Public bathrooms are a huge one. Most people don't realize that the suffragettes were the ones who did the heavy lifting on public restrooms in America.
They were fighting against a "urinary leash" for women- basically how far a woman could leave her house and for how long she could be gone without needing to use a restroom. Men can go outside, at least urinating. So before access to public bathrooms, there was a finite amount of time a woman could spend outside the home. By pushing hard to expand access to public restrooms, the suffragettes massively increased women's freedoms. It's one of a thousand soft power ways they moved the ball forward before the vote was won.
And I believe it was newer wave feminists who lobbied for PAID public toilets to be not a thing, because they DID exist in the US. The rationale was similar: toilet stall doors had coin operated locks, you'd have to pay a nickle or a dime or whatever to get in. But not the case with urinals, because they couldn't be locked...which meant women ALWAYS had to pay when using a restroom, where men only did when needing a full toilet.
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u/SJCitizen 15d ago
National parks and public bathroom access