Developing Better Restrooms for Women, Essay Example

Women are most often than not presented with the problem of having a hard time finding more space in comfort rooms allotted for them. It is believed that the increase of number of women going to comfort rooms could be because of the fact that women look at their appearance more than they actually pee. Nevertheless, there are instances when women are likely to populate the comfort rooms in public areas such as malls, hospitals, airports and other destinations that are usually full of clients. Waiting in the line, these women often have to deal with extensive heat in the said comfort rooms making it harder for them to be comfortable at all.

The need for women to pee is often dependent on their health condition. Pregnant women for example require peeing almost at least three to four times in an hour or more depending on the situation of the mother. Relatively, this means that these women would likely populate public comfort rooms than men do. Most often than not, there is also a heightened need to serve the needs of these women based on highly maintained hygiene in comfort rooms. Maintaining comfort room hygiene however is not that easy when it is populated fully every hour of the day.

Other reasons why women are most often than not seen in public comfort rooms to populate the area than men is the fact that they are mostly to be seen in public places more often than men. Take for example the population that malls receive every day. Out of the seven to ten thousand population malls serve each day, women at least take 65% of that population as they are seen in malls almost whole day round at an average of at least 45% of the day to stay within the premises of the mall. Some are there to complete house chores such as buying grocery items for the house or other household needs while some others stay in the said areas for plain fun-shopping. Women are noted for their desire to pamper themselves and one way of doing so is to go to public places and meet up with friends or simply treat themselves to something they think would be good for their health.

Men on the other hand are most often than not found in offices and their work areas throughout the day hence only entering most public places like malls after work which is usually after five o’clock in the afternoon. It is for this reason that women seen more often to populate public areas and are of course seen to have a greater density of population in public comfort rooms than men.

While comfort is what the room stands for, this has not been true for women for many instances already. This is the reason why a resolution of expanding or at least extending the functions of the women’s comfort rooms is being suggested herein. This proposal subjects the need of public comfort rooms to have extra cubicles for women to use when they enter the comfort rooms. Notably, although a comfort room may be spacious but have lower number of cubicles, the problem would remain prevalent. The higher number of cubicles would serve the needs of the women well. The cubicles need not to be extensively spacious especially if space is really limited. The only thing that needs to be considered is the fact that the cubicle could be used thoroughly and immediately by the women falling in line especially during rush hours such as lunch time and release hours from the office. This way, the women would have lesser time spent in falling in line and staying within the premises of the comfort room.

Powder areas are also suggested to be placed outside the comfort rooms but at least just beside them so as to reduce the population of those staying within the premises. This would also allow the women who are just going to retouch their makeup and check their appearances have the lesser need to enter the comfort rooms and add in to the chaos of those waiting for their turn to pee. When it comes to hygienic options, women are expected to respond to this need on their own. Being women, keepers of the home, it is innate in women to keep their own areas clean. Hence, putting flushes in the comfort room bowls and setting up reminders for “clean-as-you-go” policies would help a lot in making comfort rooms more comfortable for the feminine users.

Using water flush on the other hand is only one part of the desire to keep comfort rooms of women specifically hygienic. Another way to maintain cleanliness is the availability of trash-cans and the constant checking of the room and the facilities it offers every hour. The immediate investigative cleaning could last for at least 15 minutes where the changing of tissue paper rolls, mopping of the floor and emptying trash cans [if needed] could be considered by the maintaining personnel during these particular schedules. This way, the increased level of comfort on the part of the users of the room would make it easier for them to come in and out of the room’s premises with a more comfortable feeling. Extending spaces for women’s restrooms of course betters the image of the public areas that are to accept the said suggestion as it does reflect the concern they have for their clients, especially for women who are most often than not populating their premises during both the lean and peak hours of a day’s operation; a matter that would increase recognizable reputation that is acceptable to most clients of the said establishments.

References

Molotch, Harvey. (2010). Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing (Nyu Series in Social and Cultural Analysis); NYU Press.

De Valle Schutser, Christina. (2005). Public Toilet Design: From Hotels, Bars, Restaurants, Civic Buildings and Businesses Worldwide (Trends in Architecture). Firefly books.

Gibson, David. (2009). The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places. Princeton Architectural Press; 1st edition.

Greene, Virginia. Designing Public Rest Rooms: Privacy is in the Details. http://archrecord.construction.com/resources/conteduc/article_pdf/0512Hadrian.pdf. (Retrieved on April 9, 2012).