辦公室廁所男女分開的理由
Peeing at work has traditionally been a segregated business.
傳統上，在工作場所如廁存在着一種隔離。
In the old days, directors relieved themselves in different, swishier places from the rank and file.
過去，董事們有自己單獨的、更豪華的洗手間，不與普通員工一起如廁。
Later, when hierarchies went out of fashion, the executive washroom was abolished in the name of equality and chief executives peed shoulder to shoulder with office juniors.
後來，隨着等級制度不再流行，高管專用洗手間以促進平等爲由被廢除，首席執行官們開始與初級員工一同小解。
However, the lavatorial segregation of men and women at work has endured.
然而，工作場所廁所的男女隔離保留了下來。
In private houses, on planes and on trains the sexes happily use the same toilets but at work they still do not.
在私人住所、飛機和火車上，男性和女性已經習慣於使用相同的廁所，但在工作場所，男廁與女廁依然是分開的。
This segregation is threatened by the rise of the gender-neutral toilet.
然而，中性廁所的興起正在威脅着這種隔離。
This time it has nothing to do with equality of men and women.
這一次與男女平等無關。
It is because if you are transgender, it is not clear which loo you should go for.
原因是，如果你是跨性別者，你會不知道自己該去哪個廁所。
In California a law was passed this month insisting that any single-stall toilet must be gender neutral.
近期加利福尼亞州通過的一項法律要求，所有單隔間廁所都必須是不分性別的。
Starbucks is busily introducing them, while the Barnes & Noble bookstore is encouraging people to use whichever loo they prefer.
星巴克(Starbucks)正在積極引入這種廁所，而Barnes & Noble書店正在鼓勵人們按照自身意願選擇上男廁或者女廁。
Last week at Salesforce’s annual festival of self-congratulation in San Francisco, there were gender-neutral loos.
不久前，Salesforce在舊金山舉行的年度慶祝活動配備的也是中性廁所。
More than that, each of the 150,000 participants was given a cute badge on which to put a sticker with their preferred pronoun: he/him, she/her, they/them or ask me.
不僅如此，15萬名參與者都得到了一個可愛的徽章，可以把顯示他們希望聽到的稱呼的貼紙貼上去：他、她、他們，或者問我。
This, I suspect, is big news.
我懷疑，這會是條大新聞。
Where Salesforce leads, the rest will follow.
任何事情只要Salesforce起了頭，其他人就會跟上。
But are unisex loos a good idea at work? Making everyone pee in the same place surely makes sense.
但在工作場所中，中性廁所真的是個好主意嗎？讓每個人都在同樣的地方如廁當然有道理。
On average we get out of our seats and go to the toilet three or four times a day, but instead of this being an opportunity for the broadest and most serendipitous sort of networking, we arbitrarily limit ourselves to only one slice of the workforce.
我們平均一天離開座位上廁所3到4次，但上廁所並沒有變成我們進行最廣泛和最隨機的人脈拓展的機會，我們無理由地把可能與自己一同如廁的人限制爲同性。
I have just canvassed views around my office and found the big divide is less by gender than by age.
我徵求了一下我辦公室裏同事們的意見，發現與其說男女意見分歧大，不如說不同年齡層的意見分歧大。
All the millennials shrugged and said making office loos gender-neutral was fine.
所有的千禧一代都聳聳肩，表示把辦公場所的廁所變成中性廁所沒問題。
They looked so unconcerned that I found myself feeling sheepish for having asked the question at all.
他們看起來渾不在意，以至於我爲自己問了這個問題感到不好意思。
Yet older workers were less keen.
然而，較爲年長的員工就不那麼贊同了。
The men mostly said they did not like the idea but could not say why.
大部分男性表示他們不喜歡這個想法，但又說不出爲什麼。
The women were more forthcoming.
女性則更加直言不諱。
Variously they said the men’s loos smelt.
她們的說法各式各樣，有的說男廁的味道難聞。
They did not want to put on make-up in front of male colleagues.
有的說她們不想在男同事面前化妝。
The ladies loo was the perfect place to cry. Or to gossip.
女廁是哭泣或八卦的絕佳之所。
Or was a much needed refuge.
或者也是非常必要的避難所。
Yet none of these five reasons is conclusive.
然而，以上的這5個理由都不是很有說服力。
All loos stink if they are not cleaned often enough, so the answer is more frequent dousing with Harpic.
如果清潔得不夠勤，所有的廁所都很難聞，因此答案是勤用潔廁劑清潔。
As for make-up, I put mine on so amateurishly that I dislike being observed by anyone.
至於化妝，我化妝的技術非常外行，因此被任何人看到我都不情願。
Given the choice, I would rather battle with cloggy mascara in front of an oblivious man than in front of a woman who could see what a hash I was making of it.
如果真要選，我寧可在一名粗枝大葉的男性面前與粘稠的睫毛膏作鬥爭，也不想在一個能看出我刷得一團糟的女性面前做這件事。
A similar argument applies to crying.
哭泣也是同理。
It is true that women cry more than men, and as blubbing at one’s desk is not acceptable, we tend to do it in the loo.
的確，女性哭泣得比男性多，因爲在辦公桌旁哭泣不被接受，我們往往會在廁所裏哭泣。
Yet the few times I have wept at work, my main aim was not to be observed.
然而，我爲數不多的幾次在辦公室哭泣時，我最在意的都是別有人說什麼。
Men are possibly less likely to notice and to comment, and so having them washing their hands next to you as you dab your red eyes might not be too bad.
男性注意到你哭了並加以評論的可能性較低，因此在你擦拭着紅腫的眼睛的同時，有男性在你旁邊洗手，或許也不是太壞。
It is also true that more gossiping goes on in the women’s loos than in the men’s — where I gather silence usually prevails.
女廁裏的八卦的確也比男廁裏更多——我猜男廁裏通常是靜默無聲的。
Yet for either sex the loo is a dangerous place for chatting as you never know who is in the stalls.
然而無論是對女性還是男性，在廁所閒聊都是一件危險的事情，因爲你永遠不知道其他隔間裏有誰。
As a refuge, the office toilet is much better — there are times when the privacy afforded by a locked cubicle door is just what one needs.
而作爲避難所，辦公室廁所的確非常棒——有時鎖上的隔間門提供的私密性正是人們需要的。
But in those instances, I cannot see it matters much whether the invisible people in neighbouring stalls are men or women.
但在那種情況下，我看不出隔壁隔間裏看不見的人是男是女有多大關係。
Yet there is another, better reason for segregated loos.
然而，男女廁所分開還有一個更好的理由。
While half the tech world was gathered in San Francisco, I was at a rival tech conference in Europe.
在科技界近一半的人聚集在舊金山時，我正在歐洲參加一個類似的科技大會。
As almost everyone in that industry appears to be a man, at coffee time I had a weird experience.
因爲似乎科技業裏幾乎所有人都是男性，茶歇時，我經歷了古怪的事情。
There was a long queue for the men’s loo — and none for the women’s.
男廁前排起長龍，而女廁這邊沒人排隊。
As I dried my hands I started up an interesting conversation with the three others in there about why there are so few of them in tech, and a thought occurred to me: when women are in such a minority, a loo of their own is a perk worth keeping.
在烘乾手的時候，我與女廁所的另外3人就爲何科技業的女性如此之少進行了有趣的談話，我突然萌生了一個想法：在女性佔如此少數的時候，女性專屬廁所是一項值得保留的福利。
