Question

Explain in your own words several reasons why females' restrooms are more congested than men's. Discuss why gender-neutral restrooms become more and more popular these days. Propose ideas to solve females' restroom congestion problem.

Answer 1

A recent survey states that 59% of the women are having a congestion problem compared to 11% of the men. Apart from the toilet design or infrastructure, it is also the attributes of the women that result in a long time for them to their business. Some of the main reasons are:

• Women take almost twice the time compared to men because of the more dress they wear and also the accessories like bags they have to deal with. Because of such time consumption, they need more cubicles to reduce such waiting time.
• Women also use the restrooms more frequently to change their sanitary products because of which they need more cubicles.
• The other thing is the position they usually take in the restroom during the business process. While men can do theirs at standing positions in the urinals, it takes less time and space for them and a common mirror can satisfy them as they do not spend time on makeup or adjusting their hair inside the restrooms.

Gender-neutral restrooms also commonly referred to as Unisex restrooms are being used in many places to avoid such congestions as it can also benefit a range of people with or without special needs. The other main advantage of the unisex restrooms is that it can benefit transgenders to use them more freely as in countries especially in the developing Asian countries like India, Pakistan, etc., there are no separate restrooms for them. Space is another factor that is available more in the unisex restrooms instead of separating them into two.

Some of the ways to solve the congestion in the female restroom are:

• By giving more space to the female restrooms compared to the male considering the congestion factor.
• In common places such as offices, malls, theatres, etc., unisex restrooms will give an added advantage to solve the queuing issues.
• By designing the cubicles small but yet not so congested so that more cubicles can be built in the given space.