As a man, I'm grateful for one form of gender bias: the short and swift lines at public restrooms, when there is a line at all. Not that I wish long waits on my female counterparts, of course, but whenever I see the waits they have to endure at movie theaters and sporting events, I think -- as I often do -- thank god I'm not a woman.

But that's about to change. As New York welcomes two brand-spanking-new ballparks for its two major league teams, so too will it welcome more than a thousand additional stalls for the women who visit them.

It's all about "potty parity," which is measured not by the number of toilets but the time it takes to use one, and it comes as not only a relief but also a victory for equal rights and health advocates like the American Restroom Association. (Yes, really.) For them, the disparity between men and women's wait times to use a public restroom is an unacceptable threat to physical and psychic well-being.

Thanks to a 2005 law, all new public places and existing ones that undergo "significant" renovations in New York City must have two women's restrooms for every men's restroom. Ideally, this will help shorten those lines and make it easier to for women to relieve themselves as conveniently as men.

And let's not forget the other benefactors of this new scenario: the men who have to wait around for their wives, girlfriends, daughters and female friends after they've popped in and out of the restroom in less time than it takes to say "urination."

[Image: Kilom691 from Wikimedia Commons]