Men, put the toilet seat down after yourself – leaving it up is just sexist

I could see that he’d left the seat up. 

And I certainly didn’t want to touch it with my bare hands – not when he was probably the one that put it up. 

‘Could you put the seat down, please?’, I asked him politely. 

He looked at me as if I’d just asked him to put a puppy down, instead.

With great exaggeration, he turned, slammed the seat down then bowed – physically, actually bowed to me – before stomping off. He pointed me out to his girlfriend when I walked past him back to my seat, clearly fuming that I’d asked him to finish off a job that he’d started.

I only felt sorry for her that she had to live with his so-called bad habits. I hoped that I’d never, ever have to shake either of their hands in the future.

Gender neutral toilets are brilliant. I love them, and feel like it’s a clear sign of a dedication to diversity. And, contrary to TERFs’ popular beliefs, gender neutral toilets are in plain sight – on planes, and trains, especially. 

Making loos unisex makes a basic human need accessible, more welcoming and comfortable for all. Plus, it means I don’t have to stand in ridiculously long lines at a venue that offers the same amount of bathrooms for women as it does for men (despite the fact that women often need to urinate more than men). 

Except, people who pee standing up ruin it by not putting the seat down after themselves.

This may sound like such a basic, petty argument – but I’m serious. It absolutely infuriates me. It’s casual misogyny. Here’s why.

Blokes, why should it have to be my problem that you have an imperfect aim, and have to put the seat up? 

To me, leaving the seat up is a personal insult

Why should I have to touch the pissy, dirty seat after you just so I can go to the toilet – or run the soggy risk of falling in the bowl if I’m in a hurry (it happens, trust me) – though *you* were the one that felt the need to put it up? 

Does it trouble you that much that you have to spend another mere second of your clearly busy day to pop the seat back down? No? Does your mam pick your pants off the floor after you, too? 

But it’s not just female strangers you clearly don’t have any common courtesy for – but other women in your life, too. Your female flatmates, your girlfriend, partner, wife, mother, sister, grandma, younger cousin. The girl you’ve taken home after a night out.

Why won’t you make their lives just that little bit easier and more sanitary? Especially when they have found a minute out of their parenting, domestic and career pressures to have a piss. All pressures of which women generally have more of than men, by the way.

Do you do it out of spite for the other half of the population, or sheer laziness? Either way, it’s not my problem – so stop making it that way.

Plus, you do know you can pee sitting down too, right? That you have two different ways in which you can take a leak, as opposed to women’s singular way? Three, if you count the fact that you have urinals on offer, too. 

Or, are you worried that sitting down will make you look and feel too much like a woman? Believe me, if I could pee standing up, I would – and it would make life so much easier – but I can’t.

Not only is lowering the seat common courtesy, but it’s more sanitary, too. Putting the seat – and lid – down to flush stops literal poo particles from floating in the air, with bacteria settling on just about anything in range.

To me, leaving the seat up is a personal insult, and shows that some men treat women in day-to-day life with colossal insensitivity. 

It’s simply not a good enough excuse if they ‘sometimes forget’ to put it down, either. They put it up, they can put it down.

Just like they taught us back in nursery to return toys to their rightful place if you borrowed them. To put things back the way you found them.

When I moved in with my now-husband, believe me when I say he only left the seat up once. After the serious conversation we had afterwards, he changed his ways pretty sharpish. It’s his choice to piss standing up, he can live with the consequences of it.

Still, whenever tradesmen come to visit, the toilet seat is always left up – all I can do is silently fume while I pull out of reams of toilet paper to put the seat down when I need to wee in my own flat.

It shouldn’t matter whether there’s one woman or three in your house

Hilariously, back in 2002, a Michigan State University researcher, Jay Pil Choi, actually decided to study the issue and published the paper ‘Up or Down? A Male Economist’s Manifesto on Toilet Seat Etiquette’. 

Choi concluded that – though both sexes are mutually inconvenienced by an upright toilet seat when they take a poo – when the number of women is the same or greater than the number of men, the toilet seat should be left down.

That men should only be able to leave the toilet seat lifted if there are more men than women in a household.

But it shouldn’t matter whether there’s one woman or three in your house. To me, even if there’s only one woman or girl in your house, it’s one too many making your lack of accountability for your actions part of their day-to-day lives.

Just imagine being that one woman, in a house of blokes, forever and unnecessarily having to touch and lower the toilet seat because you can’t be arsed to.

There’s inequality when it comes to the bathroom, and you should always finish something you started.

I don’t need a graph or research paper to tell me that.

To me, it’s a so-called ‘bad habit’ or ‘petty issue’ that is a clear sign of control or power – in our relationships, friendships, or in our patriarchal society in general where maleness is assumed and prioritised. 

Women simply aren’t here to pick up (or put down) after men.

So, men everywhere: Do the right thing. Put the damned seat down and be accountable for your actions – but, until then, I hope you fall into the basin the next time you sit down for a poo. 

And, oh don’t forget to wash your hands on the way out, you detty pig.