Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    thanks for posting this -- I heard on Friday (nov 2) that the jury
    found her innocent after only 2 hrs deliberation.
    
    I heard her interviewed on NPR.  She said she was desperate, and that
    she got the idea when she saw a man bring his date into the men's room,
    and she followed them.  (Howcome the date was not arrested, too?)
    
    as an aside, in a previous life I worked for a short time as an
    electrician's apprentice.  One job had us installing those little
    scent-dispensers in restrooms, both men's and women's.  Women, you
    should know that in the small sample I observed, the women's rooms were
    dirty, but the men's rooms were horribly gross.  I remember thinking
    that the management of these places needed educating...
    
    last word:  as my mom always said, you should have gone before we left!
    				:-)
    

    
    Judging by a note in Mennotes on the subject of wmn using men's
    "restrooms" a LOT of us should have been arrested!
    
    It seems from that string that most men don't seem to mind.....
    
    'gail

    
    Judging from the men's rooms I've been in, I wouldn't want to use
    most of them.  Outside, around the building sounds good to me.
    
    Of course, rolling up the bottom of your pants works....
    
    Nancy

    please see also:
    
    HUMAN_RELATIONS
    1096 - Long lines
    
    
    -Jody
    

    Not the same issue, but related:
    
    Usually when I go to a place where the "restrooms" are simply
    bathrooms, ie: no stalls, only one person at a time, I will go in the
    one labelled "men", just out of principle.  It is ridiculous to have
    different bathrooms when the place only holds one person anyway. 
    Better to have two unisex restrooms so that there will be less of a
    line, period.
    
    D1

    at Grendel's Den, in Harvard Square, the restrooms are marked "either"
    and "or".
    
    
    Judi
    

    
    Boy am I glad I didn't get caught!  I forget where I was but I 
    had to go REALLY badly and the women's line had 10+ women in it!  
    The men's room was empty, except for my husband.  So I went in!
    All the women in the line with me encouraged me to do so!
    Weird.  I can't figure out why they even arrested her!  Did some
    man complain?  Was the room empty? 
    
    I'm glad she was aquitted.  I don't see the big deal if there was
    no one in there anyways.  If there was some guy in there, then I
    could see the problem.  (Peeping Jane)
    
    Rachael
    

    The room was not empty when she entered, and she was unaccompanied by a
    male.  That seems to be why the original arrest.
    
    I'm convinced that in large gathering areas (arenas, stadiums, ski
    areas, airports, and the like), that there need to be about twice as 
    many "stations" available to women as there are to men, in order for
    the relative wait to use facilities to be equal.  Women not only take
    longer per use, but also seem to have a higher "use per man-hour".  But
    the writers of building codes don't seem to have noticed this trend.
    
    Alison

    About 8  years  ago the building codes required the same number of
    toilets  for men and women, and urinals in the men's room. You are
    allowed  to have more than the required number of toilets, but few
    builders  bothered.  I'm  not sure if the building codes have been
    changed since then, I know it was being talked about.

--David

    
    I live in the UK - I went to a concert at Wembley Stadium once, and the
    queues outside the women's toilets were so long that they actually
    "officially opened" the men's toilets to women.  There were security
    men standing outside them to make sure that nothing funny went on, but
    all the same we were allowed in.
    
    Sam
    

    
    RE -1
    Same here Sam....isn't Wembley the *pits*?
    The poor provisioning for wmns toilets is second only to the
    pitifully inadequate parking and the impossible traffic problems
    after a show.....
    Oh yeah - and the horrible, overpriced food....
    And the acoustics are unspeakably bad anyway.
    
    (And God forbid some supergroup should be playing the Stadium at the
    same time as another one playing the Arena....AAAAARRRRRRRGHHHHHH!)
    
    'gail (who grew up within sound of the Stadium)

The New York City Marathon has "the world's longest urinal," several hundred
feet of roof gutter (or something similar) near the start.   One year,
it was located directly in front of the path that the elite women had
to take to get to the starting line, which made for a lot of amused
non-expressions.

What the marathon folk don't tell you, however, is that the real "world's
longest urinal" is the two mile long Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which
the runners cross at the beginning of the race, and folk (mostly men)
don't particularly worry about ducking behind a car when the need arises
(since most of us drank about a gallon of water a day to prepare for the
race, it arose fairly often.)

This is, of course, a minor problem for the women who make up about 1/4
of the field.  While there are several hundered PortaSans at the
start, (i.e., one for about every hundred runners), the lines can
be rather long -- I waited 15 minutes an hour before the start, and visited
some bushes just before the start -- and the marathon staff recognizes
this as a problem.

Martin.

    re .8, I agree.  This is always a problem at rock concerts, huge lines
    for the women's room and no line at all for the men's.
    
    Lorna
    

    I heard that the jury only deliberated for 23 minutes.  A juror said
    that they "were with her all the way" it's just that the formalities
    [whatever they were, probably where to sit or where to meet for dinner]
    took 23 minutes.
    
    ed

    One problem with many men's rooms is that there is no doors on the
    stalls. So, if you expect privacy...
    
    -roger
    

    I've got to give her a hand for fighting this.  I think it's pretty
    neat that she won.  
    
    I've used the men's room many many times, either at Concerts (Hard
    rock, and no one there ever seems to mind) or at Candlestick during
    the 49er's games.  I've gotten caught there and warned that I shouldn't
    do it, but they certainly never gave me a ticket.  After drinking
    about a gallon (so it felt like) of beer, when I gotta go, I gotta
    go.
    
    Kel
    
    

At a nationally-televised major marathon a few years ago, the eventual
winner had a bout of diarreha during the race.  It was kind of fun to
watch the tv commentators dance around the issue.

Martin.

    Re: -.1
    
    I know this is disgusting, but I couldn't resist
    
    
    > dance around the issue
    
    They wouldn't want to step in it, would they?

    
    While we're on the subject of excrement, one of the janitorial staff
    was telling us (those gathered in the smoking lounge) that she got a
    really weird call today.  Someone in the building had what was
    purported to be dog turds in their office and they wanted a janitor to
    come and clean it up.  The occupant said he brought it in on his boot
    but the janitor told us that there were a _number_ of dried turds on 
    the carpet and that they were very discreet lumps, not smooshed or 
    smeared the way it usually is when you step in it.  We decided that the
    whole story wasn't being told.  (And I wondered why he didn't just
    clean it up himself!)
    
    CQ

>    the carpet and that they were very discreet lumps, not smooshed or 

	uh, I think you mean _discrete_ lumps (although I admit, it's
	a lot funnier the other way.  I mean, I can just picture this
	french poodle...)

    This is reprinted without permission from the  back of PEOPLE magazine,
    November 19, 1990 issue:
    
    DENISE WELLS, 33, the Houston legal assistannt whose bladder captured
    the nation's attention last summer, was acquitted Nov. 2 in Houston of
    voilating a city ordinance prohibiting members of the opposite sex from
    using public restrooms designated for a particular gender.  In July,
    Wells had been charged and fined $200.00 when, after repeatedly facing
    long lines at the women's room, she decided she could wait no more and
    marched into the men's room during a George Strait concert at the
    Summit, a Houston sports arena.  "I hope the cause of women's rest-room
    equality  continues on," said Wells after her aquittal.
    
    Dubbed Pollygate by the local press, the two-day trial featured expert
    witnesses raning from an architect to a urologist testifying on Well's
    behalf.  One juror, Cindy Stephens, said afterward, "She just did what
    she had to do."  The trial is estimated to have cost Houston taxpayers
    $100,000.
    
    
    
    
    Jus tthought the update was in order!
    
    Jill
    

    
    maybe should go under the 'click' topic, but one of the first
    things that got me to see the world differently was an argument
    i had with a girlfriend about the number of bathrooms at her law
    school. 
    

    
    .22 finally explained to me several points - notably why this was a
    case of "using the wrong restroom", and why replies mentioned cases of
    doing so without arrest.
    
    I happened to discuss it with my cousin over the weekend (he's a
    barrister - criminal lawyer - in England) and he pointed out that in
    Britain using a restroom of opposite sex designation is not an offense
    per se. *However* in most cases anybody doing so could expect to be
    prosecuted - not for using the wrong restroom, but for "conduct likely
    to cause a breech of the peace".
    
    /. Ian .\
    
    

    
      Building codes should be changed for concert halls,stadiums + large
    function halls to have 2 ladies rooms to every 1 men's room. 
    
     A 2 to 1 ratio should help.
    
    

    
    	Such a study has been done!  I don't remember the exact numbers,
    but men took a little under a minute, and women took a little over a
    minute (including the time it took to open and close the stall doors).
    The elapsed time problem is compounded by the fact that women have
    smaller bladders than men (to make room for our internal reproductive
    organs), and so we need to use the facilities more frequently.
    
    	The only restrooms where I don't wait in line, are here at work
    :-)!  In engineering, the men so outnumber the women, that I usually
    have the entire restroom to myself.