Congress To Hold Hearings On "Potty Parity Act"

Women may still face tough obstacles in the workplace, but if the "Potty Parity Act" passes they will have a slightly shorter wait to use bathrooms in federal buildings. The act seeks to require a 1-to-1 ratio for women's and men's restrooms. From the article: "'A lot of times people, when I dealt with this bill, called it "potty parity." They made jokes,' said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who proposed similar legislation as a state lawmaker that was enacted in the 1990s. 'The fact is, it's not a joke. Not only is it not a joke to women, it's not a joke to men who go with the women who have to wait while they're standing in line,' he said. 'It's also politically very popular. It's the right thing to do and it's catching up with the cultural lag in our society.'"

Comments

What type of equal?

[wgaryhas]

The bill proposes making sure there are an equal number of toilets in Women's restroom as there are toilets + urinals in Men's restroom. They are advocating spending more money and allocating more floorspace for Women's restrooms in comparison to Men's restrooms. They want to favor Women over Men, or they could just get rid of urinals.

Re:What type of equal?

[bill_mcgonigle]

They want to favor Women over Men, or they could just get rid of urinals.

As I read it they want to provide the _same_ number of facilities. You can fit two or more urinals in the space of a toilet, so given equal floor-space, you're likely to get more men's 'stations' than women's.

To provide women with an equal number of facilities you have to provide more floor space for more toilets. This isn't gender favoritism, it's matter of mechanics. They will still have a lowered pipelined (!) throughput, because urinals are still more time-efficient. The Feds could go further still and mandate equivalent restroom throughput, but it appears they haven't, so women will still be disadvantaged to some extent. But the sexes are mechanically different, so perfect parity isn't reality.

The only favoritism argument that can be made is a purely monetary one, as rent on more floorspace is more expensive, so they'd be spending more money per woman on toilet facilities. I don't put it past the government to reduce the problem to an inappropriate measure.

Still, I wonder if there haven't been any novel advances in toilet design in the past century that could address the disparity more efficiently.

Re:What type of equal?

[SleazyRidr]

'Her Urinal'

Do a Google Image search.

Re:What type of equal?

[bar-agent]

'Her Urinal' Do a Google Image search.

Nothing useful from that search, but I looked for "women's urinal" and found this one. I am no woman, but this seems like the only practical choice.

Re:What type of equal?

[Locke2005]

If women want true equality with men, they should learn to pee standing up!

Re:What type of equal?

[RockDoctor]

But the sexes are mechanically different, so perfect parity isn't reality.

[SFX : excited 1970s TV Voice-Over Man] "We can rebuild her. We have the technology ..."

[inaudible muttering] "OK ... you're paying the voice-over bills."

"We can rebuild him. We have the technology ..."

(I should have noticed at the time that "Steve" is a name that works as well for women or men. Come to think of it, so does "Lee".)

Big issue

[jandersen]

... require a 1-to-1 ratio for women's and men's restrooms ...

It seems like a very small problem to try to fix by law; which is not to say that it may not be important. Still, I read an article once, in a mathematical journal, no less, that worked on this problem of why there always is a long queue outside the ladies' when there is hardly any by the gets'. It turns out that what makes the whole difference is that men stand and women sit, if you know what I mean. It takes a little bit longer for a woman, and that is enough to make that difference; so to solve the problem, there needs to more loos for women than men - I don't remember the ratio, but it is probably the Golden one, all things considered.

This is of course an example from queue theory and chaos; another one is the situation where the traffic grinds to a halt on the motorway for no obvious reason. It turns out that it has a lot to do with lorries overtaking, which forces smaller cars to brake, which causes people further back to brake harder, etc etc all the way down a standstill.

Wrong approach

[Locke2005]

Make all restrooms single user unisex restrooms, just like the bathrooms in your house. Then their gender automatically adjusts to the customer base. Does it really make sense to have half your toilets still reserved for men when you're hosting a Mary Kay convention?

Very Simple Solution

[markass530]

Provide equal number of urinals in womens restrooms and supply them with those things that are all over the web, that allow women to pee standing up. Either the women will use them, or the status quo would remain http://www.go-girl.com/

equality, often unequal :)

[playcat]

men: urinals + toilets = x women: toilets only = y present day: y x future: y = x ... future is not fair, since women can take y number twos, while men can take only x - urinals.