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Wednesday, June 08, 2005
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Dr. Clara Greed …is very degreed. She lists, after her “Dr” title and her name, MRTPI, FASI, PhD, FRGS. That’s one title, one name, and four degrees. Although UD doesn’t recognize anything here but the Ph.D., she is willing to be impressed. She is also willing to entertain the possibility that Dr. Greed’s bailiwick, Toilets Around the World and What They are Trying to Tell Us, constitutes a useful academic pursuit. Greed’s heavy-on-the-theory book on toilet design has chapters with titles like “Conceptualising the Problem.” The language on the book’s jacket offers some inadvertent amusement: “Although a range of design guidance on toilets exists, there is still considerable dissatisfaction with the end product.” The language also sometimes takes itself too seriously: “It is essential for architects to have an informed understanding and practical knowledge of toilet issues.” It seems to UD that if you want to devote your life to the analysis of toilets, you need both a sense of humor and a thick skin. But here is Dr. Greed’s response to some ridicule in The New Criterion of an upcoming conference on gendered toilets: ‘ Why do you see public toilets as a joke? In the West toilets are a national disgrace, in the Far East there has been a restroom revolution and public toilets are seen as an essential and integral component of good urban design and a cultured, civilised society. A nation can be judged by its toilets. Are you afraid of admitting your corporeal humanity, and not just a cultured brain? Is this why it is distasteful? Everyone's got to go, so why the shame. Professor Clara Greed University of the West of England, Bristol ’ UD acknowledges that it’s somewhat immature to treat toilets as a joke but on the other hand, she is getting a bit tired of the old You’re afraid of your body business (see UD’s recent entry - scroll down - on the porn class at the University of Iowa for the same maneuver) whenever anyone questions the intellectual centrality of things like pornography and toilets. If you scoff even a little you must be terrified of your humanity. “Is that why it is distasteful?” Dr. Greed wants to know. No, toilets are not in themselves distasteful. Cultural studies scholars huddled in a room for two days talking about toilets is distasteful. Beyond distasteful -- indeed, practically a form of hate speech, for which I hope the University of the West of England can offer some form of diversity retooling -- is Dr. Greed’s contention that “In the West toilets are a national disgrace.” As an American, I find this pretty offensive. It seems to me that just in my lifetime the standard of public toilets in this country has improved significantly. Maybe I’m just being a defensive patriot, but I really don’t take to this sort of gross generalization when it comes to a country that, with all its faults, is, I think, worthy of our allegiance. And as for the Far East and its much-vaunted “Restroom Revolution,” big deal. You can have it is all I can say. |
