March 5, 2025 • 35 mins
Have you ever noticed a concerning line of women waiting for the bathroom while the men seem to come and go? What causes this, and is it a result of potty parity? We discuss it in honor of International Women's Day!
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-- Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potty_parity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potty_parity_in_the_United_States
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Hunter Hoover (00:00):
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.
(00:21):
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
(00:43):
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.
(01:06):
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
(01:28):
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
(01:49):
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.
(02:11):
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,
(02:32):
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
(02:54):
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.
(03:17):
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
(03:39):
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
(03:59):
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
(04:20):
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
(04:41):
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
(05:03):
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,
(05:23):
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
(05:46):
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
(06:08):
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,
(06:28):
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.
(06:50):
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
(07:11):
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,
(07:31):
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,
(07:52):
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
(08:14):
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
(08:35):
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
(08:55):
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
(09:15):
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
(09:36):
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,
(09:59):
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,
(10:21):
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.
(10:41):
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
(11:03):
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.
(11:24):
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
(11:46):
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
(12:07):
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
(12:28):
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
(12:51):
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
(13:13):
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
(13:34):
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.
(13:56):
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,
(14:16):
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
(14:39):
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
(15:02):
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.
(15:25):
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
(15:48):
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
(16:09):
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
(16:30):
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
(16:50):
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
(17:11):
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
(17:31):
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
(17:53):
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
(18:15):
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
(18:39):
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
(19:00):
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,
(19:21):
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,
(19:44):
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
(20:06):
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
(20:28):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:10):
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
(21:31):
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
(21:52):
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
(22:14):
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
(22:35):
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
(22:58):
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
(23:21):
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.
(23:41):
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
(24:04):
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
(24:27):
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.
(24:51):
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
(25:13):
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
(25:36):
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
(25:56):
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
(26:16):
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
(26:38):
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.
(27:01):
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,
(27:22):
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,
(27:42):
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
(28:02):
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
(28:22):
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
(28:44):
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.
(29:07):
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
(29:27):
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
(29:48):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:31):
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
(30:51):
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.
(31:12):
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
(31:33):
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
(31:55):
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.
(32:16):
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.
(32:39):
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
(33:02):
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
(33:25):
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
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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
(33:45):
should follow us on
social at privycast. You can follow me. I'm at
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(34:05):
Facebook groups. Uh, and check out some of the ridiculous
bathroom memes we got flying around over there.
If you have ideas, comments, concerns, episode
suggestions. If I had a little weird little something in my
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comment down on the YouTube. We, we got this stuff on
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(34:28):
the other thing that you can do is you can go Visit
our website privy-cast.comt we all sorts
of fun stuff going over there. Uh, check it out. We'd love
for you to go, go see that. Thanks to Kevin and
Poddington for the use of your music again this week. You can
check out Kevin and Poddington's than in the, in the Ding dong
below. If you're looking to start a podcast here
(34:48):
at Privy, we have been, we have been,
uh, regular users of Podbean services. If
you're looking to start a podcast, use our affiliate link in the
thing below. Uh, and it can get you
signed up for podcast ca and he gives a little kickback and just says,
hey, you know, this show Privy was
influential in me choosing to come to this platform. We've
(35:09):
been happy with Pod bean. We love Pod Bean. Pod beans. Been
very helpful and very good to us. Uh, and so go
check that out if you're interested in starting podcast. This
brings us to the end of another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for
being here. Keep hoping in the free world, own your
stank. And now as
always, don't for get to flash.
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.
(00:21):
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
(00:43):
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.
(01:06):
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
(01:28):
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
(01:49):
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.
(02:11):
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,
(02:32):
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
(02:54):
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.
(03:17):
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
(03:39):
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
(03:59):
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
(04:20):
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
(04:41):
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
(05:03):
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,
(05:23):
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
(05:46):
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
(06:08):
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,
(06:28):
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.
(06:50):
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
(07:11):
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,
(07:31):
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,
(07:52):
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
(08:14):
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
(08:35):
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
(08:55):
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
(09:15):
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
(09:36):
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,
(09:59):
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,
(10:21):
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.
(10:41):
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
(11:03):
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.
(11:24):
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
(11:46):
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
(12:07):
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
(12:28):
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
(12:51):
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
(13:13):
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
(13:34):
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.
(13:56):
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,
(14:16):
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
(14:39):
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
(15:02):
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.
(15:25):
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
(15:48):
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
(16:09):
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
(16:30):
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
(16:50):
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
(17:11):
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
(17:31):
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
(17:53):
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
(18:15):
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
(18:39):
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
(19:00):
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,
(19:21):
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,
(19:44):
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
(20:06):
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
(20:28):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:10):
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
(21:31):
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
(21:52):
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
(22:14):
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
(22:35):
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
(22:58):
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
(23:21):
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.
(23:41):
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
(24:04):
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
(24:27):
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.
(24:51):
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
(25:13):
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
(25:36):
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
(25:56):
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
(26:16):
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
(26:38):
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.
(27:01):
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,
(27:22):
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,
(27:42):
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
(28:02):
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
(28:22):
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
(28:44):
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.
(29:07):
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
(29:27):
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
(29:48):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:31):
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
(30:51):
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.
(31:12):
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
(31:33):
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
(31:55):
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.
(32:16):
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.
(32:39):
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
(33:02):
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
(33:25):
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
(33:45):
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
(34:05):
Facebook groups. Uh, and check out some of the ridiculous
bathroom memes we got flying around over there.
If you have ideas, comments, concerns, episode
suggestions. If I had a little weird little something in my
beard and you just can't live without it, um,
comment down on the YouTube. We, we got this stuff on
YouTube now put it in there. Or you can send us an email
privycastmail.com. uh,
(34:28):
the other thing that you can do is you can go Visit
our website privy-cast.comt we all sorts
of fun stuff going over there. Uh, check it out. We'd love
for you to go, go see that. Thanks to Kevin and
Poddington for the use of your music again this week. You can
check out Kevin and Poddington's than in the, in the Ding dong
below. If you're looking to start a podcast here
(34:48):
at Privy, we have been, we have been,
uh, regular users of Podbean services. If
you're looking to start a podcast, use our affiliate link in the
thing below. Uh, and it can get you
signed up for podcast ca and he gives a little kickback and just says,
hey, you know, this show Privy was
influential in me choosing to come to this platform. We've
(35:09):
been happy with Pod bean. We love Pod Bean. Pod beans. Been
very helpful and very good to us. Uh, and so go
check that out if you're interested in starting podcast. This
brings us to the end of another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for
being here. Keep hoping in the free world, own your
stank. And now as
always, don't for get to flash.
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