Creation: Historical Materialism Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
Recently, the official website of Guangzhou Municipal Urban Management and Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau published an announcement seeking public opinions on the “Guangzhou City Sanitation Public Toilet Layout Plan (2024-2035) (Draft)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Layout Plan”). The draft states that Guangzhou will encourage conditioned public toilets to be transformed into gender-neutral toilets; for public toilets with unreasonable male-to-female stall ratios, low efficiency of male stalls, or with renovation needs, it should be encouraged to convert them into gender-neutral toilets. However, the Zhongxiu government promotes a divorce cooling-off period, leading many women wishing to divorce their husbands to lose their lives; in response to women’s complaints of domestic violence, Zhongxiu society stands in extreme bias and protection of the husband. Such a government, does it really care about small matters like toilet difficulties faced by women?
The issue of women’s toilet difficulties has existed for many years. Due to physiological differences and the responsibilities women bear under the capitalist system for caring for the elderly and children, women tend to be slower in using the toilet. The imbalance in public toilet gender ratios, with empty male toilets and long queues for female toilets, is everywhere. Many women have to temporarily borrow male toilets, but the Zhongxiu government has never paid attention to or solved this problem. “The private system of Chinese-style capitalism and the patriarchal kinship inheritance system are highly integrated, with men as the heirs and main breadwinners of private households, holding the dominant power in family and society, arbitrarily manipulating and demanding women, who can only serve the family.” As a result, the entire capitalist society discriminates against and oppresses women in family, clan, workplace, and social interactions. Under capitalist patriarchy, women can only exist as accessories to men, and society is built from a male perspective, investing in various fields accordingly. Not only in the field of toilets, but also in other areas. For example, in the automotive industry, the ergonomic curves are designed based on male standards; in architecture, most equipment installation standards are based on adult male dimensions. The same applies to toilet construction ratios; despite women’s repeated calls, the Zhongxiu government has not implemented any policies to expand women’s toilets. Even if the government is forced to do so due to women’s struggles, their social status and severe oppression in capitalist society will not change at all.
The Zhongxiu government merely converts low-utilization male toilets into gender-neutral toilets, which does not mean that women’s toilet difficulties will be solved to any extent, nor does it mean women have “invaded” men’s rights or gained privileges. Instead, it increases the risk of sexual harassment and molestation for women. It is easy to imagine that in a country like China, full of men peeping into women’s toilets, gender-neutral toilets will inevitably become a paradise for peepers. Women daring to enter are likely to face violence. What truly needs to be changed is the ratio of male to female public toilets, not the construction of gender-neutral toilets. The Zhongxiu government’s vigorous promotion of building gender-neutral toilets merely shows that they are unwilling to even make the smallest improvement, such as converting idle male toilets. Their clumsy, manipulative tricks to buy public favor only reveal the tattoo of patriarchy on their buttocks, causing the public to see their true face and laugh them off.
The low social status of Chinese women is not created overnight but is a direct result of the capitalist society’s deprivation of women’s political and economic rights, treating them as commodities for trade. This cannot be changed simply by building more women’s toilets, nor can it be shaken by establishing gender-neutral toilets. Many bourgeois feminists like to promote social reforms as a means of women’s “liberation.” For example, India once produced a so-called feminist film called “Toilet Hero,” advocating that the toilet revolution brought blessings to women. In the words of these bourgeoisie, solving toilet problems seems to solve women’s issues, but this is fundamentally impossible. Any reform under capitalism only further consolidates capitalism’s rule, fundamentally maintaining bourgeois dominance. Whether expanding women’s toilets or converting low-utilization male toilets into gender-neutral toilets, these measures fundamentally serve bourgeois rule. As long as the private system and patriarchal kinship inheritance system of Chinese-style capitalism exist, the shackles on women cannot be removed. No matter how beautifully they are painted, these shackles will only become heavier. To truly achieve gender equality, the only way is to overthrow bourgeois rule.