"The issue about the toilets I get completely, I had a similar experience with a request for a prayer room on our floor for one muslim employee which was denied. He claimed that we weren't respecting his religious rights and got his prayer room and was the only person to use it. When he left we still couldn't reclaim the space"

OK, now go and ask some women about how they would feel about having to share their bathroom with the men at work. As I live in a foreign country, I actually took the time to survey literally every 'native' woman that I know just to verify that this wasn't just a cultural thing. Every single one said that they would consider the situation unacceptable.

You on the other hand seem to think that my male colleague was being reasonable. This gulf between what women expect, and what men consider to be reasonable is a very large part of the reason that women are not well represented in IT.

Oh, one other thing. When people say things like 'No offense intended, but', or, as in this case 'I'm sorry to be blunt, but', the person saying that isn't actually sorry at all. It's just a passive aggressive communication technique designed to deflect criticism like mine. Try replacing "Sorry to be blunt" by "I'm going to be blunt" in the original post, and you'll see that the meaning of the phrase changes not one little bit. And regardless, the whole idea of 'being blunt' is designed as a condescending swipe at the understanding of the person/s concerned "you're not capable of understanding a refined argument, so I'll be blunt". Again, return to the original post, and remove the "I'm sorry to be blunt, but', and the post would have expressed the poster's intended message, but without the condescension. Which is exactly my point.

Now, I imagine I'll get voted down again for daring to suggest that the comportment of men in this industry is anything less than magnificent.