Potty parity is equal or equitable provision of public toilet facilities for females and males within a public space.
Parity may be defined in various ways in relation to facilities in a building. The simplest is as equal floorspace for male and female washrooms. Since men's and boys' bathrooms include urinals, which take up less space than stalls, this still results in more facilities for males. An alternative parity is by number of fixtures within washrooms. However, since females on average spend more time in washrooms more males are able to use more facilities per unit time. More recent parity regulations therefore require more fixtures for females to ensure that the average time spent waiting to use the toilet is the same for females as for males, or to equalise throughputs of male and female toilets. [1]
The lack of diaper-changing stations for babies in men's restrooms has been listed as a potty parity issue by fathers. Some jurisdictions have considered legislation mandating diaper-changing stations in men's restrooms. [2]
Women and girls often spend more time in washrooms than men and boys, for both physiological and cultural reasons. [3] The requirement to use a cubicle rather than a urinal means urination takes longer and hand washing must be done more thoroughly. [3] [4] Females also make more visits to washrooms. Urinary tract infections and incontinence are more common in females. [3] Pregnancy, menstruation, breastfeeding, and diaper-changing increase usage. [3] The elderly, who are disproportionately female, take longer and more frequent bathroom visits.
A variety of female urinals and personal funnels have been invented to make it easier for females to urinate standing up. None has become widespread enough to affect policy formation on potty parity. [4]
John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University, calls himself the "father of potty parity." [4] Banzhaf argues that to ignore potty parity; that is, to have merely equal facilities for males and females; constitutes a form of sex discrimination against women. [5] In the 1970s the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America made a similar point: that allowing toilet providers to charge for the use of a cubicle while urinals required no money was unfair to females. [6]
Several authors have identified potty parity as a potential rallying issue for feminism, saying all women can identify with it. [3]
Public toilets have historically been divided along the lines of sex, race, class, disability, and other distinctions. In apartheid South Africa and the Jim Crow American South, toilets were segregated by both sex and race. During the Victorian era in the United Kingdom, toilets were segregated by both sex and class. [7]
The first bathroom for congresswomen in the United States Capitol was opened in 1962. [8]
Segregation of toilet facilities by race was outlawed in the United States by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [4] 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. [4] No federal legislation relates to provision of facilities for women. [4] The banning of pay toilets came about because women/girls had to pay to urinate whereas men/boys only had to pay to defecate. [4] [9]
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. [1] In 1973, to protest the lack of female bathrooms at Harvard University, women poured jars of fake urine on the steps of the university's Lowell Hall, a protest Florynce Kennedy thought of and participated in. [10]
The first "Restroom Equity" Act in the United States was passed in California in 1989. [9] It was introduced by then-Senator Arthur Torres after several long waits for his wife to return from the bathroom. [9]
Facilities for female U.S. senators on the Senate Chamber level were first provided in 1992. [3]
Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee was built in 1999 in compliance with the Tennessee Equitable Restrooms Act, providing 288 fixtures for men and 580 for women. [4] The Tennessean reported fifteen-minute waits at some men's rooms, compared to none at women's rooms. [4] 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. [11]
In 2011 the U.S. House of Representatives got its first women's bathroom near the chamber (Room H-211 of the U.S. Capitol). [12] It is only open to women lawmakers, not the public. [12]
Current laws in the United Kingdom require a 1:1 female–male ratio of restroom space in public buildings. [13] The International Building Code requires range of female to male ratio of toilets depending on the building occupancy. Most occupancies require 1:1 ratio, but Assembly uses can require up to 2:1 ratio of female to male toilets. [14] New York City Council passed a law in 2005 requiring roughly this in all public buildings. [15] [16] An advisory ruling had been passed in 2003. [16] U.S. state laws vary between 1:1, 3:2, and 2:1 ratios. [4] The Uniform Plumbing Code specifies a 4:1 ratio in movie theaters. [4]
Gender-neutral toilets are common in some contexts, including on aircraft, on trains or buses, portable toilets, and accessible toilets. In parts of Europe they are also common in buildings. In the United States, they began to appear in the 2000s on university campuses and in some upmarket restaurants. [4] Studies conducted by the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management [17] and by Ghent University have concluded that properly designed unisex restrooms can reduce waiting times for women. [18]
In 2013, the state of California passed bill 1266 ("The School Success and Opportunity Act") requiring provision of facilities consistent with a pupil's gender identity. [19]
Provisions for separate toilets for women workers are found in Section 19 of the Factories Act, 1948; [20] Section 9 of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951; [21] Section 20 of the Mines Act, 1952; [22] Rule 53 of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Rules, 1971; [23] and Rule 42 of the Inter State Migrant Workmen (RECS) Central Rules, 1980. [24]
In 2011 a "Right to Pee" (as called by the media) campaign began in Mumbai, India's largest city. [25] 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. [25] 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. [25] 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. [25]
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. [26]
Elimination communication (EC) is a practice in which a caregiver uses timing, signals, cues, and intuition to address an infant's need to eliminate waste. Caregivers try to recognize and respond to babies' bodily needs and enable them to urinate and defecate in an appropriate place. Caregivers may use diapers (nappies) as a back-up in case of "misses" some or all of the time, or not at all. EC emphasizes communication between the caregiver and child, helping them both become more attuned to the child's innate rhythms and control of urination and defecation. The term "elimination communication" was inspired by traditional practices of diaperless baby care in less industrialized countries and hunter-gatherer cultures. Some practitioners of EC begin soon after birth, the optimum window being zero to four months in terms of helping the baby get in tune with their elimination needs, although it can be started with babies of any age. The practice can be done full-time, part-time, or just occasionally.
Urination is the release of urine from the bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction, and known colloquially by various names including peeing, weeing, pissing, and euphemistically going number one. In healthy humans and other animals, the process of urination is under voluntary control. In infants, some elderly individuals, and those with neurological injury, urination may occur as a reflex. It is normal for adult humans to urinate up to seven times during the day.
A urinal is a sanitary plumbing fixture for urination only. Urinals are often provided in public toilets for male users in Western countries. They are usually used in a standing position. Urinals can be with manual flushing, automatic flushing, or without flushing, as is the case for waterless urinals. They can be arranged as single sanitary fixtures or in a trough design without privacy walls. Urinals designed for females also exist but are rare. It is possible for females to use stand-up urinals using a female urination device.
Toilets in Japan are sometimes designed more elaborately than toilets commonly seen in other developed nations. European toilets occasionally have a separate bidet whilst Japan combines an electronic bidet with the toilet. The current state of the art for Western-style toilets in Japan is the bidet toilet, which as of March 2016 is installed in 81% of Japanese households. In Japan, these bidets are commonly called washlets, a brand name of Toto Ltd., and they may include many advanced features rarely seen outside of Asia. The basic feature set commonly found on washlets consists of anal hygiene, bidet washing, seat warming, and deodorization.
A public toilet, restroom, public bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils and prisoners and are commonly separated into male and female toilets, although some are unisex, especially for small or single-occupancy public toilets, public toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. Depending on the culture, there may be varying degrees of separation between males and females and different levels of privacy. Typically, the entire room, or a stall or cubicle containing a toilet, is lockable. Urinals, if present in a male toilet, are typically mounted on a wall with or without a divider between them. Local authorities or commercial businesses may provide public toilet facilities. Some are unattended while others are staffed by an attendant. In many cultures, it is customary to tip the attendant, especially if they provide a specific service, such as might be the case at upscale nightclubs or restaurants.
A pay toilet is a public toilet that requires the user to pay. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a shopping mall, department store, or railway station. The reason for charging money is usually for the maintenance of the equipment. Paying to use a toilet can be traced back almost 2000 years, to the first century BCE. The charge is often collected by an attendant or by inserting coins into an automatic turnstile; in some freestanding toilets in the street, the fee is inserted into a slot by the door. Mechanical coin operated locks are also used. Some more high tech toilets accept card or contactless payments. Sometimes, a token can be used to enter a pay toilet without paying the charge. Some municipalities offer these tokens to residents with disabilities so these groups aren't discriminated against by the pay toilet. Some establishments such as cafés and restaurants offer tokens to their customers so they can use the toilets for free but other users must pay the relevant charge.
Unisex public toilets are public toilets that are not separated by gender or sex.
A female urination device (FUD), personal urination device (PUD), female urination aid, or stand-to-pee device (STP) is a device that can be used to more precisely aim the stream of urine while urinating standing upright. Variations range from basic disposable funnels to more elaborate reusable designs. Personal urination devices have increased in popularity since the 1990s. They are used for outdoor occupations & recreation, gender affirmation/safety, and medical reasons.
A female urinal is a urinal designed for the female anatomy to allow for ease of use by women and girls. Different models enable urination in standing, semi-squatting, or squatting postures, but usually without direct bodily contact with the toilet. Sitting models also exist, and are designed for body contact with the urinal.
An adult diaper is a diaper made to be worn by a person with a body larger than that of an infant or toddler. Adult Diapers can be necessary for adults with, or in, various conditions and circumstances, such as astronauts whose lives might be endangered if not wearing incontinence products while on space walks, and also while such astronauts are assigned to other similar tasks, poultry processing plant workers whose supervisors have been known to require the use of incontinence products, and there is even concern that Amazon drivers wear diapers, who are technically not allowed to enter most bathrooms while out on delivery.
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popular in Europe and North America with a toilet seat, with additional considerations for those with disabilities, or for a squatting posture more popular in Asia, known as a squat toilet. In urban areas, flush toilets are usually connected to a sewer system; in isolated areas, to a septic tank. The waste is known as blackwater and the combined effluent, including other sources, is sewage. Dry toilets are connected to a pit, removable container, composting chamber, or other storage and treatment device, including urine diversion with a urine-diverting toilet.
In health care, toileting is the act of assisting a dependent patient with their elimination needs.
A urinal, urine bottle, or male urinal is a bottle for urination. It is most frequently used in health care for patients who find it impossible or difficult to get out of bed during sleep. Urinals allow the patient who has cognition and movement of their arms to urinate without the help of staff. A urinal bottle can also used by travelers or transportation workers who are unable to immediately use a public restroom as part of an emergency kit, or in areas where restroom facilities are too distant.
Pollee is a mobile female urinal, designed by Nuala Collins, Christian Pagh and Sara Nanna and produced by the Danish design bureau UIWE. It is specifically designed to be used at public events such as concerts or music festivals.
A bathroom bill is the common name for legislation or a statute that denies access to public toilets by gender or transgender identity. Bathroom bills affect access to sex-segregated public facilities for an individual based on a determination of their sex as defined in some specific way, such as their sex as assigned at birth, their sex as listed on their birth certificate, or the sex that corresponds to their gender identity. A bathroom bill can either be inclusive or exclusive of transgender individuals, depending on the aforementioned definition of their sex.
Workers' right to access the toilet refers to the rights of employees to take a break when they need to use the toilet. The right to access a toilet is a basic human need. Unless both the employee and employer agree to compensate the employee on rest breaks an employer cannot take away the worker's right to access a toilet facility while working. There is limited information on the rights workers have to access public toilets among the world's legal systems. The law is not clear in New Zealand, United Kingdom, or the United States of America as to the amount of time a worker is entitled to use a toilet while working. Nor is there clarification on what constitutes a 'reasonable' amount of access to a toilet. Consequently, the lack of access to toilet facilities has become a health issue for many workers. Issues around workplace allowance to use a toilet has given light on issues such as workers having to ask permission to use a toilet and some workers having their pay deducted for the mere human right of using a toilet when they need to.
The BABIES Act, or Bathrooms Accessible In Every Situation Act, is a United States federal law that was passed by the United States Congress in September 2016 and signed into law by US President Barack Obama on October 7, 2016. The law requires changing tables in all publicly accessible, federal buildings. In particular, the law received attention for requiring such baby-changing accommodations must be available in both male and female restrooms, ending the practice of providing changing tables only in women's restrooms.
The pee curl is a public urinal, many of which are found in the centre of Amsterdam. They originated at the end of the 19th century, and were first installed by the Public Works Department of Amsterdam.
madamePee is a mobile female urinal, without contact and without water supply. It is designed to be used at public events such as concerts or music festivals, but also in more durable situations such as construction sites, public gardens, etc.
Potty parity in the United States refers to laws and policies granting women the right to equitable access to restrooms in public places and workplaces. Spearheaded by women workers, potty parity has long been a pillar of both the feminist movement and the labor movement. Prior to the passage of potty parity legislation, women's restrooms in many workplaces and public places were either absent or insufficient. Despite the passage of legislation, equitable access to public toilets remains a problem for women in the United States. No federal legislation relates to provision of facilities for women. States with active potty parity laws include Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington. Some states, including Alabama and Florida, have repealed their laws.
