Immodest Successes: The Provision of Public Lavatories for Women in Meanjin (Brisbane), 1912

In August 1912 the first public toilet facilities for women were opened in Meanjin (Brisbane). What could have been considered a victory for the women of Brisbane was complicated by the fact that it had taken a full ten years from when the facilities were first proposed to when they were finally bui...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLilith (Fitzroy, Vic.) no. 29; pp. 139 - 239
Main Author Temby, Anna
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Wollongong Australian Women's History Network 01.01.2023
Subjects
20th century
Bathrooms
Cities
Citizenship
Construction
Councils
Gender
Opening hours
Planning
Plumbing fixtures
Toilet facilities
Women
United Kingdom > UK
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Summary:In August 1912 the first public toilet facilities for women were opened in Meanjin (Brisbane). What could have been considered a victory for the women of Brisbane was complicated by the fact that it had taken a full ten years from when the facilities were first proposed to when they were finally built, and their use required both a fee and set hours of operation. The facilities' construction was part of a strenuous, but largely ineffective, scheme by the Brisbane City Council to bolster women's participation in civic life, which rather than having an altruistic basis, was guided by an emerging principle that women's public influence was needed to domesticate or 'nurture' city spaces. Women's voices are all but absent from the council's planning and decision-making around the provision of toilets, further complicating the notion that the accommodation and wellbeing of women were driving factors in the council's plans. This article argues that rather than reflecting a victory for women's civic participation, the provision of public facilities was part of an aspirational, patriarchal demonstration of good governance and municipal beneficence by the Brisbane City Council, which served to reinforce, rather than weaken, the extant gendered delineations in Brisbane's urban sphere.
ISSN:0813-8990