How Can Washrooms Adjust Better To The Needs Of Women?

March 8th was International Women’s Day (IWD), an occasion to celebrate the successes of women worldwide as well as highlight major gender-based issues. That may cover a broad array of topics, but perhaps washrooms should be included.

True, women having to queue longer for public conveniences in first-world countries may not be at the top of global lists of burning issues amid various matters of disadvantage and discrimination, but it is an issue nonetheless.

Why Do Women Have To Queue For The Loo?

Speaking to The Conversation a couple of days ahead of IWD, research fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, Belen Martinez, highlighted the disparity in wait times between men and women.

Normally, she observed, men do not have to queue because urinals allow them to get in and out quickly, whereas facilities that rely entirely on washroom cubicles take longer. This means that two gender-based washrooms of equal size will serve users at different rates.

“Whether at theatres, airports, shopping centres or festivals, the pattern is the same: men breeze in and out with barely a wait, while women stand in line,” she observed.

The reason for this, Ms Martinez added, was simple: In most public buildings, the same amount of space is given to toilets dedicated to each sex. Consequently, the use of urinals means men have an advantage.

Rather than being fair, she said, this leads to a clear outcome: ”Equal floor space does not result in equal access”. The erroneous assumption that men and women use washrooms for the same amount of time is built into the design, a template based on men’s needs.

Why Else Might Women Need More Washroom Space?

Quite apart from needing to sit rather than stand, women “often wear more complex clothing, and are more likely to be menstruating, pregnant or managing conditions such as incontinence or urinary tract infections,” Ms Martinez added.

Such points may seem so obvious that it is a wonder they have not been addressed as yet. It is almost as if it is just an accepted fact of life that using the washroom is a longer process for women than men and that this is an unavoidable fact rooted in biology and physiology.

Of course, it could be argued that this is true in certain instances, such as when a woman is menstruating, but not so when it simply comes to needing to pass water and then get on with their day.

While it may seem to be an issue of comparative convenience, there are instances where it is worse than that, with Ms Martinez highlighting how this problem affects female taxi drivers in her native Spain, for whom time spent queuing is time not spent earning.

Given these social and economic imbalances, perhaps the issue is more important than might be thought, or at least sufficiently significant for it not to go on being ignored.

How Can The Gender Disparity In Toilet Waits Be Tackled?

Resolving it may be a challenge to an extent. In recent years, some settings have sought to make part of their washroom provision gender neutral, sometimes due to limited space or because of consciousness over much-debated issues of gender identity.

However, such facilities may be of limited use in tackling issues, especially in large public settings where there will be a large number of people waiting to use them, and never the same individuals from one occasion to the next.

If retrofitting or reconfiguring existing facilities is likely to be prohibitively expensive and technically difficult, there may be other solutions, for example, by adding an extra women’s washroom in a shopping centre so there is more capacity than for men.

Could New Sporting Arenas Correct Washroom Gender Imbalances?

There may also be opportunities for enlightened designers to factor this into future building designs.

For example, there are several projects at various stages of planning to build new football stadiums or revamp old ones, from Oxford United’s 16,000-seat ground at Kidlington to Manchester United’s grand plans for a 100,000-seat arena next to the current Old Trafford.

Given the changing demographics of crowds, with more women attending than in the past, plus the increasing profile of the women’s game, such venues could provide a grand opportunity to offer better provision, especially when hosting women’s games.

This may be a ripe area for innovation because the whole idea of building new football stadia is to enhance the facilities and offer a combination of higher capacity while using the latest technology.

It is fair to say that washroom facilities have improved along the way, so this could be an opportunity to raise the bar further and set a standard for other public facilities, especially in event-focused settings where leaving the building to go elsewhere is not a practical option.