Interesting factoid: "The temperance movement to limit alcohol consumption led cities to build public restrooms in the late 1800s and early 1900s: The thinking went that men wouldn’t need to enter a bar to use the bathroom."
But these days, we don't think of public bathrooms as bulwarks against vice. Quite the opposite: We're picturing sex and drugs.
Perhaps there would be more public bathrooms if the issue were framed in terms of sex discrimination. Women need real bathrooms. Men can and do make makeshift bathrooms out of doorways and stairwells and trees and rocks. That's why the French came up with the pissoir to contain the chaos. The NYT article talks about pissoirs, but instead of seeing the problem of sex discrimination, it follows the new constraint of declining to talk about human beings in terms of their genitalia. Here's the text, which blunts any outrage on behalf of women, the largest oppressed group in the history of mankind:
[L]ike the classic pissoir, [urinals] are typically only usable by people without disabilities and those who can easily use the bathroom while standing.
You can't say "women." You have to say people who cannot easily use the bathroom while standing. Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled at peeing standing up.
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In days of old
When knights were bold...
It's not even the sex and drugs. It's the bums. Filthy, stinking bums living in the stalls. If our cities can't find the moral fortitude to evict bums from prime civic spaces, and apparently they can't, then public restrooms aren't viable.
There's a documentary called "The Dark End of the Street" (2000), about the California heroin crisis in the late 90s and immediately after Y2k. It used to be free on youtube, but I'm sure you could find it if you're into depression porn, and it will depress you.
One of the things that stuck out at me is all the shooting up takes place in public restrooms. At least as far back as 2000, that was the preferred location to shoot up. One of the girls in the doc spends hours, in some cases the whole day, passed out in restrooms. During the credits I think I recall it mentions she dies in there.
Progressives have a fetish for public restrooms. As always they talk about the public restroom culture in Europe or especially Japan, without taking into account that those places have Europeans and Japaense people, not useless druggy lowlifes passing out for the better part of a day and dying in them. If you can't tell, I'm not a fan.
@Althouse: "Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled from peeing standing up."
The ideological screw turns as the next generation inherits a set of beliefs and dogmas they did not create. Children of leftists also regress to the mean and become more conservative than their parents. Now, we have the "Trad Wife" movement where the next generation seeks 1950s stay-at-home Mom lifestyles as the new new new new new progressivism.
Most change is about predictable pendulum swings, not progress per se.
Women — once a strong interest group —
I've got some news for you.. Women are The STRONGEST interest group. It's just that you need to realize:
Real Chix have Dicks. Deformed "women" with a front hole instead of a dick are pathetic substitutes.
Once you come to grips, with the idea that REAL Women have penis.. It will ALL make sense
This winning lady don't have a problem peeing!
Transgender woman finishes in first place at New York City cycling event
In CO - we have Public Library meth bathrooms.
Come one ... come all!
Sitzpinklers. Germans have a word for everything.
---on behalf of women, the largest oppressed group in the history of mankind
The unhappy ones, maybe.
New York City, otherwise the greatest city in the US, is woefully bereft of public restrooms. Savvy New Yorkers try to accumulate awareness of businesses that offer publicly available bathrooms, (e.g., Barnes and Noble bookstores, Starbucks franchises and other coffee shops, and often other chain fast food stores), and so on. There are also bathrooms to be found in Central Park and in some big stores, such as Macy's, Apple Stores, and the like.
If you want to have public bathrooms you have to discourage the destruction of public property.
That means discouraging homelessness.
Support needs to be given to the mentally ill and to drug addicts and in return for that support they need to be required to work and help the community.
People that want to be lazy bums and parasites should be sent to jail until they want to go to work.
Here in B-town, formerly low crime overall, we now enjoy open drug use, Meth use at the library, theft, increased violence, shoplifting, homeless camps loitering public spaces... Human and dog feces along the creek...
Public spaces paid for by ... you know - people who live here. No child will be seen in any downtown park. The parks are often hobbles of drug use and bums.
Progressive!
Up next on the progressive agenda: Safe injection sites, allowance of druggie-theft camps, formerly proud civic spaces filled with drug-theft camps... and news that our taxes are going up again so we can coddle and invite more!
You can't say "women." You have to say people who cannot easily use the bathroom while standing. Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled from peeing standing up.
It is stupid that we cannot have a system that recognizes the different needs of men and women.
I believe at least twice as much public restroom space should be reserved for women as men.
It just makes sense. Being able to pee standing up allows men to get the job done with less space. View it as a contribution.
Madison can gladly shout, "We're number 1 for going number 1. And/or shooting up."
As a former traveling salesgeek, finding bathrooms on the run in various cities became a learned skill. It did help that I showered and wore nice clothes. It got me into nice office buildings that many on the streets of San Francisco were not allowed to enter. So...maybe a shower and change of clothes would help? Also- lose the drugs. Get a job. All of that helps.
Ann, have you got a tag for "hate America first" and "we can't do anything".
The article mentions international efforts, but doesn't stress international failures. In my travels, there were no free public toilets in Brussels. In Hong Kong, it's hard to find a place to sit down, much less use a toilet.
Portland and San Francisco are mentioned as working on the problem, but both are infamous for the breakdown of civil order. If there was a program to build decent public restrooms in those cities, does anyone doubt that advocates would demand that homeless can live in them, drug users can party in them and men are welcome to stand around in the Women's restroom. Public restrooms wouldn't be safe for anyone in those cities.
The pissoirs in Amsterdam were brilliant. Free-standing, single occupant structures with the bottom 18 inches open. They were a spiral shape so a guy steps in and around, is screened from passersby and pisses into a drain that dumps into the canal. You see the many problems we would have with that solution.
You can't say "women." You have to say people who cannot easily use the bathroom while standing. Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled from peeing standing up.
In an attempt to be non-binary they created another binary.
I would class not being able to stand up and pee a disability...especially on the golf course : )
In San Francisco, the modular restrooms are used by prostitutes and the junkies just shoot up, piss, and shit on the street like good liberals.
Even if there were no problem with sex and drugs, the cost to constantly clean and repair public restrooms is unworkable.
European public toilets, and some in private business establishments, are pay toilets - usually about half a euro as you enter. Japanese public toilets are mostly coed, with no charge for using a urinal but a 50 yen charge for using a stall which extends from floor to ceiling for privacy. The payments are generally used to support a "head man" or "head woman" who keeps the restroom properly stocked and clean. I've never seen a homeless person or druggo hanging out in a European or Japanese public toilet. This is a social problem that seems to be unique to American cities. Wonder why?
why not distribute Depends with Prresidents Seal of Approavl
and leavve traxx on sands of time
Gender differences: penis, vagina.
Cultural differences: self-moderation, liberal license.
@Robert Cook
If only everyone could tap into George Costanza's ability to immediately recall where the best public restrooms in NYC are, then New Yorkers wouldn't have such a problem. Or...you know...they could just live somewhere less dystopian.
Perhaps there would be more public bathrooms if the issue were framed in terms of sex discrimination.
So treating men and women the same is now discrimination?
This is why we can't have nice things.
When the family visited New York City back in the 1990s, Homer Simpson memorably had to go to the top of both Twin Towers before finding a public restroom.
Women need real bathrooms. Men can and do make makeshift bathrooms out of doorways and stairwells and trees and rocks.
My wife is an avid hiker. She does just fine without real bathrooms.
Here's the text, which blunts any outrage on behalf of women, the largest oppressed group in the history of mankind:
FFS. Women in Western Civilization today are among the most privileged people in history and have a higher standard of living than the vast majority of people to ever live. Their "oppression" in times past is greatly overstated. Today it is men who are being oppressed. Men are the ones being drugged into compliance in schools designed to accommodate women. Men are openly and legally discriminated against by our nation's laws. Family law and divorce law are used as weapons against men. Why aren't women subject to the draft?
It is not the "Patriarchy" that is incapable of defining a woman. It is not the "Patriarchy" who is rewarding men for pretending to be women. It is not the "Patriarchy" creating terms like "birthing person". It is the political Left doing these things. A political Left supported by, and impossible without, women.
New York City, otherwise the greatest city in the US, is woefully bereft of public restrooms.
But they do have subway trains, which are basically the same thing these days.
"Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled at peeing standing up."
NOW should change their acronymn to NOWADPSU. National Organization for Who is Disabled at Peeing Standing Up.
A city and generations (plural) that grow up with public restrooms will find that they tend not to be vandalized. Introducing such things into a city where vandalism and graffiti are common, opens it up to vandalism and graffiti, in the least.
"Why Are Public Restrooms Still So Rare?"
I don't know- maybe because they're regularly overtaken and trashed by druggies and the homeless? Or you could just check Chapter XVIII of "Why We Can't Have Nice Things".
Does one have to pretend to be ignorant and blind about everything in order to read the NYT?
"The temperance movement to limit alcohol consumption led cities to build public restrooms in the late 1800s and early 1900s: The thinking went that men wouldn’t need to enter a bar to use the bathroom.”
The temperance movement was led by women (WCTU), which accounts for the “thinking” here.
“Women — once a strong interest group — are merged with everyone who is disabled at peeing standing up.”
Welcome to inclusivity! When women were a strong interest group they gave us Prohibition, so maybe a little dilution is a good thing.
The city of Boston experimented with those single unit auto cleaning bathrooms. Apparently there were more junkies than bathrooms so the Boston public library bathrooms were accommodating for a while. Then they junkies were crashing the weddings so Boston just started letting the junkies shoot up in the sidewalk in front of the npr/pbs radio station by the front door…
The best high traffic public bathrooms in the US I’ve seen are Disney or Augusta National Golf Club.
"Men can and do make makeshift bathrooms out of doorways and stairwells and trees and rocks."
In some places that will get you on the sex offenders registry.
I was able to attend a Masters practice round a few years ago, and one of my most indelible memories of being there was the efficiency of the bathroom experience. The moving concession lines and the variety of different shades of green everywhere round out the top three.
are merged with everyone who is disabled at peeing standing up.”
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trans womyn with no wombs are taking care of that disparity
We should issue space suits to everyone.
I guess that depends on what you call a "Public Restroom". For gentlemen of a certain age any alleyway is a "Public Restroom".
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