Potty Parity - History and Developments

History and Developments

Segregation of toilet facilities by race was outlawed in the United States by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Provision of disabled-access facilities was mandated in federal buildings by the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 and in private buildings by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. No federal legislation relates to provision of facilities for women. The banning of pay toilets, beginning in New York in 1975, came about because women had to pay to urinate whereas men only had to pay to defecate.

In many older buildings, little or no provision was made for women because few would work in or visit them. Increased gender equality in employment and other spheres of life has impelled change. Until the 1980s, building codes for stadiums in the United States stipulated more toilets for men, on the assumption that most sports fans were male.

The first "Restroom Equity" Act was passed in California in 1989. It was introduced by then-Senator Arthur Torres after several long waits for his wife to return from the bathroom.

Facilities for female U.S. senators on the Senate Chamber level were first provided in 1992.

LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee was built in 1999 in compliance with the Tennessee Equitable Restrooms Act, providing 288 fixtures for men and 580 for women. The Tennessean reported fifteen-minute waits at some men's rooms, compared to none at women's rooms. The Act was amended in 2000 to empower the state architect to authorize extra men's rooms at stadiums, horse shows and auto racing venues.

Plaskow reports in 2008 that on the New York Hilton's ballroom floor, the women's room had four female stalls, compared to six stalls and six urinals in the men's room.

In 2011 the U.S. House of Representatives got its first bathroom near the chamber (Room H-211 of the U.S. Capitol). It is only open to women lawmakers, not the public.

In 2011 a "Right to Pee" (as called by the media) campaign began in Mumbai, India's largest city. Women, but not men, have to pay to urinate in Mumbai, despite regulations against this practice. Women have also been sexually assaulted while urinating in fields. Thus, activists have collected more than 50,000 signatures supporting their demands that the local government stop charging women to urinate, build more toilets, keep them clean, provide sanitary napkins and a trash can, and hire female attendants. In response, city officials have agreed to build hundreds of public toilets for women in Mumbai, and some local legislators are now promising to build toilets for women in every one of their districts.

On 19 February 2012, some Chinese women in Guangzhou protested against the inequitable waiting times. This movement has drifted to Beijing, calling for women's facilities to be proportionally larger to accommodate the longer use times and ameliorate the longer queues of females. Since March 2011, Guangzhou's urban-management commission has ordered that new and newly-renovated female public toilets must be 1.5 times the size of their male counterparts. The aforementioned movement is pressing for the regulation to be applied retroactively.