moore / Colonial visions of 'Third World' toilets: A nineteenth-century discourse that haunts contemporary tourism; Naomi Stead / Avoidance: On some euphemisms for the "smallest room";Toilet Art: Design and Cultural Representations; Deborah Gans / Were our customs really beautiful?: Designing refugee camp toilets; Barbara Penner / (Re)Designing the "unmentionable.": Female toilets in the 20th century; Robin Lydenberg / Marcel Duchamp's Legacy: Aesthetics, Gender, and National Identity in the Toilet; Kathy Battista / Toilet training: Sarah Lucas' toilets and the transmogrification of the body; Alex Schweder / Stalls between walls: Segregated sexed spaces; Bushra Rehman / "Our little secrets:" A Pakistani artist explores the shame and pride of her community's bathroom practices; Frances Pheasant-Kelly / In the men's room: Death and derision in cinematic toilets; Johan Andersson and Ben Campkin / "White tiles. Trickling water. A man!": Literary representations of cottaging in London; Nathan Abrams / The Jew on the Loo: the Toilet in Jewish Popular Culture, Memory, and Imagination; Index