>the
>study on the right to urinate mentioned in this article. No
joke--Donna's
>mother was telling us about how she had to ask for permission cards
from
>her boss to use the bathroom as a secretary in the 50s and early 60s.
i'm not usually inclined to anecdotes, but just this once: as a seven year-old (1972), i would spend the school holidays at my parents work, getting in the way usually, until a job was found for me to do: i would be sent into the toilets to make sure the factory manager was not hiding in there with a watch in hand ready to time how long women took. i found him at least twice with watch in hand, and once sitting in one of the toilets. as a kid, i thought this guy was just a pervert, but then the whole thing was pretty perverse. of course, this meant that i was no longer welcome; and the re-introduction of piece work in that factory solved the problem of direct time management for the employer.
i suspect toilet time control might have been applied more to women than men, but i have no basis for thinking so.
angela