NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2019 73In July, The New York Times published
an essay by science-fiction writer Mary
Robinette Kowal in which she called out
the gender bias of space programmes,
including the historic 1969 Moon Mission,
outlining how they were created around
‘male bodies’. Some readers responded
saying that the reason women had not
been sent into space was because there was
no technology for them to urinate in zero
gravity. In a detailed twitter thread Kowal
showed that the real problem was that a
technological solution for this problem –
common to both sexes – was only sought
for men at first.
It made me think of the millions of
women in India still waiting for their right
to take a leak in public space right here on
Earth, for much the same reason. Public
spaces in India are designed by men, for
men, and women are not welcome.
If you looked at the number of public
toilets available to women in a city, you
might be excused for thinking that they
did not go out in public. According to the
Right to Pee campaign, launched in 2011,
only one out of every three public toilet
seats in Mumbai is for women. But it’s not
just the lack of toilets, it’s their dereliction
that denies women a break. For example,
a majority of public toilets for women
in Delhi, the Indian capital, were foundby an ActionAid report to be unusable,
with no running water and inadequate
safety. Reports have also linked stomach
and urinary tract infections in women to
their use of unhygienic public toilets.
It has been pointed out enough times
that in developing nations like India, the
lack of proper, clean and hygienic toilets
in schools leads to absenteeism by girls,
especially when they are menstruating.
In India, young girls miss 20 per cent of
their school year for this reason.
And when they grow up, the lack of
public toilets is one of the factors holding
them back from going out to work. Indian
women’s participation in the labour force
currently stands at a measly 27 per cent.
None of this is really new. I remember
being 12 and the painful hours of holding
on and holding in during long train
journeys as the toilets were too filthy to
use. Three decades on, just traversing the
city for work is an exercise in self-control.
On 19 November, World Toilet Day,
the government will undoubtedly tout
the millions of toilets it has built in the
last five years under Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s most ambitious project,
the $20-billion Swachh Bharat (Clean
India) mission. But the project’s focus has
been more on household toilets rather
than public toilets, especially for women.Out of the six million toilets built under
the mission’s urban component, only
500,000 were public toilets. A November
2018 advisory to the programme laid
out a more gender-sensitive blueprint
envisioning a two-to-one ratio for public
toilets for women and men respectively.
Yup, we are still strategizing on how
to provide half our population with the
most basic of human rights – the right to
pee – alongside much grander designs,
like how to become the world’s third-
largest economy by 2025.
A helpful clue: Japan, the current
occupier of that spot, boasts women’s
labour force participation of 69.4 per
cent. Its Minister for Women’s Empow-
erment, Haruko Arimura, is unofficially
referred to as ‘Minister of Toilets’ for her
efforts in ensuring clean public toilets,
which she sees as essential for women’s
advancement. ONILANJANA BHOWMICK IS A MULTI-AWARD
WINNING JOURNALIST BASED IN NEW DELHI.
SHE TWEETS @NILANJANABWe need to talk about toilets
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ILLUSTRATION: KATE COPELAND