The article subtly infers that all this pain foisted upon women with carefully worded sentences: “Women have to wait longer in restroom lines”
They have to? Or they they just do it to themselves. Women, if you don’t want to spend so much time preening then don’t. Guess what, men will still be attracted to you.
Those long lines are to piss. It’s pretty rare to see someone messing with hair or make-up when the line’s out the door, at least in the kind of venue I frequent.
Yeah that, and the multiple orgasms.
My understanding is it’s because you can pack more urinals into a space than full bathroom stalls, so men’s bathrooms have better throughput all else being equal.
I wonder how much Mensa Magazine (does that even exist?) would find among its readers if it did the same rigorously scientific double-blind long-term study.
I’ve been in venues for decades and I can tell you that women stand in there and preen. Often they visit the bathroom simply to preen.
I’m tired of this social ethos that seeks to hold some nefarious external forces to blame for womens’ own innate desire to preen and spend time on their appearance. Women could have the same schedule as men if they dumped the habit.
The problem is the the cognitive dissonance: women have an instinctual proclivity to look beautiful, mostly as competition against each other. Yet at the same know how superficial it all is. So the outcome is stories like this one, da man got us down. It’s obvious that outright claiming men are at fault would be silly, so rather the oppressive external force is normalized to an unknown: “Women have to wait longer in restroom lines” That wording kind of sounds they they are being made to wait doesn’t it? Who’s making them wait? They are!
If every woman on the planet tossed her Maybeline and curling iron, guess what, people would still be having sex, dating, and procreating.
If you’re tired of being “forced” to spend more time in the mirror, then start with the woman in the mirror.
Aaaaand the quicker to get to ‘delivery system’.
That, and you can simply build a stainless-steel wall with a through at the bottom of it. I’ve seen these in a few places. None of them wine bars mostly frequented by women.
Comments about how “women just choose to spend longer” are missing the point. There’s a social cost to avoiding some of these heteronormative routines that men do not have to pay. I have this (perhaps unsubstantiated) feeling that a lot of men who would say “women choose to preen” might also avoid relationships with the women that actually choose not to.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t rules for men as well, and social costs to breaking them… the whole point is we both have these rules but women have to spend more time following them.
Also - fellow dudes, file your nails after you cut them. The extra fifteen seconds are worth it, trust me.
I got called a slob the other day. A SLOB!!!
I nearly choked on my toenails.
That, and it does take just slightly longer to arrange clothing to sit to use a toilet. The lines don’t completely go away when women’s restrooms are made larger so that total urinals and stalls on the men’s side match total stalls on the women’s side—at least that’s what I understand.
Of course women fix makeup and hair in restrooms, but not so much in crowds, and usually after using the stalls. When there’s a huge line, the wait is for a stall to open, and you wait regardless of whether you’re going to use a mirror after. You are absolutely made to wait. I say this as a woman who owns no makeup that hasn’t expired and who cuts her own hair.
I’ve paid attention to makeup and hair fussing as a semi-outsider, and it’s pretty obvious that it’s needed not for sexual attraction as such, but for maintaining status. Although men may genuinely prefer women with no makeup—my impression is that that’s doubtful—many distinctly favor high-status women. A woman can opt out. I have, except when it was a clear expectation for a job interview or the job itself. However, the opt-out comes at a real cost. I guess it’s been worth it to me, but that’s probably because some stuff I’m not going to get into here meant that I wasn’t going to be happy with the mainstream. I’d still usually advise a woman to conform more superficially; it leaves more room for nonconformism as to important matters. Appearance is usually the wrong hill to die on.
The title & the summary line of this story are both sexist & inaccurate.
Is a woman is “not a woman” if she doesn’t spend time on these activities? Is a man “not a man” if he doesn’t? It doesn’t “take time” to be a woman or a man, and its ridiculous to say so. People choose to take time to do things; they are not their gender because they clean or style themselves.
Also, though there may be a socio-economic impact on women who don’t style as much as others, this is largely due to the competitive nature of the genders to each other & themselves, not to the actual styling. These extra activities are in part due to the pressure women put on each other. Studies have shown “beautiful” & “handsome” people are more successful & make more money, than their counterparts. There is a socio-economic improvement for men who style more than average (“metro”). How much time a person spends styling is a personal choice, that will certainly affect how others view them.
It is interesting & informative to know that (American, I assume) women choose to take more time to clean & style themselves than (American, I assume) men. None of that information relates to how long it “takes to be a [gender]”, and that inference just tries to further introduce division between the genders.
Sometimes I’m tempted to check if the guys who boast about how little they care for their appearance are the same ones who complain about how hard it is to get dates…
Often it’s after securing a partner that these things take a downward turn.
Good point. And they can last much longer. How many more hours per years do they spend doing that than men?
Is Glamour trying to sell fewer magazines? Isn’t this all stuff they’ve been pushing on women since forever?
Actually, I think it is because it takes longer to sit down to pee.
I am going to do a little TMI sharing, but since my leg when to shit, I prefer to sit down to pee for the last several years probably 95% of the time. Simply put, even if you are trying to hurry, it takes longer. And most of the time you are more likely to sit there for a bit not peeing, way more than you would stand there not peeing.
The restroom wait problem can be easily solved by making all restrooms unisex, done and done.
Long line at one restroom? Use any other restroom. This also solves the problem of which restroom transgender should use.
Are you a person? Use this restroom.
An exception to this is handicap-accessible stalls. Please, if you are not disabled, save these stalls for those who are.
shaving is decadent ! and bad for the digestion !! not paleo at all !! our gut bacteria have not had nearly enough time to evolve the means to detoxify menthol and emulsifiers and other components of shaving cream !! ( true enough , one does not usually eat this , but the chems leach into our skin and circulatory system and so interact eventually ~ also , that last bit of crud around the lips , surely some of it winds up in our mouths , eh ?? ( actually , my memory of shaving is quite vague and long ago ~ ) ) and the sharp blades !! truuellly dangerous for little kids and intoxicated hippies !!! ~
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE LITTLE KIDS AND INTOXICATED HIPPPIES !?!?!?!
Maybe he took a wrong turn at The Frisky and wound up here.
