Little Things...

...that make you want to scream.

A few weeks ago I was at the leisure centre going swimming. Having locked my bags up I made my way towards the poolside. On the door of one of the showers was a sign. I cannot remember what it said verbatim, but here's the gist:

"Dear Ladies. On X date there will be male workmen in this shower."

Fair enough, I understand this and am grateful for the warning. Obviously in an ideal world we'd have a female plumber to come and do this but they're not exactly ten a penny. However, this seemingly innocuous if a little saddening poster had another blow to give:

"Please ensure that you are appropriately covered up whilst they are at work."

Not 'we apologise for the inconvenience' (though it probably said that somewhere as well) - instead we get instructed to not be naked when there are workmen in. There are several levels on which this makes me angry. Firstly, that it makes it sound like the idea of nudity is something that we should not expose the poor, innocent male plumbers to. Secondly is the more disturbing and underlying notion of: we do not trust our contractors not to succumb to primal urges if you display your naked flesh. Thirdly and perhaps most irritatingly the tone seems to suggest that usually, women go parading their naked bodies around the changing room.

There are three individual shower cubicles and one shower room that contains six or so showers. I have seen women in the communal shower who are naked. This didn't bother me, though I personally don't have the confidence in my body to do that, it's nice to see that other women do. On the few rare occasions I have seen this not once have these women been at all lewd or indecent or indeed, parading their bare skin around. They are simply trying to wash the chlorine and whatever chemicals are used to sanitise the water in our public swimming pools from their skin. And who can blame them, really.

On occasions like this I kind of find myself wishing I wasn't so hyper-aware of inequality and discrimination, because not only am I left frustrated and annoyed I somehow find myself feeling like my irritation at what was intended to be a helpful sign left out of courtesy is unjustified and an overreaction.

Oh well.