Prague, Jan 30 (CTK) – Feminist students are striving for the establishment of unisex toilets at the Faculty of Arts in Prague, but so far in vain, weekly Tyden reports.
The activists have found inspiration abroad, primarily in the United States where “all gender/gender neutral” toilets exist.
A group of feminists, including both men and women, proposed last year that the Faculty of Arts of Charles University establish joint toilets for men and women in its facilities.
“By opening unisex toilets, the faculty declares its understanding for the fact that not all people feel like belonging to one gender,” the activists write in their programme with which they won the election to the Academic Senate at the faculty last year.
However, so far they have not succeeded in pushing through their idea as the faculty dean’s office does not support such radical changes to public toilets.
“We have discussed the proposal for unisex toilets, nevertheless, we do not plan to introduce them in a fairly short time,” faculty spokeswoman Ina Pisova told Tyden.
Moreover, one of the students of the Faculty of Arts, Sara Vidimova, has long been involved in the gender equality issues.
She criticises the faculty’s communication with students using only the masculine grammatical form. She would like to work out a manual to redress the situation. However, this activity has not met with understanding of the faculty’s management either.
Tyden writes that the Faculty of Arts in Prague may become “a laboratory for gender activists.” However, gender equality issues are broadly discussed elsewhere as well, mainly on social networks.
An innocent poem entitled Mummy in the most popular school primer written by poet Jiri Zacek, for instance, provoked a sharp criticism of late, Tyden says.
Feminists considered the verses about “girls brought into the world to become mums” a clear expression of sexism ascribing traditional roles to women. The author was forced to change the verses upon their intervention several years ago, but the original version appeared in a school reader as a coincidence and it stirred up emotions again, Zacek told Tyden.
