Toilet equity: fighting for the right to pee

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:

Zoe George is familiar with flow rate. The sports journalist and broadcaster became a toilet equity expert a few years back through frustration, after experiencing first hand a serious issue with the women’s toilets at Wellington’s Basin Reserve. After standing in a queue for half an hour, she made it her mission to get to the bottom of it (“You can’t talk about the dunny without being punny”, she laughs).

Thanks to George’s advocacy, the Basin’s outdated facilities were revamped in time to avoid the embarrassment and queues associated with the dire lack of womens’ and accessible toilets previously, for the Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2022.

Toilet inequity is not just about pelvic-floor-challenging inconvenience, George stresses. She cites research that has found that when people don’t think they will be able to access toilets in public spaces, they avoid those spaces.

“And it prevents one in five of us from leaving our homes to engage in public life, including going to the theater or sporting events. So that's the entire population of Auckland or the South Island not leaving their homes to participate and engage in public life.”

One in five of the 3000 respondents said public bathrooms don’t meet their needs. This figure jumped to nearly half for those with a disability. A third said they often have to wait to use the bathroom – especially women, parents, and people with disabilities. One in five also reported feeling unsafe using public facilities, an issue particularly affecting trans and non-binary people.

A contributing factor here is that toilet standards for buildings – which set how many of which loos should be provided - are not up-to-date with modern society. The standards set by MBIE – including a ‘toilet calculator’ for buildings – haven’t been updated in 30 years. They don’t consider the changes in diversity in workplaces and in society at large that have happened since the 1990s. They are partly the reason why some public buildings have proportionally more male toilets than female, and few or no all-gender toilets. Cue the queues. The BRANZ report recommends changes to the standards for toilets in buildings including updates to the toilet calculator.

Thompson says he can see how a situation like the Basin Reserve could have happened back when the buildings were being designed. “You can imagine… they would have just said ‘oh well, there won't be women here, so forget about [women’s toilets].”

The situation of an intermission at a show or sports game is, Thompson notes, “the toughest ask of toilets, because in all other situations it's much more random when people use the bathroom".

“It would mean, in the case of a theatre for example, the line would be shorter and it would contain both men and women, and they could use the next toilet that was free…. and any toilet that is free is free. None are hidden in the men's and not being used.”

“There's kind of a generational change in the use of urinals”, he explains. “It’s anecdotal… but these days people want a bit more privacy. As generations come through as you might find more men using cubicles just because it's a bit more private.”

An all-gender toilet cubicle is a fully self-contained room, with full-height walls, basin and sanitary disposal included. It’s a practical solution which means that potentially fewer all-gender bathrooms are needed, compared to gendered toilets, reducing the floor area required. And it improves inclusivity and safety for trans and non-binary people.

It could happen, though. Female punters will need to cross their legs a bit longer, but Tātaki Auckland Unlimited – part of Auckland Council which runs many of the city’s theatres – is planning an upgrade of the Bruce Mason Centre in 2027/28.

Before that though, the Aotea Centre - another toilet queue hot spot - is set for an imminent glow-up. Over the Christmas-New Year break, there’ll be “a significant upgrade” to the Centre’s Limelight toilets on Levels 2 and 3, that’s set to put a relieved smile on female theatre-goers faces.

“This refurbishment will increase the number of toilets in this area from nine to 32,” says White, “including a family room with changing facilities and two additional accessibility bathrooms. The new facilities will be gender-neutral, reflecting our commitment to meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse audience and eliminating long queues at events.”

“The flow rate needs to be three to one: three toilets accessible to women for every one toilet accessible to a man, including a urinal. And in some places - for example certain areas in New York - this has been legislated. A three-to-one flow rate or, in some cases a four-to-one flow rate to make access to toilets equitable.”

“You want people to go to your facility and just go, oh, I don't have to worry about this. I can just go into this room and shut the door and, you know, it's fine.”

“Access to toilets is a fundamental, basic human right. Everybody goes, and it's not something that we talk about because it's such a very private thing that we do. But everyone does it. So we need to talk about toilets.”

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