question: Why men’s bathrooms often have a low urinal for small boys but never a low sink or one with a step stool.
comment: Because it's easier to lift your hands to use a sink that's high up than it to lift your waist an extra foot. Also, if a kid cant wash his hands, not a huge deal, but if a kid cant pee, its gonna be a mess and a whole deal
passages: Parity may be defined in various ways in relation to facilities in a building. The simplest is as equal floorspace for male and female washrooms. Since men's and boys' bathrooms include urinals, which take up less space than stalls, this still results in more facilities for males. An alternative parity is by number of fixtures within washrooms. However, since females on average spend more time in washrooms more males are able to use more facilities per unit time. More recent parity regulations therefore require more fixtures for females to ensure that the average time spent waiting to use the toilet is the same for females as for males, or to equalise throughputs of male and female toilets.
   Women/girls often spend more time in toilet rooms than men/boys, both for physiological and cultural reasons. The requirement to use a cubicle rather than a urinal means that urination takes longer and sanitation is a far greater issue, often requiring more thorough hand washing. Females also make more visits to toilets. Urinary tract infections and incontinence are more common in females. Pregnancy, menstruation, breastfeeding, and diaper-changing increase usage. The elderly, who are disproportionately female, take longer and more frequent toilet visits. Unisex public toilets can alleviate this problem by providing equal sanitation space for all genders, eliminating the prospect of unused cubicles in the male toilets.
   Sinks are commonly installed in open arrangement as in sex-segregated toilets and used collectively by people of all gender. Alternatively, a sink can be provided in each cubicle or toilet room, e.g. where the unisex toilet is set up to be used by families and carers.
  
  Section::::Designs.:Urinals.
   Approximately 90% of public toilet use is exclusively for urination (as compared to defecation). Due to an increased number of units in the same amount of floor space, there is usually a faster and shorter queue for public urinals; up to 30% more people can use the toilet facilities at the same time.
   The issue of urinals is creating somewhat of a conundrum for many unisex public toilet designers. In many public toilets, the widespread use of urinals for males means that there are more opportunities to meet their needs. Since about 90% of public toilets are used for urination, there are often regular queues in front of female toilets with unused toilet cubicles in the male area. While toilets are usually located in cubicles with lockable doors, urinals are usually installed freely in rows in sex-separated toilet rooms. This construction leads to a smaller space consumption and thus to more possibilities for urinating, while promoting better hygiene and economic efficiency for men/boys at work/school and elsewhere.
   Urinals are most frequently used for male patients, since they are easier to use with male anatomy. While female urinals exist, they are more difficult to use, and the common practice for females is to use a bedpan. Female urinals require a wider opening and must be placed between the legs. For many women, female urinals are more practical in a wheelchair rather than in a bed. But the opening part of urinal may get infected by the germs and can be disinfected by various chemicals.
   Urinals are being developed that can be used by both sexes. While urinals for men and boys can be found almost everywhere in public toilets, unisex and female urinals are still niche products. Many people feel that this is satisfactory because of obvious biological differences that make the use of urinals more convenient for the male population than they would be for the female population. According to Mete Demiriz, professor of sanitary technology at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen, economic considerations and social conventions also prevent the wider installation of female urinals in public toilets.
   For purposes of space and economic practicality, urinals are not typically placed inside stalls. Unlike in female public toilets, optimal resource efficiency in men's or boys' public toilets therefore requires urinating in full visibility of other males. In recent years, it has become more common in some countries for dividers or partitions to be installed between urinals to eliminate any chance of incidental exposure during the process of urination.
   This development at the turn of the century was not followed up in Germany and these first approaches were increasingly forgotten.
  
  Section::::History.:1970s onwards.
  
  In the 1970s, Alexander Kira, professor of architecture and sanitary engineering at Cornell University, conducted studies on urination behavior of both genders. He pursued the goal of developing sanitary fixtures that are adapted to the human body and its needs, breaking with conventional design specifications.
   Urinals in Japan are very similar to the urinals in the rest of the world, and mainly used for public male toilets or male toilets with a large number of users. They often are, however, mounted lower compared to urinals in the West. 
   It is socially more accepted and more environmentally hygienic for those who are able, to urinate in a toilet. Public toilets may have urinals, usually for males, although female urinals exist, designed to be used in various ways.
  
  Section::::Social and cultural aspects.:Urination without facilities.
   In the early 21st century, standard trough models intended for use with a specialized funnel have been introduced with some success, at outdoor festivals such as Glastonbury in 2004, to reduce dwell times and to alleviate long queues. In 2011 a portable female urinal, the Pollee, was introduced at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark and was received enthusiastically by female festival visitors: 
  
  Section::::Society and culture.
  
  Section::::Society and culture.:Public perception.
   Section::::Background.:Advantages compared to toilets for urination.
  
  Urinals for female users could potentially have some of the same advantages as urinals for male users as compared to toilets (with regards to urination):
  
  BULLET::::- lower costs
  
  BULLET::::- simpler maintenance
  
  BULLET::::- smaller space requirements (several urinals may be installed on the floor space of a single toilet cubicle)
  
  BULLET::::- reduced water consumption for flushing compared to flush toilets (waterless urinals can even function without any flushing water)
  
  BULLET::::- more hygienic, contact-free urination process (and no risk of soiling with feces from previous users)
  
  BULLET::::- faster use
  
  BULLET::::- easier recycling of nutrients as fertilizer
   However, it is questionable whether the lower level of privacy compared to conventional toilets would be accepted by the general public. Due to socio-cultural conventions, the open use of urinals by men/boys in front of women/girls would likely create awkwardness for both genders and would seem strange and contrary to common morals and etiquette for many users. There are even more practical issues for females, such as women/girls needing toilet paper, having to lower their pants, and sometimes tending to their menstrual hygiene needs while going to the toilet for urination.
   Section::::Sex differences.
  
  Women/girls often spend more time in washrooms than men/boys, both for physiological and cultural reasons. The requirement to use a cubicle rather than a urinal means urination takes longer and hand washing must be done more thoroughly. Females also make more visits to washrooms. Urinary tract infections and incontinence are more common in females. Pregnancy, menstruation, breastfeeding, and diaper-changing increase usage. The elderly, who are disproportionately female, take longer and more frequent bathroom visits.
   In the course of the development towards unisex toilets, designers and developers are increasingly faced with the challenge of creating gender-appropriate solutions. Models, like "We P" designed by Michal Farago, "Captain" by Uridan and "Weestand" by LiquidGold, have been developed that can be used comfortably by females and males alike.
   Some argue that a two-tier system is also generated via what they called the "toilet apartheid" by excluding women/girls from important social networking processes in male toilets. Important agreements and decisions by men/boys are sometimes made at the urinal where females are currently excluded.
  
  Section::::Designs.:Building-related disadvantages.
   Conventional urinals which have been designated exclusively for female urination device users have become popular in recent years, including at some major public events where providing adequate toilet facilities is difficult, such as outdoors festivals. To expedite usage, trough urinals may be installed, which the women are expected to use while standing, with small personal female urination devices. Pinkpop 2000 was the first event to accommodate large numbers of female urination devices, and the practice has now spread to events in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Finland, Ireland, and the UK.
  
  Section::::History.
   In public facilities, the trend is toward sensor-operated (automatic) fixtures that improve hygiene and save money. For example, sensor operated automatic-flush urinals have fewer moving parts, reduce wear, and tend to last longer than manual-flush valves. Also they ensure fixtures are flushed only once per use. Some contain intelligence that flushes them at different amounts of water flow depending on traffic patterns: "e.g.," the fixture can detect a lineup of users and only give a full flush after the last person has used the urinal. For the same purpose, dual-flush toilets are also becoming more popular. A combination of both technologies can allow for saved power and water.
   A 2008 study published in "Social Problems" found that sex segregation in nursing did not follow the "glass escalator" pattern of disproportional vertical distribution; rather, men and women gravitated towards different areas within the field, with male nurses tending to specialize in areas of work perceived as "masculine". The article noted that "men encounter powerful social pressures that direct them away from entering female-dominated occupations (Jacobs 1989, 1993)". Since female-dominated occupations are usually characterized with more feminine activities, men who enter these jobs can be perceived socially as "effeminate, homosexual, or sexual predators".
  
  Section::::Sticky floor.
   Until the 1970s, a few female urinals were available in the United States from different manufacturers, such as the Sanistand by American Standard Companies. In the 1980s and 1990s various concepts and prototypes were proposed, although most of them were not developed beyond the design stage. Female urinals have become more common since the turn of the millennium and are marketed commercially, primarily in Europe.
   At present, two different arrangements are currently being implemented in practice: a row arrangement (usually with a partition as a separating element), comparable to male urinals; and in individual booths or cabins, as in classic toilets. The main advantage compared to the classic toilet, compact space requirements, is lost with the latter design. With a row arrangement, the density of facilities can be increased, resulting in shorter wait times. However, this is not the case with the booth arrangement, in which a classic toilet bowl is simply replaced by a urinal. 
   Section::::Techniques.
  
  Due to the positions where the urethra exits the body, males and females often use different techniques for urination.
  
  Section::::Techniques.:Male urination.
  
  Most males prefer to urinate standing while others prefer to urinate sitting or squatting. Elderly males with prostate gland enlargement may benefit from sitting down while in healthy males, no difference is found in the ability to urinate. For practising Muslim men, the genital modesty of squatting is also associated with proper cleanliness requirements or awrah.
  
  Section::::Techniques.:Female urination.
   The narrator (Phil Rice) states that increased cultural diversity has necessitated the exposition of previously unwritten rules regarding the use of male restrooms. According to these rules, males should use restrooms as quickly as possible, maximize physical separation from each other when using urinals, flush urinals when they contain concentrated urine, avoid stalls with unflushed toilets, and avoid eye contact and communication with others. The film depicts a scenario in which excess communication leads to a mess in the restroom and thus deficient hygiene and homeostasis, the latter of which is in the lowest tier in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As the scenario continues, the restroom occupants turn to violence, leading to police and biological hazard team involvement that closes the restroom. Forced to go elsewhere, other men repeat the scenario, eventually leading to complete societal breakdown.
   Section::::Styles.:Farmer's sink.
  
  A "farmer's sink" is a deep sink that has a finished front. Set onto a countertop, the finished front of the sink remains exposed. This style of sink requires very little "reach-over" to access the sink.
  
  Section::::Styles.:Vessel sink.
  
  A "vessel sink" is a free-standing sink, generally finished and decorated on all sides, that sits directly on the surface of the furniture on which it is mounted. These sinks have become increasingly popular with bathroom designers because of the large range of materials, styles and finishes which they can show to good advantage.
  
  Section::::Ceramic basin construction.
  