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In 1987, a man, a woman, and their daughter attended a Tchaikovsky concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The most notable thing about their outing, all these years later, is something that actually wasn't the least bit unusual: The two women waited in an interminably long line for the bathroom, while the man did not.
What separates their uncomfortable experience from those of innumerable others is that the man in their party was a California state senator. After witnessing just how long his family members had to wait, he introduced legislation to guarantee the state's women more toilets.
In the three decades since, dozens of cities and states have joined the cause of "potty parity," the somewhat trivializing nickname for the goal of giving men and women equal access to public toilets. These legislative efforts, along with changes to plumbing codes that altered the ratio of men's to women's toilets, have certainly helped imbalances in wait times, but they haven't come close to resolving them.
"It still remains a huge problem today, overall," says Kathryn Anthony, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois who has studied the issue for more than a decade. The issue persists for many reasons: the exigencies of real estate, the building codes that govern construction, and, of course, sexism.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/women-men-bathroom-lines-wait/580993/
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Monday February 04 2019, @01:46AM (3 children)
I will take only a moment to remark on how odd it seems that it acknowledges biological differences can be determinative! There, done.
Now, having conceded there is some truth, I do think it's just a bit pat to write the whole thing off as biologically determined. I have particular difficulty believing this because I have lived in situations which proved to me that at least part of this is cultural.
"If there is anything I envy men for it's the ability to take a piss standing up."
Sure, our equipment is more designed for it, but if you spend much time in southern Europe (or other places, I am sure) you'll quickly find out that women do it all the time nonetheless. So it's not that you're not capable of it so much as you're not accustomed to it. This is cultural. Italian women squat over a hole in the floor, pull a napkin out of their pocket for a dab, and head back out on the dance floor without thinking about it.
"Sometimes we go in there just to take a few minutes to decompress."
And THIS is a big part of the reason for the problem right there. That's abuse of public accommodation really, but you're right, it's rampant. As a result of one selfish woman camping the john when she shouldn't be there, another woman is stuck waiting in line doing the peepee dance for ages. Second woman's husband/father is a state Senator, so soon you have more women's toilets. And more women taking even more time in them doing things other than what they're there for, so, wouldn't you know it? We need to spend even more money on more women's toilets.
And somewhere along the way we also lost the ability to call them 'toilets' - outside of the darkweb and soylent, of course. No, they're 'restrooms.' As if they were put there for us to rest in. Trust me, guys don't rest in toilets.
The Europeans, to their credit, faced this challenge quite practically. Instead of building more women-only facilities, they just made it all unisex. Works wonders. No one waits any longer than anyone else to get in - and no one really feels like it's an appropriate space to camp out and "decompress" while a line builds up outside the door either.
"Also, did you know Shark Week sometimes includes more water retention *and* more peeing? Or sometimes really bad gas?"
Sounds like a normal day to me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 04 2019, @03:37AM
Only when women folk is around or you live somewhere the residents have delusions of grandeur, otherwise we call them the shitter.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 04 2019, @04:11AM
> I will take only a moment to remark on how odd it seems that it acknowledges biological differences can be determinative! There, done.
For fuck's sake, I am not and never have been [what the loonie right refers to as] a postmodernist, or one of those "everything is a social construct!!!11one" types. Let go of that strawman or you'll go up in the blaze when I torch it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 04 2019, @06:51PM
I will take only a moment to remark on how odd it seems that it acknowledges biological differences can be determinative!
And also how zero SJW's are freaking out about it. It's almost like those folks you're so terribly frightened of aren't real.