Abstrakt
The gendering of space can be read both as a reflection of power relations and as a mediator of these. Toilet facilities available to the public have been studied by feminist scholars as one of the most clear-cut examples of this gendering practice.
Their theoretical insights are used to analyse scenes featuring toilets from a selection of Czech (and also Czechoslovak) feature films shot during and after the communist period (from early 1950s to 2010). These gendered imaginary spaces are often depicted as balancing between a site of safety and a place of physical or other attacks totally breaching the presumed privacy of the place laying bare the precariousness of this ‘border region’.
Thus, a certain binary corresponding with the uncertainty of the allegedly private space in the public is created. The findings are then compared with conclusions of feminist analyses of real life toilets.