Peeing at work has traditionally been a segregated¹ business.

传统上，在工作场所如厕存在着一种隔离。

In the old days, directors relieved themselves in different, swishier places from the rank and file.

过去，董事们有自己单独的、更豪华的洗手间，不与普通员工一起如厕。

Later, when hierarchies² went out of fashion, the executive washroom was abolished in the name of equality and chief executives peed shoulder to shoulder with office juniors.

后来，随着等级制度不再流行，高管专用洗手间以促进平等为由被废除，首席执行官们开始与初级员工一同小解。

However, the lavatorial segregation³ of men and women at work has endured.

然而，工作场所厕所的男女隔离保留了下来。

In private houses, on planes and on trains the sexes happily use the same toilets but at work they still do not.

在私人住所、飞机和火车上，男性和女性已经习惯于使用相同的厕所，但在工作场所，男厕与女厕依然是分开的。

This segregation is threatened by the rise of the gender⁴-neutral toilet.

然而，中性厕所的兴起正在威胁着这种隔离。

This time it has nothing to do with equality of men and women.

这一次与男女平等无关。

It is because if you are transgender, it is not clear which loo you should go for.

原因是，如果你是跨性别者，你会不知道自己该去哪个厕所。

In California a law was passed this month insisting that any single-stall toilet must be gender neutral.

近期加利福尼亚州通过的一项法律要求，所有单隔间厕所都必须是不分性别的。

Starbucks is busily introducing them, while the Barnes & Noble bookstore is encouraging people to use whichever loo they prefer.

星巴克(Starbucks)正在积极引入这种厕所，而Barnes & Noble书店正在鼓励人们按照自身意愿选择上男厕或者女厕。

Last week at Salesforce’s annual festival of self-congratulation in San Francisco, there were gender-neutral loos.

不久前，Salesforce在旧金山举行的年度庆祝活动配备的也是中性厕所。

More than that, each of the 150,000 participants was given a cute badge on which to put a sticker with their preferred pronoun: he/him, she/her, they/them or ask me.

不仅如此，15万名参与者都得到了一个可爱的徽章，可以把显示他们希望听到的称呼的贴纸贴上去：他、她、他们，或者问我。

This, I suspect, is big news.

我怀疑，这会是条大新闻。

Where Salesforce leads, the rest will follow.

任何事情只要Salesforce起了头，其他人就会跟上。

But are unisex loos a good idea at work? Making everyone pee in the same place surely makes sense.

但在工作场所中，中性厕所真的是个好主意吗？让每个人都在同样的地方如厕当然有道理。

On average we get out of our seats and go to the toilet three or four times a day, but instead of this being an opportunity for the broadest and most serendipitous⁵ sort of networking, we arbitrarily limit ourselves to only one slice of the workforce⁶.

我们平均一天离开座位上厕所3到4次，但上厕所并没有变成我们进行最广泛和最随机的人脉拓展的机会，我们无理由地把可能与自己一同如厕的人限制为同性。

I have just canvassed⁷ views around my office and found the big divide is less by gender than by age.

我征求了一下我办公室里同事们的意见，发现与其说男女意见分歧大，不如说不同年龄层的意见分歧大。

All the millennials shrugged⁸ and said making office loos gender-neutral was fine.

所有的千禧一代都耸耸肩，表示把办公场所的厕所变成中性厕所没问题。

They looked so unconcerned that I found myself feeling sheepish for having asked the question at all.

他们看起来浑不在意，以至于我为自己问了这个问题感到不好意思。

Yet older workers were less keen.

然而，较为年长的员工就不那么赞同了。

The men mostly said they did not like the idea but could not say why.

大部分男性表示他们不喜欢这个想法，但又说不出为什么。

The women were more forthcoming.

女性则更加直言不讳。

Variously they said the men’s loos smelt⁹.

她们的说法各式各样，有的说男厕的味道难闻。

They did not want to put on make-up in front of male colleagues.

有的说她们不想在男同事面前化妆。

The ladies loo was the perfect place to cry. Or to gossip.

女厕是哭泣或八卦的绝佳之所。

Or was a much needed refuge.

或者也是非常必要的避难所。

Yet none of these five reasons is conclusive¹⁰.

然而，以上的这5个理由都不是很有说服力。

All loos stink¹¹ if they are not cleaned often enough, so the answer is more frequent dousing¹² with Harpic.

如果清洁得不够勤，所有的厕所都很难闻，因此答案是勤用洁厕剂清洁。

As for make-up, I put mine on so amateurishly¹³ that I dislike being observed by anyone.

至于化妆，我化妆的技术非常外行，因此被任何人看到我都不情愿。

Given the choice, I would rather battle with cloggy mascara in front of an oblivious¹⁴ man than in front of a woman who could see what a hash I was making of it.

如果真要选，我宁可在一名粗枝大叶的男性面前与粘稠的睫毛膏作斗争，也不想在一个能看出我刷得一团糟的女性面前做这件事。

A similar argument applies to crying.

哭泣也是同理。

It is true that women cry more than men, and as blubbing at one’s desk is not acceptable, we tend to do it in the loo.

的确，女性哭泣得比男性多，因为在办公桌旁哭泣不被接受，我们往往会在厕所里哭泣。

Yet the few times I have wept at work, my main aim was not to be observed.

然而，我为数不多的几次在办公室哭泣时，我最在意的都是别有人说什么。

Men are possibly less likely to notice and to comment, and so having them washing their hands next to you as you dab¹⁵ your red eyes might not be too bad.

男性注意到你哭了并加以评论的可能性较低，因此在你擦拭着红肿的眼睛的同时，有男性在你旁边洗手，或许也不是太坏。

It is also true that more gossiping goes on in the women’s loos than in the men’s — where I gather silence usually prevails.

女厕里的八卦的确也比男厕里更多——我猜男厕里通常是静默无声的。

Yet for either sex the loo is a dangerous place for chatting as you never know who is in the stalls.

然而无论是对女性还是男性，在厕所闲聊都是一件危险的事情，因为你永远不知道其他隔间里有谁。

As a refuge, the office toilet is much better — there are times when the privacy afforded by a locked cubicle¹⁶ door is just what one needs.

而作为避难所，办公室厕所的确非常棒——有时锁上的隔间门提供的私密性正是人们需要的。

But in those instances, I cannot see it matters much whether the invisible people in neighbouring stalls are men or women.

但在那种情况下，我看不出隔壁隔间里看不见的人是男是女有多大关系。

Yet there is another, better reason for segregated loos.

然而，男女厕所分开还有一个更好的理由。

While half the tech world was gathered in San Francisco, I was at a rival tech conference in Europe.

在科技界近一半的人聚集在旧金山时，我正在欧洲参加一个类似的科技大会。

As almost everyone in that industry appears to be a man, at coffee time I had a weird¹⁷ experience.

因为似乎科技业里几乎所有人都是男性，茶歇时，我经历了古怪的事情。

There was a long queue for the men’s loo — and none for the women’s.

男厕前排起长龙，而女厕这边没人排队。

As I dried my hands I started up an interesting conversation with the three others in there about why there are so few of them in tech, and a thought occurred to me: when women are in such a minority, a loo of their own is a perk¹⁸ worth keeping.

在烘干手的时候，我与女厕所的另外3人就为何科技业的女性如此之少进行了有趣的谈话，我突然萌生了一个想法：在女性占如此少数的时候，女性专属厕所是一项值得保留的福利。