Wondrous Ladies' Room: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Mike:''' ''(On seeing Raul Julia open a random door and enter a beautiful Greco-Roman garden)'' Ah, he wandered into the ladies room...<br />

'''Crow:''' Man,'' that's ''why they stay in there so long! Those ladies; they get everything.|''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV)|Mystery Science Theater 3000]] - [[Overdrawn Atat the Memory Bank]]''}}

Seeing as [[Most Writers Are Male]], and [[Men Are Generic, Women Are Special|femininity is considered inaccessable to men]], the women's restroom naturally has an air of [[WomensWomen's Mysteries|mystery]] about it. Why do women go in pairs, [[Girl -On -Girl Is Hot|what do they do in there]] and why do they spend so long doing it?

The general assumption seems to be that the ladies' room is in fact a mini-Shangri-La full of wondrous things. In extreme cases the ladies' room is portrayed as a mini-spa, complete with fountains and musicians, while in more realistic cases it's simply shown as being much cleaner and nicer looking than the male facilities<ref>(sorry, guys, but most of that restroom graffiti and vandalism really ''is'' your gender's fault)</ref>. While more extreme portrayals of this are ''not'' [[Truth in Television]], as women are just as capable of making total messes as men, paid maintenance personnel tend to be much faster about dealing with them, since the perception (accurate or not) is women are much more likely to care about such things.

While most ladies' rooms are fairly similar to men's rooms, it is not uncommon for a nice one to include a small anteroom before the restroom itself. This room may contain a couch, often will contain chairs, and possibly a lit vanity. This room is designed to make it easy for women to fix their hair or make-up without blocking access to sinks. It is also useful because lines for ladies' rooms tend to be longer than for men's rooms since women rarely use urinals (ladies' rooms lack them anyway), do have to deal with menstruation, often visit the bathroom in groups, and often have young children of either sex with them who need assistance. Having a nicer room to wait in helps to balance this out a little. This is very rare in any men's room, which does provide more truth for the trope (besides, would you WANT to sit on the couch in a men's room?). The couches in the ante-bathroom may be placed there for the convenience of nursing mothers or women with cramps, or it may be a holdover from the days of fainting couches. Janitorial staff will however readily confirm that messes in the women's room are magnitudes worse than what will be encountered in an equivalent men's room.

For the ultimate mystery of the ladies room a bidet will be mentioned let alone portrayed. For the uninitiated, it is a low standing sink with a upward spout of water for washing the nether regions, and is not actually mysterious to men in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (where they are standard fixtures in house bathrooms and even men's rooms). [[Spit Take|Spit Takes]]s will ensue for those (American) men (''and'' many women!) who become informed.

See also [[Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults]], [[WomensWomen's Mysteries]], [[Disgusting Public Toilet]], [[Mysterious Teachers' Lounge]].

{{examples|Examples:}}

* Played literally in ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]''. Resident [[Mad Scientist]] Washu created a pocket dimension to house a complete spa for use as the women's bathroom. The men got stuck with the rather small ordinary bathroom.

* Given a minor inversion during ''[[Excel Saga (Mangamanga)|Excel Saga]]'' when Excel - currently employed as a janitor - notes her excitement at seeing a urinal for the first time while cleaning the men's room.

* ''[[Pretty in Pink (Film)|Pretty in Pink]]'', when Ducky complains about how nice it is compared to the boys, mistaking the tampon dispenser for a candy machine.

* In the [[Isaac Asimov]] novel ''[[The Caves of Steel (Literature)|The Caves of Steel]]'', the people of the overcrowded, quasi-socialist 47th century use communal bathroom-shower-laundry facilities called "Personals". [[Truth in Television|While men are instructed from childhood that it is]] ''[[Truth in Television|never]]'' [[Truth in Television|permissible to speak in the Personal, women often socialize in their Personals and this fact is an object of fascination and confusion for men.]]

* In ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Chamber of Secrets (novel)|Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets]]'' the hidden entrance to said Chamber was behind the sink in a girl's restroom. Come to think of it, all the cool bathroom-related stuff that happens in the series (with the exception of the Prefect's bathroom in [[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (novel)|the fourth book]]) takes place in ladies' rooms. Of course, that particular bathroom is haunted by Moaning Myrtle and known to flood fairly often, so 'wondrous' may not be the best term..

* Aluded to in ''[[Septimus Heap (Literature)|Septimus Heap]]'': Since ghosts can only go to places they visited in life, Alther cannot spy on the evil cabal's innermost workings since they meet in a converted former lady's room.

* ''[[Saturday Night Live (TV)|Saturday Night Live]]'' had a sketch wherein the ladies room was a Greek garden with a eunuch lyrist who sang softly to them while slave boys fed them fruit and wrapped them in silk.

* ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' took this to the extreme in the episode "A Human Reaction", where a world is created out of John's memories. As a result, everything is something directly taken from his memory - every random person on the street is someone he's met, none of the magazines and newspapers are from later than when he disappeared from Earth, and so on. So when John figures this out, he opens the door to the women's bathroom (because he's never been in one) and behind it is -- {{spoiler|a giant, swirling vortex of orange-brown energy}}. As [https://web.archive.org/web/20130420094556/http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/farscape/a_human_reaction.php?page=23 elaborated on] at [[Television Without Pity]], this veers headlong into [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruction]].

* A running gag in the high school years of ''[[Boy Meets World (TV)|Boy Meets World]]'' was boys becoming indignant on seeing that the girls had a couch.

* In the TV show ''[[Corner Gas (TV)|Corner Gas]]'', one episode has the signs on the restrooms of the gas station swapped, leading to men praising the cleanliness and women complaining about the smell. Eventually, Brett decides to just make it so that both rooms are equally filthy.

* In ''[[The Office (TV)|The Office]]'', Michael takes all the women shopping, making Kevin very excited about getting to go inside the women's bathroom (he seems to have mixed it up with the popular women's locker room fantasy). Upon going inside his first words are "Oh...my...GOD!" Soon all the guys are hanging out in there, sitting on the couch and reading magazines.

{{quote| '''Creed:''' I've been caught many times and paid dearly for it.}}

* In ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' episode "[[Community (TV)/Recap/S1 /E06 Football, Feminism, and You|Football, Feminism and You]]" Shirley considers this a sacred space.

* Inverted on ''[[Man Lab]]'', where [[Top Gear|James May]] and the team turn a horrible bathroom into a veritable [[Arcadia|Arcadian]]n garden of contemplation, complete with a fountain, pot plants, and... rabbits. ('Course, in real life someone ''would'' piss in the fountain within about five minutes)

* In one series of strips from ''[[ShermansSherman's Lagoon]]'', the gang is at a restaurant and Sherman enters the women's bathroom by mistake. He discovers that it's less a bath room and more a huge, luxurious spa which employs masseurs and also includes surveillance cameras so that the women can spy on the tables they've left and find out what the men are talking about in their absence.

* The women's room in the [[DevelopersDeveloper's Room]] level of ''[[Blood]]'' is about as fancy as ''Blood'' can get, while the men's...well the less said about that the better.

* During one particular mission in ''[[Bully (Videovideo Gamegame)|Bully]]'' you spend some time in the girl's showers and bathrooms-- notbathrooms—not only is there [[Modesty Towel|not much to see]], but they're just as grungy and nasty as the boy's facilities. Though this may reflect more on the overall crappiness of Bullworth Academy's campus than overall equality of standards.

* ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'' never has bathrooms invoke this trope by architecture, but there are a suspicious number of occasions, especially in the first half of the game, when the ladies' room is important in some way. The men's room occasionally hides a secret as well, but nothing can top the secret passage way in the women's bathroom, opened by the secret keypad under the sink.

* Before [[No More Heroes|Travis]] has to fight a boss, he saves by...taking a nap on the can. Most places he goes have a simple bathroom for him to use. Meanwhile, whenever [[No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle|Shinobu]] needs to save, she...takes a shower. In an immaculate bathroom. Which just happened to have a sterling tub and shower. Even in an abandoned movie studio...

* Possible (as are most tropes dealing with human habitation) in ''[[The Sims]] 2'' after the introduction of gendered restroom doors; though premade community spaces have men's and women's bathrooms identical, it would be easy to make a [[Wondrous Ladies' Room]].

* [http://www.bmoviecomic.com/index.php?cid=28 The Girls' Room] in ''[[The B -Movie Comic (Webcomic)|The B Movie Comic]]''.

* Tedd [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-05-29 thought this] about the ladies room in ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'', and [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-05-31 was disappointed] when he finally saw the real thing while body-swapped with Grace. [http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-06-23 In a later strip] recent [[Gender Bender]] Ellen complains about Nanase's choice of the bathroom as a meeting spot with "I've long since abandoned the notion that ladies' rooms are clean, wonderful places."

* ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'', while talking about ''[[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]]'', [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/12/ oddly enough]:

{{quote| '''Gabe''': I really wanna know what they ''do'' in there.<br />

{{quote| '''Torg:''' It turns out all ladies rooms have popcorn machines and blinky Christmas lights.<br />

'''Crushestro:''' I did not know that!<br />

* A series of Retail Hell videos on [[YouTube]] had an episode where the male employees regularly had to clean up the [[Disgusting Public Toilet]] of the men's room. They actually wonder if the girls ever have to do this and find a [[Wondrous Ladies' Room]], with plants, too. The women explain that they actually take ''pride'' where they do their business, then the Guys leave to their own bathroom to wonder if they'll ever be able to do the same, only to spot a customer:

{{quote| '''Customer''': "I'm pissssin' on the wall, just pissin' on the wall!"}}

* ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' takes this trope and applies it to the two halves of a gender segregated school.

* This comes up in the ''[[Fillmore!]]'' episode "To Mar a Stall". While investigating vandalism in the girls washroom, O'Farrell starts going on about how much nicer it is than the boys and that it has air freshener. He then starts trying to identify the scent. (Much funnier than it sounds.)

* One ''[[Cow and Chicken (Animation)|Cow and Chicken]]'' episode has Chicken enter the girls' room on a dare.

* One episode of ''[[DextersDexter's Laboratory]]'' depicted the girl's room as a huge meadow. He escapes by taking a Barbie doll hostage.

* In the ''[[Superjail (Animation)|Superjail]]'' episode "Superbar", the titular establishment's men's room is dirty and occupied by a naked Twister orgy. By comparison, the women's room is completely empty and pristine, with robotic Warden heads urging the user to wipe afterwards. However, seeing as how there's one woman in Superjail, and the Warden has a crush on her, this was most likely done to impress her more than anything.

{{quote| You have ''doors'' on your cubicles!?}}

** In [[Real Life]] often times there are side rooms to the bathrooms in more high end places (Nordstrom comes to mind) so that mothers can breast feed their babies without men ogling or [[Moral Guardians]] chewing their butts off.

** Unfortunately, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20141130053856/http://www.popgadget.net/images/lady<!-- 20loo20female%20loo%20female%20urinal.jpg herinals]] haven't caught on yet. -->

* At [[Studio Ghibli]], the women's restrooms were designed by Hayao Miyzaki to be bigger and nicer than the men's.

* The women's bathrooms on the 77th floor of the Columbia Tower in Seattle (tallest building in the city) are ''spectacular.'' The bathrooms have two couches and a puffy chair, lotion, two different hand soaps (in normal bottles, not those things that attach to the wall), mouthwash, tampons, puff balls, q-tips, and once, ''free toothbrushes and floss.'' In addition, ''all the bathroom cubicles look out onto the Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier.'' It is often said that the women's bathrooms have the best view in the city. Needless to say, while the men's bathrooms have soap and lotion, they lack the view and do not have free toothbrushes and floss.

** Not to mention the Bleacher Bar which is under the bleacher sections of FENWAY PARK and even has a wide opening that views straight out to the outfield at ground level. When standing at an urinal in the men's room, you're looking through a window into the bar and out onto the field. It's not a great view during games, but still pretty cool.

** When pressed for space, building designers will typically put the women's bathroom in a more accessible place than the men's. The rationale is that women will get lost in the building easier than men will when looking for the bathroom. Somehow feminist groups have missed out on the protests against this blatant act of sexism.

[[Category:Wondrous Ladies Room{{PAGENAME}}]]