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What Women Want
North Miami Beach, Florida 1-27-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
WHAT WOMEN WANT
Bob Herbert in the Op Ed page of the New York Times today brought up issues
of concern to women other than the control over their own bodies implicit in
the debate over abortion. He mentioned the disparity of the workplace and
the disparity of payments for equal work among other things.
What he didn't address was the issue of WHAT WOMEN WANT.
Any of the readers of this essay must certainly agree with me that women
want what women will need at crucial moments during the day. And what women
will need at crucial moments during the day are adequate seating
arrangements in public rest rooms all over the world.
Think about it. All public restrooms, male and female that are identified
easily by the simplified logos with men in trousers and women in skirts,
seem equal. That is to say, they have equal numbers of rooms with porcelain
potties. Equality, however, does not do it for women's actual needs if not
wants.
Have you ever observed that the lines outside of women's facilities are
slow moving and long while there are no lines outside of the men's? This
may be a cultural thing but it is probably more internal and pressing. Men
simply do not have the plumbing problem besetting women. Little girls are
trained early and they adopt grown up attitudes towards use of the
facilities. Have you ever seen a little girl going into the women's room
alone? No. They have to go in troupes or at least duos - almost never
singly.
Yet, all having been said and done, the architects who design facilities
for women do so inadequately. Instead of doubling the number of potties for
women over those for men, they have hewed to the policy of equality.
Equality is not the answer for the differences between the male and female
anatomy. We ought to opt for quantity for women instead. That is what women
want. What do you think?
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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