>> Hunter Hoover: But what these employers found is that when they employed women, and thus had to have a bathroom space for women, they had to use it. That that space came with a greater cost to the company. Um, welcome back to Privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom. I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms. Welcome back, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this time. Uh, and welcome back.
Thanks for joining me in this bathroom space. You know, normally it's. It's pretty intimate in here. Um, and it might not. You might hear bathroom space. You'd be like, well, I didn't. Wait a minute. What's going on? Yes, every episode is recorded from a bathroom. I don't say this that often. It's something that maybe I should remind people about more. But every episode of this podcast has been recorded and will be recorded from a bathroom. Now, it might not always be my home bathroom,
but I'm always in a bathroom. And 99% of those episodes, I'm seated on a toilet. That's facts. Last year, we had a couple of episodes that. That are going to be important as it relates to the bathroom. But a little update. There was a hot minute there where I didn't have access to a bathroom at work. I mean, I did, but I had to work really hard for it. And I felt like it was unfair based on how hard I had to work.
Um, some jack wagon had tried to flush, probably a vape that these kids are always flushing vapes in these toilets. Uh, and they had to redo a bunch of plumbing. And so they just took the men's bathroom just straight out of the thing. Like, there's just no men's bathroom for a second. No men's toilet. And's why I was scavenging for a bathroom. I was like, I'm about to just hit a. I'm about to just hit a bucket, you know, and, um, you know, we're back. We've got. We got some bathroom
y. We're back. That's what, you know, the bathroom is. Fixed it. We're good. But my bathrooming has been semi regular. Uh, I will say I noted last time the Shamrock Shake. I think the Shamrock Shake does something wild to a man's bathroom. Me, because I drank a shamrock shank and I had the stinkiest. I had the stinkiest farts. And, like, it was to the point where Ana was threatening to, like, change sheets mid. Mid getting ready for bedtime. Like, it's pretty
bad. Just saying. But it happens, you know? Jamrock Shake, Uncle O Grimcy does it dirty to us sometimes. And that's just how we are. Last year we had a couple of episodes that I'm going to tell you are going to be important for our conversations today. If you need to, or if you want to go seek out these episodes, they're in our, uh, back catalog. First we discussed sex separated bathrooms. And in that episode we looked at the history of sex separated bathrooms in the United States.
In short, we've been separating bathrooms on the lines of men and women as long as men and women have had to be interacting in the same spaces together. It's almost like maybe it's supposed to be that way. We also looked at the history of feminine hygiene in recognition of International Women's Day last year. Well, I should tell you, almost a full year has passed and that means that it's time to observe International Women's Day again.
And I gotta say, now that it feels like we're getting a bit closer here in America to like, understanding a lot of this, it could be good to look at some ground rules related to the cultural phenomenon of these bathrooms being separated. What sort of ground rules should there be for separating bathrooms? And if there should be some, how do we know how far those rules should extend?
And these concerns about fairness and public spaces introduces a new phenomenon, one which you would think wouldn't need to be in our world. But it's the idea of potty parody we're going to be looking at. Ah, potty parody this week. I want to know, when I say the word parody, I don't mean like, like scary movie 3 parody where we're like, making fun of stuff. It's parity, T, P, A, R, I, T, Y. And, and it's another way of just saying equal. Now, uh, equality, uh, is a
word. So I wonder if we've just picked the potty parity for the alliteration. If you have parity in something, it means that you have equality or they are equal in what they offer or what they, um, say that they offer. When you think of someone facing disparity, it is related in that they are facing something that does not treat them equal to someone or something else. This is generally not a great thing, disparity. But here's a reminder.
Equal does not mean the same, and it does not seek to make people the same. And so amongst many sectors in facets of life, parity is something which is often good to strive for in theory, but can become more difficult the more complex things become in our culture and society.
It's going to be, um, important to note in our conversations about parity, the difference between equality and equity to be equal or equality is more concerned with making sure everyone has an equal chance or opportunity for something. Equity is, is more concerned with making sure that everyone has the same outcomes. And that sounds good, except sometimes equity comes at the cost of equality and imposes itself on others in order to
obtain it. This has been a problem that has been going on since kids were kids and decided to argue about whether something was fair or not. So yeah, parity. But today on Privy, we're going to look at parity specifically as it relates to the bathroom and in our culture. How is that tied up to the idea of equal access in bathrooms specifically for women? As is noted, the history of women's bathrooms doesn't go back too terribly long.
That's mostly because the idea of a women's bathroom didn't really come to public until there were public bathrooms. Um, and even then they only started around the 1800s. Before then, women just were expected to do their business at home and they were not seen in the public life and in the public sphere as often as would necessitate them having a bathroom, let alone their own bathroom. So it wasn't until there was these public bathrooms that there was even on the radar. And even then the public
bathrooms were more designed for men. They weren't designing them for women because women weren't out and about as often as in the mid-1800s and moving into the 1900s, especially as women began to enter the workforce, that the increase in need for bathroom spaces for women in these public or public adjacent settings became more prominent. Saloons and businesses prior to this had bathrooms for people to use, but they were generally a hole in the ground out back.
I don't think there was a lot of ladies lining up to use that. Like I feel like they were smart enough to where they would just run home and use the 1. As women entered the workforce at the turn of the 20th century, it became more and more clear if women are going to be employed alongside of men, they have got to have a place to go peeeee and poo poo that is not alongside of men.
Plaza became more and more common to find women in public spaces and in spaces where men and women were expected to work and inhabit those spaces together, or as was sometimes the case in public spaces without men. It became clear we need to rethink these bathrooms. I have to tell you, if you go out and you go and try to learn a little
bit, uh, for yourself about potty per. I would highly encourage you to do that because like every single article, like all of them, usually when you do a little peek behind the curtain here, usually when there's some research done for this show, you'll find a mixed, like, uh, cacophony of suggestions and opinions about a certain topic. And usually you kind of sift through those and you can kind of tell what's a
fake and. And you do a little bit of like, sniffing around to figure out what's a good source and what's reliable. Rarely do you have the phenomenon that happened in the case of potty parody, which is all of the articles, like every of the articles mentioning potty parody discusses the fact that women shop a lot as a point of evidence in support for the need of potty parity. Now, in remembrance, um, an in observance of International Women's Day, I'm me, uh, your host here on the show Hunter Me.
I'm not gonna say women shop more than men. I'm not going to say that. Uh, I don't say that. In fact, I refuse to say that women enjoy and seek out shopping experiences more often than men. I won't say it. I'm not going to say that women tend to like to spend money on clothes, bags, beauty products more often than men. I'm not, I'm not going to say that. I don't say it. And I didn't say it explicitly. The Internet did say it though, time and time again in these articles. Not
me. I'm not saying that. I defite. If I was going to speak about the shopping habits of women, I definitely would not say that. Women like to shop on Amazon and it's a, it's a dopamine hit when the little box comes for them. I'm not saying that. That's not what I'm saying right now. I just think it's an interesting point to note that so many of these articles are like, yeah, women really like
shopping. But as it relates to potty parity at first, potty parody particularly relates here in the United States is focused on being bathrooms for both men and women. Big fan of that idea. Potty parody then was doing well because things were equal. But I want to know. Men and women have bathrooms and they have, in the most part separate bathroom spaces. And that's pretty equal. But that's not what potty parody has
become. What potty parity has become seems to be like this monster that never has enough. That was parity. But there's a Stark contrast that employers started to understand when they began to employ women. And I'm not saying this explicitly, I'm not saying that the employers found that women like to online shop. I'm not saying that. No, I'm just kidding. We're moving on.
But what these employers found is that when they employed women and thus had to have a bathroom space for women, they had to use it, uh, that that space came with a greater cost to the company. What I mean by that is that the space, it takes more space to put in the same number of women's toiletries as it does men. And it takes more space because of the creation and the use of the urinal. Men can stand to pee.
And as a result, the stalls for men to pe in are much smaller and you can fit more of them in less space than you can a place for a woman to pee, which is also the same as where men poop, in case you didn't know that. And so employing women and having bathroom spaces that are specific to women became more costly to many, um, employers for them to make it equal.
And so there began to be concerns about liability, like do we build more bathrooms or a bigger bathroom space for women so that way they, uh, have the equal number of, uh, stalls and things as men? Or do we encourage them, you know, like, hey, let's, let's maybe do things that are going to put women in a less desirable position. So this is the reality in mind. Parity. Two matters related to parity.
But before we jump, we need to take a look at the perceived female experience and how their concerns in the bathroom before we take a look at how we might proceed on the problem of potty parity. Women and girls often spend more time in the bathroom than men and boys for both physiological, the literal way that their bodies are made, and cultural reasons. I'd be curious to understand that the claim somehow in itself non sexist, that women spend more time in the bathroom.
Like, people just put that out there, like, yeah, women spend more time in the bathroom than men. As if that's not like a little sexist. First of all, I don't know the numbers for these ladies, but I guarantee you I've got them beat. I've spent a lot of time in the bathroom over the course of making this show. Yeah, my numbers are way up. It's wild. I think part of this problem is because women do feel the need to go to the
bathroom together. Check out our episode last month with my wife Ana, um, where she explains, like, women go to the bathroom in pairs just to like talk and to be safe seems all too simple to me. I think there's more going on there. The requirement to use a cubicle rather than a urinal means urination is going to take longer and hand washing
must be done more thoroughly. Uh, I think the argument is, is like, because you have to sit and like interface with like paper to wipe yourself down, that you need to do a more throw washing hand job. Now I want to say the act of GR of just taming the hog and sprayying snake is likely as messy than anything. And not having the hands on experience, like, I just feel like
it's more messy. And so while I disagree that women's hands might get any more or less dirty, I think women on the whole are paying more attention to their hand washing than guys are. But like, that's a them problem. That's a choice that women make to wash their hands probably better than men. So the first suggestion that this, this potty disparity, this break in potty parity is caused because of like, the sheer number of like bathroom space.
I don't know. Another suggestion is the prominence of urinary tract infections and incontinence in females. Apparently urinary tract infections and incontinence are more common in the women. Sorry ladies. It'anun. It's an unfortunate stat. Can always check my sources down below. I always post my links. It's an unfortunate thing. And uh, while I believe much of this is related to the specific equipment that women have, I think incontinence might sometimes be
related to baby having. Like, I think if you have a baby or like too many babies and you like fart sneezeer, burp too hard, you might tinkle a little bit. I don't know if that's real, but like, I think that's a thing. Gotta say, dude, being a woman's rough. Like, it's a tough world. I think we arrived at that conclusion as well last year when we started talking
about like the feine hygiene products. But like, even the stat that incontinence is a greater option just as part of the experience, it's like, hey, you're a lady. You are statistically more likely to experience incontinence in your life. Uh, really great. Pregnancy, menstruation, breastfeeding, and diaper changing are also claimed as reasons why women's usage of the bathroom is up. Now, only three of those things that I listed are specific to women when it comes to potty
parity. In fact, I would Argue that the statement that women take longer and they need a changing table in the bathroom where men need it less often is its own example of potty disparity. Wh men ought to have equal access to baby changers as women. It should. It's just facts might lie. It's hard to get around those other three like menstruating, having babies and breastfeeding. Men don't do those. And as a result men's bathroom spaces don't need spaces for those things. Those things can take up
space. Yes'll grant that the elderly who are disproportionately female take longer and more frequent bathroom visits. How the frick do you figure? Is it, is it because men die earlier? Like that's most likely the case that that doesn't sound very much, very much a parody to me. It's like some things about this world are just not fair. Like I could guff and groan. I'm like oh, men die sooner than women. That's not fair. I
want equitable outcomes. Like the equitable outcomes on that are not a thing that you can pursue. Equality acknowledges that and says yeah, that's the shake. And they have equal access to the things they could do to live longer. As a man in equity says, well no. Men and women need to try to have the equal amount of time. It's like if you gool about this stuff, it can be so harrowing when it's taken to the extreme. What'I'm go going to say It's a rough look if you take these things to extreme.
So these are some of the arguments regarding women. They spend more time in the bathroom. They do a greater number of acts in the bathroom. They're susceptible to more bathroom reliant conditions and ailments and features. Modern day potty parody says women's bathrooms should be bigger. And I'm actually okay with that idea. If a company has the money, the floor space to make the women's bathroom bigger, I say
make it bigger. They're gonna be doing, they're go goingna be doing things men won't have to do in that bathroom. Put breastfeeding area in some spaces, it's fine. And all the people are like well I'll breath my, feed my my kid wherever I darn well please. Fine. Just keep in mind that other people might not want to see you. Like when you are exposing your your part of your body, just think about others for like 30 seconds.
30 seconds. That's why I don't have my butt crack hanging out all the time because I try to think about, O man, is my stanky crack going to offend somebody? It's okay to cover that up. Uh, it's fine. But to say that women need more bathrooms so they have more stalls seems weird. I get women only have one option, but it doesn't mean double. Also, the history of potty parody is directly connected to and wrapped up in the history and rejection
of pay toilets. There was a time in our nation's history where women had to pay to pee and men did not because men could pee on the street and women needed to pay a toll to get into a bathroom. Nowadays it seems women need twice the floor space because their jobs are less efficient. And that's not my concern. I think this is one of those things we could handle via common sense. That's not how people solve their problems anymore.
Nowadays when people have a lot of problems, they feel the need to get the government involved. American public interest lawyer, legal activist and professor at Georgetown University. Which tells you that he's all around real champion of a guy. John Francis Bands Half the Third nerd. Oh, uh, John Francis Bands Half the Third. You know you had, you had, you had two rounds of two generations of people. You recorda sorted out the John
Francis thing. Like you didn't have to go John Francis II and then you definitely could have swapped it up for the third. But what do I know? John Francis Bands Half II Third is the self proclaimed father of potty parity. In his time as a public interest lawyer, in the course of making a fortune of money as well, don't forget he became very wealthy off of all these things.
John Francis Banzaff whatever has levied lawsuits against the tobacco industry, has criticized drink machine companies at fast food restaurants. He's one of the lawyers who tried to sue McDonald's for making kids fat rather than suing their parents for feeding them McDonald's all the time. He can be seen making these comments and discussing this in the hit documentary Supersize Me. Levying these concerns.
Very recently, John Frankie Bands Half the Third helped levy legislation against President Donald Trump. The guy seems out of control. He seems a little bit suio happy to me, this father of potty parody. This guy seems out of control in these things. So much so that the website bansh halfwatch.com was started with the slogan quote keeping an eye on the man who wants to sue America. This guy claims to be the father
of potty parody. And that's because he's reported as arguing that if you just have equal facilities for male and female, you are engaging in sex discrimination against women. Not men, women. Again, he believes that if you give men and women equal bathroom space, you are being sexist. Now I want to admit, and I think many people would admit, if they take just a second to reason it out, women need more space and I'm fine with them having it. I don't care about
them having more space. But I want you to understand that's not equ quality, that's equity. They want equal outcomes. They want women's experience in the bathroom and the speed at which they can go into the bathroom and get out to be the same as men. The problem is the outcomes haven't been equal and they've come at the cost of businesses. And there have been moments in reports of places that have
this double women's bathroom ratio. And there's instances of men waiting now with women not having to. There have been a number of proposed solutions to the problem of potty parity. Remember, the goal is to give women equal access and meet their bathroom specific needs. It also should be noted there have been a few paths forward. As we bring this episode to close, I want to put forth a few ideas related to how to solve this, this potty parity concern and our suggested ratio for bathrooms.
One popular and more like on the rise trending solution to the concern of potty parity are gender neutral bathrooms. Now I'm a big proponent for gender neutral bathrooms, but they cannot be in spaces where men or women can access other men or women behind closed doors without their consent. They have to be safe, they have to be smart. And so if you are going to have separated men's, women's bathrooms,
if you're not going to do gender neutral. Gender neutral solves a lot of these problems of parity because now you have men and women waiting for the exact same rim. Now instead of uh, one group of people waiting, you got everybody wa know what I'm saying? Another solution is the use of women's journals. Yes, these exist and they're kind of finangly
and they're kind of tough to install. And it's one of those things where it's like when co, when the Coca Cola company put out their new Coke Freestyle machines, it took a while for it to catch on. And the reason it took a while for it to catch on is because for years when a person walked up to a Coke machine, they push their Coke against that little like lever thingy in it,
like the Coke out. And the Coke freestyle thing has an electronic screen where you push a digital button that dispenses the coke. And that simple little change was a barrier to a lot of people. If you try to introduce women's urinals, even though it might help solve some of these problems, there's going to be an incredible hesitancy and an incredible learning curve related to these things. Uh, another path forward would be to simply begin to try to find a better ratio for men's and
women's bathrooms. And so I have a proposal to make here. I. A proposal. My proposal for the number of men's bathroom facilities to women's is this. Men should have like whatever the number is. For every, for every two urinals there should be one more women's toilet. So however many toilets you have done now, for every two urinals you should have one
more women's toilet. Meaning if in a bathroom, in a men's bathroom you have two sit down poopy toilets and two stand up peee toilets, in the women's bathroom you should have three sit down poo poo Pe. Pe toilets. That's my ratio. Now people might hear that and they'll go, uh oh, well that's not fair because again, I would argue the fact that women in that situation can go three deep on a Chaz Deluxe drop and men cannot isn't fair. Like, it's not fair.
Do you see what I'm saying? Like, life's not fair. Get a helmet. We do our best. We find the systems and the things that begin to make the most sense and address this the best way while still operating inside the world of reason. So again, the Privy potty parody, golden ratio of justice inequality is for every two male urinals there should be one additional female toilet. What do you guys think? What do you guys think about our potty parity ratio? Let us know in the comments. We don't do that
very often. Comment down below, say, give us your ratio down below. This will bring us to the end of another episode of Privy. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for being here. As always, at the end of the show, we encourage you to leave us a rating or review. The five star options are preferred and for every rating you leave, will donate a dollar to the Wounded warriors and Living Water International reminding you to keep pooping in the free world. That free world
was not always free. And as a reminder to pursue cleaner water for all. Not everyone has clean water, but everyone should follow us on social at privycast. You can follow me. I'm at Al at 7. If you're brave. You can go check out at Randy Bowless. We're doing, we're trying to do more stuff on social. Check out, uh, the Privies. We have a Facebook group. If you want to see some ridiculous bathroom memes, go search up the Privies in
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stank. And now as always, don't for get to flash.