In a Houston courtroom Saturday, 33-year-old Denise Wells was acquitted of causing a disturbance at a concert. She could have been fined $200.

What makes this case unique is that Wells’ specific action was to use the men’s restroom when the women’s restroom line was overcrowded.

Of course, this kind of story is easy to trivialize and laugh about. Simple excremental functions are a standard source of material for most comedians. Wells has appeared on numerous talk shows, undoubtedly for the humor value of this case rather than its seriousness.

Unfortunately, this perception has helped uphold one of the last areas of legal sex discrimination—inadequate public restrooms.

What is incredible is if Wells were in the same amount of pain and discomfort for any other reason, people at the concert would probably have made efforts to assist her. Instead, she stands trial for breaking a law defending the power to punish women for having different bodies than men.

The first problem anyone has bringing up this issue is the knee-jerk humorous response most people (especially men) have about it. This is wrong and ignorant.

As almost anyone knows, when someone needs to relieve themselves and is prevented from doing so, it is anything but a funny feeling. It is a painful and humiliating experience, and unlike hunger, the discomfort does not go away gradually.

The argument most people make, if serious, is that there are as many restrooms for men as for women, so the facilities are “equal”. This is both untrue and a misuse of the principle of equality.

In fact, the use of urinals or troughs in men’s restrooms make it possible to accomodate more men than women in the same amount of space. At a concert, where drinking is a commonplace activity, men can be handled three or four times as fast as women.

The most direct way, then, to make restrooms equal is to have only toilet stalls in all bathrooms. This makes sense ideally, but there seems no point in doing away with urinals when they do work so well.

The best solution is to realize that social and political equality of the sexes does not mean that women’s and men’s biological needs are the same. No one seriously argues that men should have maternity leave or toilets shouldn’t have lift-up seats because women don’t need them. Most people appreciate the differences between men and women.

So keep the urinals and troughs, but build two women’s restrooms for every men’s room in public places. At concert halls and theatres, where the problems are worse, women should have no less than three restrooms to every one men have.

Of course, male architects and developers may see no reason to change their ways. Or, they may only believe something expressed in numbers.

What concerned women and men should do is to count the number of men and women handled in restrooms at a public facility and publish an “accomodation ratio”—the number of men divided by the number of women. Each public place can be condemned or praised if the ratio is high or close to 1:1.

And if those numbers alone don’t bring about change women can try boycotting high ratio operations. The amount of money lost is one number even the most ignorant pay attention to.