Put an end to potty discrimination

So, women are being assigned to serve on submarines. To paraphrase a famous line: "That's one small step for a woman, one giant leap for womankind."

Women are advancing on all fronts. One female CEO last year earned a salary of $47 million! Women have been sent into space. A woman came close to being president of the United States.

But women have yet to overcome one obstacle. They're still second-class citizens in the public restrooms of America.

That was apparent during intermission at an N.C. Symphony concert when women were lined up outside their room, while men were moving in and out of theirs like a hive of bees about to swarm.

Such rank discrimination preyed on my mind to the point that I asked a friend attending the next concert to count the relief stations in both restrooms at Meymandi Hall.

She agreed, later admitting that persuading a male usher to count urinals and toilets wasn't easy. "But when I assured him he'd be assisting in scholarly research he complied," she said.

Results: 16 stalls in the ladies' room; four stalls and eight urinals in the men's.

"It may be that men get out quicker because they don't bother to wash their hands when they finish," my researcher suggested.

"Not so!" I retorted. "It's my observation that most men wash their hands afterwards."

To confirm my conviction, I turned to the Internet. A CNN poll finds that 33 percent of men don't wash their hands, compared to 12 percent for women.

Zounds! For Pete's sake, men, get with it!

I concede that it takes extra time for women to adjust and readjust their clothing for the restroom function. Unless they've just come from a major beer blast, men can walk in, unzip, go, zip-up and be out in under a minute.

Now they may take longer if they linger to read "Bathroom Briefs" posted over the urinals in many restrooms, including The N&O's. But they pick up such useful information, such as we should wash our hands as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday." Or, if a horse in a park statue has two front legs in the air, it indicates the rider died in battle. If all four legs are on the ground, the hero died of natural causes. A person's postgraduate education never ends.

Don't talk to strangers

Unlike women, men don't take time to brush their hair, redo their lipstick or share small talk, often with total strangers.

I did once initiate a restroom conversation many years ago during halftime at a Carolina football game. An inebriated fan standing next to me at the trough urinal let his attention and his aim wander, thoroughly wetting my trousers' leg. The conversation was very brief and to the point!

Although potty discrimination in this country is shameful enough, it's much worse in Europe where women routinely are charged for using the loo, while men are not.

I once almost caused an international incident when our tour bus stopped at a service center on the Italian-Swiss border. Although these coaches are equipped with a toilet, tour guides constantly urge passengers not to use it, insisting there's only one dumpsite between Lucerne and Rome.

At this particular rest stop, male passengers were in and out in two shakes of a sheep's tail, while the line of waiting women stretched half a block.

So I waved the women over to the empty men's room and stood guard at the door as they rushed past, murmuring words of gratitude.

Moments later, hearing screams of rage, I looked up to see the toll taker from the ladies' loo bearing down on me, screaming curses in Italian and brandishing a mop. My act of compassion was cutting into her income. I fled to the safety of the bus with her close on my heels.

In this allegedly civilized culture, there's no excuse for subjecting women to such insensitive discrimination. For every relief unit in a men's room toilet, architects should be required to specify two for the women's facility.

There are more than 160 million women in the United States. When they venture out in public and need to go to the ladies' room they shouldn't have to stand in lines with their legs crossed. It just ain't fittin'!