Submitted via IRC for Soycow
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: 2) by bradley13 on Monday February 04 2019, @12:51PM (3 children)
@Runaway: I think you forgot the /sarc tag, but your proposals are so over-the-top that I finally assume sarcasm. Four women's stalls for every male fixture of whatever kind? Hire "potty police"? Please tell me you're joking...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 04 2019, @02:28PM (2 children)
Not really joking at all. The potty police IS "over the top", I don't think anyone, anywhere, would stand for it. Not even in Soviet Russia! But, the rest? Why not four stalls in the women's room, for each fixture in the men's room? I never wait in line for the restroom, why should women?
One alternative I didn't mention: eliminate restrooms, and require bushes out side every place of business. We all stand or squat behind a bush when we answer the call of nature! You can't get any more natural than that, can you? Everyone takes a little gardening trowel with them, to turn the soil, eliminating the stench.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @07:39PM (1 child)
I don't think this would work well in MN in winter.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday February 04 2019, @08:23PM
Why not? It's amusing to write your name in the snow and then watch it steam in the frigid air.
Washington DC delenda est.