Sex Differences
Women spend more time in washrooms than men, for physiological and cultural reasons. The requirement to use a cubicle rather than a urinal means urination takes longer; twice as long on average in studies. Women also make more visits to washrooms. Urinary tract infections and incontinence are more common in women. Pregnancy, menstruation, breastfeeding, and diaper-changing increase usage. The elderly, who are disproportionately female, take longer and more frequent bathroom visits.
A variety of modified urinals and personal funnels has been invented to make it easier for women to urinate standing up. None has become widespread enough to affect policy formation on potty parity.
John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University, calls himself the "father of potty parity." Banzhaf argues that to ignore potty parity, that is, to have merely equal facilities for men and women, constitutes a form of sex discrimination against women. Several authors have identified potty parity as a potential rallying issue for feminism, since all women can identify with it.
Read more about this topic: Potty Parity
Famous quotes containing the word differences:
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)