Toilets, Time, and the Female Conditioning

Sally Somerton
4 days ago
2 min read

Sally Somerton, Island Writer

I find myself wondering, not for the first time, and likely not the last, when exactly it was decided that the quiet tending of the porcelain throne would fall, as gently and persistently as limescale, into the hands of women.

Not announced, of course. Nothing so dramatic.

No ceremony.

No ribbon-cutting.

No ancient decree etched into stone beside laws of land and lineage.

Just… a slow seep.

A drip, perhaps.

Like a tap not fully turned off.

One day, it was simply noticed that she was the one who saw it.

The ring.

The mark.

The state of things.

And once seen, it could not be unseen.

And once unseen by others, it somehow became hers to restore.

Not because she was told.

But because she noticed.

And therein lies the quiet mischief of it all.

Women, you see, are not merely cleaners of toilets.

They are keepers of awareness.

Curators of the unseen detail.

Tenders of the small things that make a space feel… liveable.

But awareness, left unspoken, becomes responsibility. And responsibility, unshared, becomes a burden.

And suddenly, somewhere between love and living, partnership and pattern, she is holding a toilet brush like a sceptre she never asked to inherit.

There is humour here, of course there is. Because truly, what an absurd little corner of history this is. That something so universal, so human, so entirely everyone’s business…should quietly become someone else’s job.

So perhaps the question is not when it became hers.

But why it stayed that way.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the next time the lid is lifted and the truth revealed in all its unflushed glory…we pause.

We smile.

And we remember-

This is not just about toilets.

It's about noticing.

And maybe now… we all begin to notice.

Sally x

Sally Somerton, Island Writer

Writer of Poetic Prose and Creative Non-Fiction on a Woman's Life.

Writer of Women's fiction: Island mysteries, psychological suspense, midlife adventure.