Dads and male caregivers are being given a bum deal in toilets throughout the UK, according to a campaign that is pushing for a change in the law.
The Bum Deal campaign, launched by the UK feminist organisation Love & Power and backed by Oxfam, the British Toilet Association (BTA) and parents, hopes to inspire a grassroots movement that will make baby changing facilities available to all parents and caregivers.
Parents are being encouraged to join the organisation and track where facilities are available, as well as encourage their local restaurants, bars and council to provide baby changes for all.
The campaign is also pushing for legislative change that would make it a requirement for all restaurants and public toilets to have baby changing facilities available to men and women.
“Every baby needs their bum changed at some point and it’s ridiculous to think that only mums can do that,” said Charlotte Fischer, a co-director of Love & Power. “Yet the vast majority of public toilets and many in bars and restaurants don’t have changing facilities at all, or only have changing facilities in areas used by women. We want equality for all parents to be able to change their kids’ nappies. That’s good for mums, it’s good for dads and its good for babies.”
No official data regarding changing facilities exists, but parent volunteers of the campaign researched 500 public toilets in their neighbourhoods across three towns and cities and found only 15% had baby change facilities accessible to all caregivers.
Raymond Martin, the director of the BTA, estimates that of the public toilets that pay to be examined by the association – the crème de la crème of British public lavatories – about 60% have baby change facilities accessible to all parents. Levelling the nappy changing playing field is a subject he is fiercely passionate about, having been excluded from many facilities while caring for his baby as a bereaved father.
“Thirty-two years ago my wife died in childbirth and I was a widowed father of a newborn baby girl and a one-year-old daughter,” he said. “Whenever we left home, I used to have to wait outside the female toilets and ask strangers for the opportunity to enter their facilities to change the baby’s nappy. It was humiliating.”
Karl, a father supporting the campaign who did not want to give his surname, said he regularly found he was unable to use a baby change while out with his daughter, Juno. “I’m a dad. Everywhere I go, I don’t get to or want to have to turn that off, at sports or anywhere, but if you can’t change your baby there, it feels like a message that you’re not welcome.”
The campaign wants to emulate the success of a similar movement in the US, which was supported by John Legend. In 2016, Barack Obama signed the Bathrooms Accessible in Every Situation Act, known as the Babies Act, which forced federal public buildings to have baby changing facilities. A year later, New York city council approved legislation requiring new and renovated buildings to have changing tables available to all caregivers.
The ethical fashion brand Black & Beech has supported Bum Deal by making merchandise featuring slogans such as “parenting not babysitting” and “cleaning babies’ bums is not a job only for mums”, with profits going into the campaign. The firm’s founder and CEO, Stacey Grant-Canham, said: “I’m the mother of two sons and I want them to know, in the words of bell hooks that feminism is for everybody.”
Tottenham Hotspur football club has become the campaign’s first official “Fair Change” venue, after making sure there were nine accessible bathrooms that all caregivers could use in its stadium.
Donna-Maria Cullen, the executive director at Spurs, said the recognition “promotes the clear message that parenting is for all and dispels the notion that changing nappies is solely the job of the female caregiver”.
