Have you ever gone to use the toilet and seen a huge queue? Sorry. Let me be more specific. Have you ever gone to use the women’s toilet and seen there’s a huge queue? Men, feel free to weigh in on this. Have you ever gone to use the men’s toilet and walked past a queue of women waiting to use the women’s toilet? If you answered no, then I’m sorry but you’re lying.

It’s a universal fact that there is ALWAYS a queue for the women’s bathroom. I don’t know about you, but I use the toilet everywhere I go. Cafés, restaurants, museums, bars, cinemas, theatres, clubs, you name it, I have used the bathroom there. And rare is the occasion I waltz in without having to wait for someone to finish. That’s a luxury predominantly reserved for men.

We women cannot simply ‘pop to the loo’ or ‘nip to the toilet’ in busy spaces. No. We must set aside ample time to relieve our bladders. We must depart for the commode before we are desperate, taking into consideration the ten minutes it will take before our bottoms make contact with the toilet seat. Whereas men can be in and out in the time it takes to un-shell a pistachio. I watch them, sauntering past smugly, tank emptied, cracking open and swigging from a new 1.5L bottle of Evian, while I assess whether my navy trousers are dark enough to conceal me wetting myself.

I talk about women’s bathrooms a lot. So much so you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m either some weird creep or have substantial gastric issues. One of those things is true but neither is the reason I talk about women’s loos so much. Women use public bathrooms every single day. If we didn’t, we’d die. So, why are we always waiting? The answer isn’t so mysterious. It’s because the majority of our bathrooms have not been designed by the people actually using them. Most women’s bathrooms have been designed by men.

Biologically, women have shorter urethras than men (the part of the body urine travels through after leaving the bladder), making us more prone to the devil that walks among us – UTIs. And when I have a UTI, I’m heading to the bathroom, on average, once a minute. This on top of having overactive bladder syndrome, which women are more likely to suffer from. In general, women tend to have a smaller bladder capacity to men and use the loo more frequently. It’s normal for us to use the toilet more while menstruating as well, with changing products leading to a longer trip.

On a practical level, we have to take off more clothes and sit down rather than whacking it out and going full steam ahead. An example: on holiday recently, I chose to wear dungarees to the theatre, which turned out to be the worst idea since the decision to not have a spare key to the binocular locker on the Titanic.

At the interval, the queue to the women’s bathroom was the length of the Shard. Shock. The women in front of me were the epitome of efficient. Everyone was conscious of the 1,892 other women stood with their legs crossed behind them. In the name of sisterhood, I went into one of the five cubicles with the same intention of efficiency. Inside, it took me so long to get my coat, hat, jumper, then dungarees off and back on again that someone actually came and pushed the door to make sure the cubicle wasn’t empty or whoever was inside hadn’t died. By the time I’d got everything back on I needed the loo again because of my tiny, female bladder. So, logically, I decided to wear the same dungarees to the theatre the following night.

Once again, we XX chromosomes were queuing from inside the bathroom, through two doors, around the wall outside, and up the stairs almost to the entrance of the theatre. After I made it inside, the woman who went into the stall next to me slammed the door shut and said, ‘come on theatres, SORT OUT YOUR DAMN TOILETS.’ I wanted to reply, ‘don’t worry sista, I’m writing an article about it which will no doubt sort EVERYTHING.’ But she sounded very angry so I was frightened she might shank me with a toilet brush.

A YouGov UK study has, in recent years, shown that women take around 90 seconds to use the toilet, while men take around 40. Meaning, we take more than twice as long.

On top of our biologically smaller bladders, and shorter urethras, and menstruating for up to seven days a month, AND having more clothes to shed (all of which make sense of these stats), we can also have small children with us that we take to the bathroom. AND we like to go to the toilet in pairs or groups, sometimes for safety but also because the bathroom is our private space where we can bear our souls and our bladders simultaneously. Adding to this the fact that men have multiple urinals as well as cubicles, which takes away the time it takes to open, close, lock a door, and remove and put back on clothing.

Throughout history, the world of architecture has been, and still is, a male dominated field, meaning society is designed with a predominantly male influence. Leading to most women’s public bathrooms being designed with equal size and capacity to men’s, but equality is not the same as equity. And the bathroom isn’t the only space you’ll find this disparity.

The world designed by and for men is hiding in plain sight all around us. Smartphones are designed around the average size of a male hand, and office space temperatures frequently cater more to a man’s metabolic rate.

There are chunks of society designed for men that are less innocuous. Until recent years, men had a higher chance of surviving resuscitation because CPR mannequins were created to match the male body. Only in 2022 was an accurate female dummy created for car crash testing, until then seatbelts were designed around the male physique. Scientific and military equipment is predominantly designed for male users, and most medical procedures are based on research on men as its deemed ‘easier’.

That’s just a handful of examples. These things have flown under the radar for generations, quietly dictating where society deems women to be welcome and accepted. And despite the old trope of ‘men are from Mars and women are from Venus’ which implies an acknowledgment that those two genders are different to one another, the way society is designed suggests the needs of women and their comfort are not serious enough to be accommodated for. It has the ability to make the world even less safe for women than it already is. It seems the universal default norm is still male, turning a blind eye to 50% of the population be that thoughtlessly or consciously.

But back to bladders and bathrooms.

A Guardian article on the aforementioned YouGov UK study says women would need more than a third more cubicles as men to account for the added time it takes us to use the lav. So, what would an ideal women’s bathroom look like?

Well, besides needing a lot more cubicles, they need to be bigger. Big enough for our bags, and to fit more than one person in, be that a small child – men should also get bigger cubicles as Dads and male caregivers should be taking their kids to the toilet 50% of the time – or two gal pals so we can comfortably discuss how outrageous it was that Juan and Breesha shagged in the work breakroom at Christmas.

We should have free period products in all cubicles or, at the very least, a free dispenser of pads and tampons – toilet paper and hand soap is free, why is that not extended to products that maintain the dignity, safety, and comfort of half the population? We also need bins for those products so we’re not flushing them, which is bad for the environment.

These are the things that make people feel seen, understood, and valued in the community.

Nice big mirrors with Hollywood light bulbs would be lovely, plus soft background music and a delightful colour scheme – it’s a space that is always going to be used, why not make it practical AND pretty – and I want comfy sofas for us to lounge on as we put the world to rights and complement each other’s hair.

Okay, fine, those last few are luxuries. And don’t get me wrong, on a night out, the loo queue for the ladies provides great opportunity for the wonderful talent women have at bonding with complete strangers, but I’d like to do that without gurning as I try not to wet myself.

Until the world starts to update its designs to meet everyone’s basic toiletry needs rather than just one type of person, women will continue to waste time waiting for the loo when they could be out saving a small dog from a fire, inventing an environmentally-friendly jet pack that caters to all body shapes, or campaigning to eradicate FAKE POCKETS FROM CLOTHING. Look at what you’re keeping from the world. Until then, I’ll do my bit to reduce queue times by never wearing dungarees in public again.