Source: Radio New Zealand
It’s an experience almost every woman has had: standing in a queue at a concert, sporting event or public building, waiting to use the toilet. Sometimes, while we wait, we might be able to view the entrance to the men’s toilet, from which men happily come and go, queue free. This happened to me recently, at Auckland’s Bruce Mason Centre, where, by the end of the intermission, the queue for the ladies’ still hadn’t cleared.
This experience is so common; so apparently normal – most of us probably consider it just part of life. But why is it?
It’s been established via international research that women take between three and four times longer to use the toilet facilities than men (that’s not counting queuing time, which for women is on average more than two minutes. Men, if they have to queue at all, wait 40 seconds). This is what’s known as ‘flow rate’ – meaning the rate at which people flow through the facilities. Contrary to gender stereotypes suggesting the extra time is because women are applying lipstick and fixing our hair, there are far more practical reasons:
