Bathrooms For Everyone!

So, shinobi and I went to Provincetown for a little get-away / birthday celebration. It was nice, if cold.

On our way out of town, though, we stopped at the Cape Cod National Seashore center place thing (I said, so eloquently). And, it was kind of cool, with maps and such, and pretty much what you might expect from a little educational stop, nothing particularly fascinating.

But, I was totally fascinated by the bathrooms. Enough so, that shinobi and I proceeded to have a good fifteen or twenty minute conversation on the subject.

Now, they weren't fancy or futuristic, but what they had was one of these signs:

They were single rooms. They had a self-flushing toilet and a sensor-enabled sink. They had those hand blow driers. So, kind of modern, yes.

But, they also had a urinal. And a diaper changing station. And plenty of room to operate a wheelchair inside of it. With everything at an accessible height and bars to lift yourself up or down, as needed.

So, you put all of this together, and...

This bathroom did not require a declaration!

You didn't have to identify as male or female, with children or without, abled or disabled. You just went into the bathroom, did your stuff, and left. Without judgements, without anything. It was a simple experience - like it should be.

So, there's your bathroom update on Cape Cod. Aren't you glad to know?

I think I'm getting the hang of these dishes...

Gender Pay Gap

While we learned recently that lesbian women earn more than heterosexual women, it's still true that women earn less than men. For example, the Washington Post reported that women in management earn 81 cents to every dollar that men in the same positions earn.

To expand on exploring this, the blog Sociological Images, posted the following chart:

What strikes me as interesting about this chart is that some of the traditionally male-dominated fields, like construction, agriculture, mining, are some of the closest to equal in terms of pay, with construction at over 90 cents to every male dollar.

While fields that tend to have more women, like education and health services, retail, and administration, fair pretty poorly, between 75 and 80 cents for women to one dollar for men.

I'm not sure as to the cause, but I could hypothesize that fields that have attracted women for a number of years, now, feel no need to pay them equal wages - they already have women who will gladly accept their lesser earnings. In contrast, in order to attract female employees, some male-dominated fields may have increased earnings.