Equal Treatment For Women

Recently, I ate at Don Quixote, one of my favourite Spanish Restaurants. Besides serving good food, they are also sensitive to the needs of women and girls.

The restaurant has two toilets, one of which is solely dedicated as a female toilet. The other is gender-neutral.

In my opinion, it is not fair to have equal allocation of toilet areas, facilities and fixtures within the confines of a public space for males and females.

Women tend to spend more time in the toilets due to physiological and dressing and other cultural factors. In addition, the use of a cubicle rather than a urinal would also mean that they need more time.

As a rule of thumb, they need to make more visits to the toilets. The reasons include pregnancy, make-up, menstruation, and breast feeding and looking after other needs of babies and children.

Elderly ladies generally have a longer lifespan and would normally need more frequent visits and spend a longer time in the toilet.

As urinals need a smaller area than cubicles, there are usually more facilities for men.

We need to cater for more toilet facilities for women so as to make it equitable in terms of usage and throughput levels. If we do not do it, I feel that it is a form of gender discrimination.

Currently, I am not aware of any laws to regulate the ratio of male-female toilets in Singapore. There are such laws in some developed countries, including the UK and USA.

My sense is that we should have a ratio of 2:3 to be fair to women and girls.

What do you think?