DEAR MISS MANNERS: Someone has put up signs in all of our (unisex) bathrooms at work, imploring men to put down the toilet seat when they leave. As I was leaving a bathroom, a woman even stopped me in the hall to say, with annoyance, “You didn’t put down the seat.”
I am perplexed by this demand. When I come into a bathroom, I look to see if the seat is down and, if it is, put it up. When a woman comes in, shouldn’t she likewise look to see if it’s up and, if it is, put it down? Isn’t this demand a one-way street of the sort that etiquette eschews? (By its logic, I could equally demand that when a woman puts the seat down, she should subsequently put it back up. Which I wouldn’t.) What say you?
GENTLE READER: It is a social construct generally accepted that a toilet in its neutral and ready state has its seat down. The fact that this configuration favors one gender over the other is less important, Miss Manners believes, than that it is more conducive to keeping its passengers from falling in.
Your argument that this is a form of sexism is not likely to go over well, Miss Manners warns you. She does agree that your colleague should not have chastised you, but then again, having resorted to posting signs that you are defiantly ignoring, she seemingly had no choice.