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Two queueing theorists of Ghent University investigated why queues at restrooms are invariably longer for ladies than for men. Time and time again. What are the main causes for this disparity? And how can it be overcome? Moving to unisex toilets, it appears from this study, may reduce waiting times for women from over 6 minutes to less than a minute and a half. Already a symbol for transgender equality, unisex toilets can hence boast excellent figures when it comes to reducing waiting times. Or, how transgender-friendliness may help in battling female-unfriendly toilet culture.
It turns out there are three main causes for the difference in waiting time between men and women. A first factor explaining why women wait longer is that the net number of toilets for women is smaller than that for men. This is because the total surface area is often divided equally while a toilet cabin inevitably takes up more space than a urinal. Overall, an average toilet area can accommodate 20 to 30 percent more toilets for men (urinals + cabins) than for women.
A second reason is that according to scientific studies women spend one and a half up to two times as long on the toilet. The reasons are mostly practical. In contrast to a urinal, a door must be opened and closed twice, a toilet seat needs cleaning, and more and more difficult clothes have to be taken off and on. This results in an average time spent at the toilet of 1 minute for men and 1 minute and 30 seconds for women.
A third factor is the overall activity at the restroom. As long as it's not too busy, the overall effect of ladies having a smaller number of toilets and spending more time on those toilets does not lead to long queues. However when for example everybody heads home, more women arrive at the toilets than the system can handle. This condition amplifies the above effects and results in outrageous waiting times for women.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-lengths-restroom.html
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @07:59PM (13 children)
No. Explain it to me, professor. Women have a shorter urethra, smaller bladder, smaller kidneys, and lower blood volume than men. Why should women urinate more frequently than men, when women are proportionally smaller than men? Are you sure women aren't drinking more diet soda and vitamin water for cultural reasons, to stay thin and look pretty?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 17 2017, @09:20PM (5 children)
> > women go to the bathroom on average more often than men (Do we all know our biology?)
> No. Explain it to me, professor. (...) Why should women urinate more frequently than men
Your failure to get the point lies in the word "urinate". Pick a random crowd of women of all ages: about 7% of those women need extra bathroom time. Narrow that crowd to a regular business event, and almost 14% will need to periodically visit the stalls.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @09:58PM (4 children)
Right, so you're not going to support your claims at all. You're not going to cite Oprah and claim "women's bladders are smaller" and you're not going to claim women's intestines are somehow different and you're not even going to claim "women need to adjust their tampons." You're just going to be a fucking asshole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @11:28PM (1 child)
Menstrual cycles, moron. Since you have to have it spelled out, women have reasons to visit the restroom that men will never have. There are ALSO cultural reasons to visit the restroom, in addition to biological reasons. But since you aren't even aware of the biological reasons, no one expects you to understand the cultural reasons. Just crawl back under your rock, and forget all about this conversation. I expect that your head is beginning to hurt right about now.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:36AM
Menstruation is mentioned in "adjust their tampons" and women don't menstruate on demand, you poster child for abortions. Aha, got it! Pregnant women need to spend extra time aborting their unborn children when they feel like they're turning into you!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @11:34PM (1 child)
No fuckwit. He's talking about menstruation but is too much of an american pussy to say so. I bet he's scared of nipples on tv too.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:03AM
> No fuckwit. He's talking about menstruation but is too much of an american pussy to say so. I bet he's scared of nipples on tv too.
Subtlety is a shrinking art form.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday July 17 2017, @10:13PM (2 children)
Yes, women are on average smaller all-round, but in different proportions from men : women have significantly shorter urethras. You should take a look at a woman one day and you will see why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:48AM (1 child)
My high school biology teacher refused to let anyone leave during quizzes, not even to use the restroom. Tie a knot in it, he told the boys. Put a cork in it, he told the girls. Otherwise he allowed restroom breaks, and I as a young boy was the one who used the restroom most frequently. The school had installed a coke machine, you see, and I was drinking cokes at every opportunity.
Now, your exercise is to tell me why the girls were NOT using the restroom more frequently than I was.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:34AM
Because you could easily hold your penis to stop the flow of urine.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:51PM (3 children)
This. Volume goes as the cube of the scaling factor. Meanwhile kidneys filter over a surface area and thus goes as the square of the scaling factor. So a 10% reduction in size results in roughly a 30% reduction in the ability to hold pee and only a 20% reduction in the ability to generate pee. Quite obvious really. Are you sure you're on the right internet?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:33PM (2 children)
Protein synthesis (therefore, waste production) should scale linear with mass assuming constant body temps and similar metabolisms, and bodies being mostly water means same density of waste generation, means same bladder storage capacity in minutes to full capacity. There should be a linear function expressing ml/hr of waste production per kg of body regardless of gender.
Assuming that genetically bladders are identical in ml volume to Kg body mass for all genders, which admittedly is pretty dumb given that most body parts are NOT constant regardless of gender (consider breast volume, obviously)
You could make a pretty good surface area to volume ratio argument about skin based on the idea little women lose more water to sweat given a more favorable surf area to volume ratio and spherical large men lose more water to pee. A kilo of flesh has to dissipate a watt or so of heat even at base rate, right, so due to surface area reasons little women should run cooler than spherical large men.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:47AM
Those are very good points. However the structure isn't volume constrained as demonstrated on "people of walmart" and so forth. An even better example would be pregnancy, when the volume gets big the belly sticks out rather than going zero-to-negative bladder volume. There is a mass distribution argument such that there could be excessive pressure, maybe.