A ‘Period Dignity Officer’ Seemed Like a Good Idea. Until a Man Was Named. Here’s What’s Happened to Him. » News | Women, Politics, Human Rights, Social Media » Women: A ‘Period Dignity Officer’ Seemed Like a Good Idea. Until a Man Was Named. Here’s What’s Happened to Him.
When you’re standing in the women’s restroom, with the urinal locked up, a woman in the front row takes a long look at you — as you wait for your turn in the stalls, no one else is in the restroom.
This is a private women’s room — and it’s a bathroom, too. But when she sees you standing in there, she decides to tell a few people, in the restroom and maybe once outside.
A woman named Marybeth who started the #girlsquad movement, which is an online campaign to support and encourage women to stand up for themselves in the bathroom, says she was one of these people.
“I had a group of women — and I’m not sure when it happened — but I’m told that I went about asking all of these women in the bathroom what they wanted me to think about them,” Marybeth, a 35-year-old mother from Philadelphia, said.
Over the past few weeks, women on social media have been sharing their private bathroom moments.
Their posts range from sharing their first-hand stories about uncomfortable bathroom encounters — or sharing how they stand up for themselves in crowded public bathrooms — to sharing selfies of themselves standing up for themselves. They’ve taken to Twitter to call this movement The #girlsquad.
The #girlsquad has also inspired a few men to join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram.
And while many of these women share their stories with their fellow girls — or share #girlsquad selfies — they don’t really want to be labeled a group.
“There’s a lot of people who really have no interest in women’s restrooms,” Maryb