By Scott Benson

Females are considered to be the fairer sex. But what’s so fair about girls having nicer bathrooms?

Let’s compare two of the upstairs bathrooms. Any passerby can spot the flowers and mirror on display in the entrance way of the women’s room. The entrance to the men’s room? Drab, chipped walls greet you on your way in.

The stalls are adorned with graffiti. Soap dispensers are often empty and are not replenished for days. Occasionally, dispensers lay useless on the floor, completely torn from the walls. The lack of garbage cans causes many sinks to be used as an alternative, where food and other discarded waste can be found. Meanwhile, there is a high probability that sinks not used for waste disposal don’t work at all.

Then there’s the smell. Flushing is seemingly optional. Students will enter a bathroom, take a whiff, and walk right out. I once spotted a freshman holding his breath throughout the entirety of his visit.

The girl’s bathrooms aren’t lavatory paradise, either. “There’s hair everywhere,” said junior Lili Yurch. Water pours from sink handles. Toilets are broken. The girl’s bathrooms may be a bit neater, but many female students claim that their bathrooms are just as bad as the boys.

What both sets of bathrooms share in common is quality that is so poor that many students refuse to use them at all. Why risk dodging the floor full of toilet paper? Surely your bladder can hold out until the safety of your own home. However, those who simply can’t wait, suffer.

Is it too much to ask for cleaner facilities? When I asked a custodian about the quality of the bathrooms, he just laughed. But can we at least get some soap?