Equity vs Equality: Reimagining the day when there are no lines in front of the women's toilet.

On every Women’s Day my feed / WhatsApp / Inbox gets filled with messages on stories of inspirational women, quotes on women’s importance in society (If you can visualize it - a good morning-esque message that your uncle sends you every morning - a single red rose, a silhouette of a women, some inspirational quote in the middle, you get the gist), and so on.

Personally to me, Women’s day is going down the path of Valentine’s day, too much sop, too little substance. Most employees/families celebrate women with boxes of chocolates, roses, and some inane coffee mug with a trite celebratory quote. I have one that says “You Lady, are the boss!” (Really it does, I am not joking!). But, most women's networks I am part of, are full of messages of mistrust, of women unhappy at this display of affection and respect for one day and no change on other days; messages like these are plenty:

“The whole year I am undermined and you (Employer X) think that one day of sappy wishes and a bouquet of roses is enough to make me forget all that.”

“I was passed over for promotion the last two times. A bag of chocolate and the best dressed women title isn’t going to make me forget that."

(Name/location/details removed, any likeness to your experience is coincidental or unavoidable)

And on and on it goes.?

So I thought, if people aren’t able to truly understand what women want, maybe we should tell them.?

When I ask other women, "If you could remove constraints and do 1 thing better, what would you do?", I hear simple things like walk alone at night without having to constantly scope for danger in all directions or go for a long drive in my car/ 2 wheeler whenever I want or even go to a bar and drink by myself without earning pity/solicitation.

Me, I would like to not stand in line for the Toilet - No lines in front of women’s toilets. This is stemming a bit from time crunch, bit from aging but largely from a desire to put equity into practice, when equality is just not enough.?

When I first started working and traveling, access to women’s toilets was difficult. I used to go 10-12 hours without using the toilet on many trips. Over time the access to Women’s toilets has improved for women like me (Alas! not for all women). Now many public spaces that I visit, like airports, have the same number of toilets for women as for men. Equality at play!

But, has anyone noticed that the line outside the women's toilet is always long. For most people, the first response is “It's because, women spend way too much time applying makeup.”

But the reality is very different. Caroline Perez pointed out in her book Invisible Women how this world designed for men is completely ignoring the needs of women and it shows up in the way we design our products, our services and yes, also our toilet spaces.

Toilet designers assume men and women have the exact same needs inside the toilets, and hence, should spend equal amounts of time using it. So, they take the same sized space for both toilets, design them as mirror images and if women take more time navigating it, the problem must be women’s behaviour. We are blaming women for not interacting well with a product designed with men in mind.

If you don’t read the entire book, I'd highly recommend reading at least Chapter 2 'Gender Neutral with Urinals'. It’s an eye-opener on how we live our lives accepting the biases all around us, woven into our daily experiences. Anyway, back to the Toilet Saga! Caroline points out that Women take 2.3 times longer than men to use the toilet - not because of makeup, but because they are 100% more likely to have the need to change a pad while on their periods or to pee more frequently because they are pregnant and they are also more likely to take along a child, a disabled person or an older person with them. No wonder the queues are long!

So, on this Women’s Day, here’s me wishing that the architects, the builders, the public space designers will take notice, study our needs (and notice how different they are!) and design a toilet that works for us - this will be a win for Equity! Hopefully, the next time I travel, I can get done with my business faster. :-)

For inspiration, here’s one designer who put Equity over Equality and designed a space that works for women. They recognised that each group has different circumstances and different needs and allocated the right resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.?

Happy Women’s Day! May all our wishes of Equity come true - Pay, Timeshare, Travel, Safety, Public Spaces.....Toilets.

So, what would you change in your world?