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I became discombobulated.

That was the intention of whoever designed this bathroom.

As if to say, don’t get comfortable; change is coming. You won’t have these urinals forever.

I’ve always felt privileged to be born a man.

Why wouldn’t I?

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From my birth in 1949, the world has been organized to meet my needs.

Whether in public bathrooms

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Or our private bathroom, where I get to look at

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While Rebecca gazes at

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Of course, my gender privilege makes sense because we all know who took the first bite of the apple. As Adam said, “The Woman you gave me God made me eat the forbidden fruit.”

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So comfortably clothed men lecture while women look at us and wonder.

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But the world is turning — even some of its bathrooms.

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Too fast for the entitled, too slow for the outsiders.

America’s changing bathrooms are one sign of the times. Listen to Yale Psychologist Jennifer Richeson:

My lab is in an old engineering building, and there’s exactly one women’s bathroom. No one noticed that, or at least no faculty members did. And then, slowly, Yale began adding women to the department, and they noticed it. They complained. Now there was friction. What had gone unnoticed by those with power in one era was unacceptable to those gaining power in another.

Power is always the subtext in a democracy. What’s the point of giving power to the people if you don’t, well, provide power to all the people?

What do people who have no power feel? Look closely at this painting by Helen Saunders.

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The title is Hammock; the theme is suffering.

An invisible person has no voice and thus suffers.

My mother died at 96 in 2017. As her mind slowly ebbed in her last decade, she told this true story repeatedly. It was a well-worn groove in her brain. During WWII, she worked as the head teller in a bank, replacing a man who went to war. Her college degree led to a leadership position she held for three years. When government inspectors appeared every year, they all asked for her.

After the war, she met my dad, had three sons, and worked inside the home to raise us. My dad was an engineer and was frequently out of town. He died in 1993.

My brothers and I put her in a memory care unit a year before she died. One day as my brother Pat and I sat with her in her room, she told us another story. The previous week she had been elected leader of the residents association. As the leader, she went to the director with a list of demands. Among the demands was an open-door policy meaning residents could leave whenever they wanted.

We had never seen our mother so alive.

The bank story was true. This story was made-up but TRUTH.

When I look at the woman in the Hammock, I think of my mother. She was a good mom and spouse. But I always had the feeling she wanted more. That’s what her stories were about.

Would she have been more contented if she had been born one or two generations later?

This story began in a bathroom. I could have started it by putting you in a stadium in New Zealand where America’s Women’s National Soccer team is competing in the Women’s World Cup. After decades of struggle, American women will be paid the same as the American Men’s National Soccer team. (source)

No one ever concedes power quickly or without a demand backed by a counterforce.

As I age and become less visible in a country that honors youth, I take comfort that America has become a noisier place. There were only a few voices when I was born, and they were very loud.

Today, it’s a cacophony: jarring, discordant, and beautiful.

Like that bathroom.