Women's' Urinals

[Pangloss62]

This is a sister post to the string about all things lavatory. A few years back I came upon the below women's' urinal while documenting some historic rest-rooms on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia:



Made by American Standard, these "Sanistand" models were a postwar response to the increased use of public rest-rooms by women as families took to the road on family vacations. I did a little research and it turns out (as most women would admit), that women do not like to pee on public toilets for fear of "catching" something nasty. In fact, most women, when confronted with no choice, will "hover" over the standard toilet rather than let their buttocks touch it. Unknowingly to them, doing so constricts the bladder and prevents full evacuation of the urine, leading to an increased chance of UTIs.

For whatever reason (probably because they were awkward to use and had a lot of "splash back"), the women's' urinal fell out of favor and now they have the automatic cover machines on some standard toilets. So for today's women, it's "hover or cover."