Ok. Why is it that women get such a bigger and nicer restroom than us guys do? This is blatent discrimination against our sex. I mean I have looked in a few girls restrooms and I am amazed how plush they are.
I mean they got couches and chairs, carpet, nice wallpaper and fancy vanity mirrors. And what do men get we get a urinal and toilet with a broken door latch and a broken mirror with a very plain looking sink.
Now you women will come back and say well ya’ll(being women) need nicer facilities because ya’ll spend more time in there. Well maybe if we had nicer facilities, we would spend more time lounging in “our” room too.
Anyway I think women must design restrooms or they are designed by some guy trying to pick up women by designing them that way. I can hear his pick up line now…“hi I am Johnny John and I design ladies restrooms that are lavish and plush for your confort and enjoyment…” . Oh brother. :rolleyes:
Our restroom at work has a nice couch, but that is because it was set up to ba a pumping station for a new mother who did not think the exercise room or the lunch room was the place to pump. The men’s room has a magazine rack and we don’t.
I don’t like sitting on couch in a men’s dorm; I don’t care to think what couches in public men’s rooms would be like.
The only ladies bathrooms I’ve ever seen that have “couches and chairs, carpet, nice wallpaper and fancy vanity mirrors” are in fancy, smancy hotels and conference centers where it costs $500 a night to stay there.
The public bathroom at work is certainly not that fancy. And I know from the time that we had a toilet clogged up, that the men’s room looks exactly the same, except of course they had urinals and a couple less stalls.
And what are you doing looking in girl’s restrooms? Have you really done a comparative study of each place you’ve been and found 9 times out of 10 that the women’s place is better?
Just usually a glance when I am waiting for my wife to come out or something. Or when I gotta go real bad and the mens is occupied?(I knock first.)
I can not use personal observation because freyr and esprix get upset. But between me and you yes I have noticed that most women’s restrooms are fancier than men’s.
Well, it was not a woman who designed our new restroom at my college. There were no trash cans of any kind. There was simply no place to dispose of pads or tampon applicators. It took them about 3 months to rectify the situation.
Maybe you haven’t looked at enough rest rooms. Yes, there are some that are “nicer” - mostly in expensive hotels or restaurants - but the overwhelming majority of women’s restrooms are just basic facilities - no fanciness about them. I say this as a woman who has been, I am sure, in many more restrooms than you have.
By the way, men who use the ladies’ restroom are probably perceived as weirdos by any woman who runs into them, either inside or on the way out. Just my opinion, of course.
Also, the “edit” feature doesn’t work - good thing, in my opinion, or some people would be rewriting their posts to claim that they never said such-and-such. However, the PREVIEW button does work. Why not give it a whirl sometime?
Fair enough miss bunny but so in turn should men think women that use the guys room when the ladies room is full as weirdos too? Just my opinion of course.
I do see your point about the edit button. I,of course, would never do such a thing. And I will start using the preview button more.
WB, for some reason women are not perceived as weirdos for using the men’s room. I don’t know why this is - it just is. One of those unfair little parts of life, I suppose.
Just so you know, I wasn’t implying that you would change your posts - just that some people probably would.
I’ve seen disparities between restrooms in places besides hotels. The Sears store in the Landmark Mall has a plush little couch and a couple bits of decor in it.
One floor’s women’s restroom in Healy Hall at Georgetown had a whole damn anteroom in there, while we just had a couple stalls and urinals.
Of course, men do have special places attached to restroom where they can sit around and hang out, scratch our butts and talk about anything we feel like.
I’m not kidding either–check this out (unfortunately the pages of the PDF are incorrectly ordered–mea culpa!).
Public restrooms are designed by architects and designers of both genders. Stall and sink numbers are actually determined mathematically based an estimate of the number of users (by gender) in a given public space (like most assumption-based calculations, sometimes it works out right and sometimes it doesn’t). There is also a specific calculation (mandated by the ADA Standards) used for determining how many handicapped facilities should be available for a given space; note this is for the entire building space, not necessarily by/per floor (in multi-floor buildings). Of course, these calculations are used to set minimum standards–you can go over, but not under when designing the facilities.
Usually the style and amount of decorativeness of a restroom is established by the developer or owner of a property. They may choose to carry design features from the general space into the restrooms, but then again, they may decide to be conservative (based on cost or not wanting to appear less than frugal and cost-effective).
When I was preparing the article referenced above, we specifically discussed comfort areas (couches, etc.) in restrooms (incidentally, unless its a gym with a tub, a public facility is NEVER a “bathroom”). Basically, rest or comfort areas comprised of chairs, couches, etc. originated in women’s restrooms primarily to address the needs of pregnant women (and the “weaker sex”). With the equalization of the sexes (genders) in the work force, rather than extend some of these creature comforts to the men, many businesses and retail establishments took away these features for women. However, making a restroom into a restful, relaxing environment is coming back into vogue and these areas are returning–for women at the very least–however, it is still somewhat taboo for men’s rooms. The designers I worked with on the piece said they’d be more than happy to add these features to the men’s rooms (and agree they belong there just as much as in the ladies rooms), but are seldom asked or permitted (when recommending it) to do so by owners/management.
So, yes, it is a bit of a leftover sexism that women’s restrooms tend to be more restful or include more design elements than men’s restrooms. Positive strides in public restroom design include “family restrooms” (designed with a parent-child in mind to minimize the awkwardness of a mother with a little boy or father with a little girl in the gender specific restroom and diaper changing areas in men’s restrooms. Equality may make it to the toilet yet…
The only women’s bathrooms I’ve been in have been in gay bars, so maybe they don’t count so much, but they never have couches or anything other than more stalls and no urinals to distinguish them.
But if anyone’s being discriminated against, it’s women. From the moment they start letting in ticket holders until after the show is over, there’s always a huge line at the ladies room at any play or musical I’ve ever been to. For whatever reason, it seems like whoever’s designing the restrooms isn’t making them so they accomodate the demand, so I doubt it’s a woman who’s making them. Maybe it takes longer for women to pee, or they pee more often, but whatever the cause, they don’t seem to be making the bathrooms big enough.
Then again, I’ve never quite been sure that bathrooms needed to be separate at all, except at the theater when the men’s line is shorter, which is nice. But that’s just me.
David
[aside] Funny “toilet humor” cartoon - “Central Toilet” playing at http://www.rsub.com [/aside]
Some convention centers, concert halls, etc are being designed with a third set of restrooms that can be designated for men or women depending one the expected mix of the crowd. This helps maintain potty parity and cuts down on lines to the restrooms.
I am all for unisex restrooms if it means I don’t have to wait in line as much.
Women on average take approximately twice as long as men in restrooms, leading to longer lines even if the facilities are equal. This is due in large part to inconveniences of anatomy, but of course primping and possible gender-differences in thoroughness of hands-washing cannot be discounted, though I (a woman) do not ever recall standing in line waiting to wash my hands after using the facilities, even in a crowded restroom.
There does happen to be a couch in one of the women’s bathrooms where I work. I always wondered about it.The couch is proably not a late addition since it’s located in a pleasant little anteroom. However, the building architecture is so “enlightened” that there are no ladies rooms on the second and fourth floors. Since a significant number of women work on the 4th, we rioted, and got a lock installed on the restroom and turned it into a “coed.” It doesn’t look any different than a women’s except that in addition to the two toilets, there are two urinals, and there’s no tampon vending machine.
I really didn’t care whether or not the ladies’ rooms I used had nice couches or not, until I was nursing my son. Now I really appreciate those couches and chairs, as well as the changing stations. Some stores even have changing rooms attached to the ladies room. I believe most mens’ rooms at least have a changing table for dads to use, am I right?
There was another thread awhile back having to do with really nice restrooms. Nordstrom stores have the nicest restrooms ever, hands down.
Guys, I would think that you might feel silly with a nicely furnished restroom, or that you’d thrash it. Do you WANT a couch to sit on and chat for a few minutes, or are you just there to go & get out?
Don’t take this wrong EJsGirl–perhaps you didn’t realize it sounds this way–but that sounds like an awfully sexist thing to say. Couches in women’s restrooms aren’t necessarily there just for “chatting”–its not meant to be a parlor or meeting room. More to the point, I know that my husband sometimes suffers migraine headaches and have no doubt that a comfortable couch in a designated area (usually somewhat separated from the stalls/urinals) of the men’s room, might be a good spot to lay down for a few minutes to hopefully help it pass.
Hmph, I’ve never seen a couch in a ladies’ restrooms in the places I’ve worked. That’s not fair.
For the mother’s who use the couch to nurse their infants. Why? Yes I know it’s a private place but I wouldn’t want to eat in such close quarters as to people defecating. Didn’t you see this thread?
If i were feeding my baby, i would choose the lunch room, but if I have to pump, i will probably do that sitting on the couch in the ladies room. I have eaten lunch in the ladies room at work. There was an obnoxious program on the tv in the lunchtroom.
