Did you hear that? That was the sound of us exhaling, immediately followed by the sound of us glugging wine in an unrestrained manner.
As we hinted the other week, in an annoyingly cryptic fashion, things have been pretty provoking of late. But today, lo and behold, we find ourselves, not perhaps stomping our boots uproariously and waving balloons, but at least wiggling our toes pleasurably and winking roguishly at postmen. Also we've had some rather encouraging news which made us inclined to consider engaging in an activity not dissimilar to breakdancing.
We are not, furthermore, the only ones in a genial mood. Our contact at the sewage treatment plant in Källby - that queen among sewage treatment plants - went there this afternoon, to indulge in some sludge inspection, or a similar happy activity. She had to wait for a bit for the person she wanted to speak to as he was busy. However, the jovial sewage engineer then treated our friend, as if to make up for the wait, to an impromptu memory cavalcade about said sewage engineer's childhood, including tales of going to Denmark to buy sugar, or possibly beets.
(We are rather jovial ourselves at the moment, being wined up to the gills, and can't quite remember what the Danish produce in question actually was, only that in those days you apparently got 100 Danish kronor for only eighty Swedish ditto - a fairly fascinating factoid for a Monday night.)
As if to complete the general feeling of geniality, Audiologist Friend has sent us pictures of a lovely unisex toilet in Luleå! She writes:
As regular readers are aware, we are deeply committed to protecting the rights of transgender people. However, we have a massive problem with unisex toilets, at least if they are designed wrong. We love sharing a toilet with transgender people, and fully understand the dilemma of having to choose one of two gender-assigned doors, when one doesn't identify with either gender, or not with the gender one most resembles physically.
However, we do not, under any circumstances, want to share a public toilet with cis men. (Especially not if said cis men are bearded hipster dudes, as reported previously in a tale of spine-chilling horror.) This means that, if a unisex toilet is designed in such a way that women have to share a space, including the space by the sink, with men, then we are against it.
We have never felt threatened by a transgender person. However, we have often felt threatened by cis men. We are of the opinion that public toilets should be safe spaces, where a woman may let her guard down without being threatened, assaulted, sexually harassed, or mansplained at. A unisex toilet with a sturdy, lockable door, noise insulation (all toilets should have this anyway), and its own sink, is perfectly fine by us. A unisex toilet with uncomfortable stalls and shared, mix-gender sinks will be hated by us until the sun explodes and turns the Earth into tiny specks of dust.
We have mentioned, in a previous post, the sheer evil of certain American politicians, depriving transgender people the use of public toilets due to a professed concern for women's safety. As it turns out, reports Patheos, the number of transgender people to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms in the States is currently zero. The number of Republican senators to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms is three.
Committing a (presumably consensual) sex act in a bathroom is obviously not the same thing as committing an act of sexual violence, but we maintain our stance that the most common danger to women and children is cis men, i.e. normal dudes.
We have a treat for you, Festive Video-wise! We went to our favourite rock'n'roll club, Rock'n'rollklubben in Lund, the other night, and had the very great pleasure of seeing and hearing a band called Amaroka. They had come all the way from Belarus! And they kicked arse! (We have some rather splendid photos from Rock'n'rollklubben to show you, by the way, in the near future.)
Amaroka represent "positive punk rock" and their songs, as far as we can tell, are 50 % about love, and 50 % about politics and the revolution. Amaroka in fact played in Kiev during the Ukrainian revolution, and were consequently banned by the Lukashenko regime.
The following video kicks arse on so many levels one loses count - it features a dog, a girl with awesome eyeliner, and a young man flipping pancakes! Enjoy! (We also enjoyed this song, and so did our mum.)
Related Reading
Our rant about the word forenoon: High Noon, Hell, and High Water - A Very Long Linguistic Rant
Our rant on why we don't like unisex toilets, if designed wrong
Our review of a unisex toilet we really liked, at Bee Bar in Malmö
Our classic rant on mansplaining
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
We usually feel compelled, when ranting about the patriarchy, to point out that we have many male friends who would never dream of acting in a sexist or boorish manner. Some of them may be found featured under the following labels (in alphabetical order):
Bogsley Hansson Friend
Czech Mate
As we hinted the other week, in an annoyingly cryptic fashion, things have been pretty provoking of late. But today, lo and behold, we find ourselves, not perhaps stomping our boots uproariously and waving balloons, but at least wiggling our toes pleasurably and winking roguishly at postmen. Also we've had some rather encouraging news which made us inclined to consider engaging in an activity not dissimilar to breakdancing.
We are not, furthermore, the only ones in a genial mood. Our contact at the sewage treatment plant in Källby - that queen among sewage treatment plants - went there this afternoon, to indulge in some sludge inspection, or a similar happy activity. She had to wait for a bit for the person she wanted to speak to as he was busy. However, the jovial sewage engineer then treated our friend, as if to make up for the wait, to an impromptu memory cavalcade about said sewage engineer's childhood, including tales of going to Denmark to buy sugar, or possibly beets.
(We are rather jovial ourselves at the moment, being wined up to the gills, and can't quite remember what the Danish produce in question actually was, only that in those days you apparently got 100 Danish kronor for only eighty Swedish ditto - a fairly fascinating factoid for a Monday night.)
As if to complete the general feeling of geniality, Audiologist Friend has sent us pictures of a lovely unisex toilet in Luleå! She writes:
Dags att visa upp det moderna Luleå. Det nyrenoverade badrummet i Smedjan är den perfekta mellanlandningen efter en förmiddagspromenad på isvägen, på vägen hem.
Jag vet att du inte är ett fan av unisextoaletter men var ändå tvungen att fota och skicka till dig.
(Time to demonstrate the modern Luleå. The newly renovated bathrooms at Smedjan [a shopping centre] are the perfect stopover after a forenoon-walk on the ice road, on the way home. I know you're not a fan of unisex toilets, but I still had to take photos and send them to you.)
As regular readers are aware, we are deeply committed to protecting the rights of transgender people. However, we have a massive problem with unisex toilets, at least if they are designed wrong. We love sharing a toilet with transgender people, and fully understand the dilemma of having to choose one of two gender-assigned doors, when one doesn't identify with either gender, or not with the gender one most resembles physically.
However, we do not, under any circumstances, want to share a public toilet with cis men. (Especially not if said cis men are bearded hipster dudes, as reported previously in a tale of spine-chilling horror.) This means that, if a unisex toilet is designed in such a way that women have to share a space, including the space by the sink, with men, then we are against it.
We have never felt threatened by a transgender person. However, we have often felt threatened by cis men. We are of the opinion that public toilets should be safe spaces, where a woman may let her guard down without being threatened, assaulted, sexually harassed, or mansplained at. A unisex toilet with a sturdy, lockable door, noise insulation (all toilets should have this anyway), and its own sink, is perfectly fine by us. A unisex toilet with uncomfortable stalls and shared, mix-gender sinks will be hated by us until the sun explodes and turns the Earth into tiny specks of dust.
We have mentioned, in a previous post, the sheer evil of certain American politicians, depriving transgender people the use of public toilets due to a professed concern for women's safety. As it turns out, reports Patheos, the number of transgender people to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms in the States is currently zero. The number of Republican senators to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms is three.
Committing a (presumably consensual) sex act in a bathroom is obviously not the same thing as committing an act of sexual violence, but we maintain our stance that the most common danger to women and children is cis men, i.e. normal dudes.
 |
| This unisex toilet looks like it might have its own sink behind a lockable door, making it an acceptable option, unisex-toilet-wise. |
 |
| A friendly and welcoming, and hopefully privacy-shielding, screen. |
 |
| This picture gives us the jitters. WILL WE HAVE TO SHARE THIS SINK WITH BEARDED HIPSTER DUDES? is what we are asking ourselves. Hopefully there is a separate sink behind each of those doors. |
We have a treat for you, Festive Video-wise! We went to our favourite rock'n'roll club, Rock'n'rollklubben in Lund, the other night, and had the very great pleasure of seeing and hearing a band called Amaroka. They had come all the way from Belarus! And they kicked arse! (We have some rather splendid photos from Rock'n'rollklubben to show you, by the way, in the near future.)
Amaroka represent "positive punk rock" and their songs, as far as we can tell, are 50 % about love, and 50 % about politics and the revolution. Amaroka in fact played in Kiev during the Ukrainian revolution, and were consequently banned by the Lukashenko regime.
The following video kicks arse on so many levels one loses count - it features a dog, a girl with awesome eyeliner, and a young man flipping pancakes! Enjoy! (We also enjoyed this song, and so did our mum.)
Festive video - Amaroka, Разрываеш
Related Reading
Our rant about the word forenoon: High Noon, Hell, and High Water - A Very Long Linguistic Rant
Our rant on why we don't like unisex toilets, if designed wrong
Our review of a unisex toilet we really liked, at Bee Bar in Malmö
Our classic rant on mansplaining
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
We usually feel compelled, when ranting about the patriarchy, to point out that we have many male friends who would never dream of acting in a sexist or boorish manner. Some of them may be found featured under the following labels (in alphabetical order):
Bogsley Hansson Friend
Czech Mate
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