On friendship and women’s restrooms

Wearing long brown hair, a black T-shirt and scruffy Converse, you were waiting in line with your friends. 

Two of the girls with you, talking conspiratorially, turned to the group and said they were going to the bathroom and darted off together, whispering and giggling. You rolled your eyes and said to the boys standing with you, “I don’t know why girls always go to the bathroom together. Girls are so weird.”

What you just did — that eye-roll, that “cooler than you” attitude — these are all signs of what you later in life recognize as “internalized sexism.” Maybe you had a crush on one of the boys with you and wanted him to think you were cool.

It can be hard growing. There is a lot of pressure on you to act, talk and dress a certain way. 

As girls, we will feel a desire to reject these ideals, but instead, we end up rejecting womanhood as an idea. We don’t want to wear makeup, walk in heels, diet or attract men with a confusing combination of confidence and precociousness.

Instead of thinking to ourselves, “Those standards are so weird. Why do we feel the need to live up to that?” we think, “Girls who do that are so weird. Why do they do that? By rejecting this behavior, I am different from and superior to other girls.”

I have fallen victim to this “girls are so weird” mentality.

A seemingly benign statement, it surfaces in all kinds of scenarios. Not wanting to go greek in college, I remember justifying it because “I could never live in a house full of girls.”

Not only does this have nothing to do with my choice not to join, it is also completely untrue. I could absolutely live in a house full of my closest friends who also happen to be girls.

Another phrase that I have fallen prey to is “Yeah, I just can’t be friends with girls.” This is a complete and blatant lie. In fact, growing up, due to extreme shyness and a slight fear of boys, I overwhelmingly only had other girls as friends. I do understand, however.

At our age, it is not exactly instilled within us to appreciate other women. Instead, we are trained to compete with each other athletically, academically and socially. The valuable achievements in high school led to an insane competitive drive that has almost nothing to do with how one should and must function in the real world.

Why do girls accompany each other to the restroom? You see, the experience of going to a women’s restroom is much different than going to the men’s room.

First, and most importantly, women’s restrooms are generally cleaner and more spacious environments than men’s restrooms. While men’s restrooms function as impersonal assembly lines where talking is discouraged and eye contact is forbidden, women’s restrooms can fulfill a variety of other needs.

The ladies’ room can help you escape an unwanted suitor at a club. It can be a place to share secrets and fix your makeup. By bringing a friend with you to the restroom, you are adding another soldier to a potentially hostile environment. Will there be vomit on the floor? Is the line 20 deep and you need a companion to talk to while you wait in agony?

You can ask to borrow a tampon. If no one has a tampon, someone will lend you a dime for the vending machine. If your stall is without paper, someone will pass a wad underneath the divider. If you are crying, someone will inevitably try to comfort you.

So, here’s hoping boys will like you back. Just keep in mind that no amount of band T-shirts or girl-bashing will ever get you there.

­— allistone@indiana.edu