Waiting in Line for Equality

A typical sighting, women waiting in line to use the bathroom

The article Potty Party in Perspective: Gender and Family Issues in Planning and Designing Public Restrooms brings up multiple perspectives of inequality within the realm of public toilets. Public restrooms are some of the only remaining sex-segregated spaces remaining which leaves almost everyone at a disadvantage. In the examples written about women, Anthony and Dufresne discuss the lack of public restrooms for women. Many offices, and spaces were male dominated in the past, therefore not in need of women’s restrooms. When women began to enter these spheres, they often were left without a place to use the toilet or sent on a wild goose chase to find one somewhere distant. In most public spaces, the number of men’s public restrooms was double or sometimes triple that of women. When taken into account the time women spent using the restroom compared to men, the math did not line up. Taking into account the time to undress, sit down, use toilet paper, and account for menstruation, pregnancy, or children present, women on average spent three minutes to go to the bathroom, compared to the 30 seconds it took men. This doesn’t account for the time spent waiting in line to get to the restroom either (Anthony 2007). The inequality of women’s public restrooms in the past is something that needs to be continually looked at in regard to the present and the future of public restrooms.  Planning for more women’s restrooms was a start in mending this issue. There is a pressing issue to create more access to public restrooms for those who menstruate or may be needing a toilet more often due to pregnancy. These issues directly affect women, but also can help others as well. The homeless are often in need for and denied public access to toilets. Contributing public restrooms to the design of city layouts may significantly improve the livelihood of those cities. Architects, designers and planners must be aware of public restrooms when beginning to work on projects on both a small and large scale. A contributing factor to this begins with more women in the places these decisions are being made. According to Anthony and Dufresne, in 2007 AIA registered female architects was at 13%. After seeking more recent information, the AIA identified 17% of registered architects were females currently. As women continue to work in spaces that used to be predominately male, the move towards creating spaces that are inclusive to all will increase. Public bathrooms may be just the start.

Bibliography

Anthony, Kathryn H., and Meghan Dufresne. “Potty Parity in Perspective: Gender and Family Issues in Planning and Designing Public Restrooms.” Journal of Planning Literature, vol. 21, no. 3, Feb. 2007, pp. 267–294, doi:10.1177/0885412206295846.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0885412206295846#articleCitationDownloadContainer