Female standing urination has recently caught some attention. Some people believe in this product and there is a website in construction devoted to its cause. I do see the advantages but I do not see a truly commercial application. Skimming this "article" I realize that female urinals are planned to be installed in stalls. Why would a public building or a restaurant install a female urinal instead of a normal toilet? The only advantage of the urinal in mens toilet is to save space by placing the urinals onto a wall instead of having all the toilet users lock themselves into spacious stalls.
The proponents of the female urinal are basing most of their argument in the fact that urinating positions (men stand, women sit or squat) are mostly socially constructed. They just miss the point that the female urinal as an investment is more expensive and less flexible than investing in having cleaner standard toilets.
In this blog I aim to have interesting discussion about new products and innovations. I just posted this topic as an example of a product idea that brings a standard product (male urinal) into a new context (female toilet). The problems are that (i) the proponents stress the social point to a greater extent than the business point and (ii) they are solving a problem the hard way: using bricks and mortar rather than a sponge with bleach.
