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steroidsandcocaine t1_j9c84y5 wrote

Reply to comment by OldLadyReacts in Gritting routes are ‘sexist’ says Cambridgeshire highways chief and ‘must change’ by Bald__egg

Toilet paper and baby formula are primarily used by women?

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AdventurerLikeU t1_j9cqhos wrote

Most men don’t use toilet paper when they piss, only when they poo. Women use it more because we use it for when we pee, when we poo, when we have an unexpected “was that my period or just my body doing body things down there” moments (aka vaginal discharge), and when we actually have our period (because it’s easier to put a tampon in if you clear away the flood of blood first).

And realistically women still do the majority of basic childcare things like feeding the baby (even when they’re on formula and not breast milk). That’s not to say men don’t do it, just that women do it more - and it’s not necessarily because men aren’t pulling their weight for parenting duties, but sometimes for reasons like some places not having paternity leave alongside maternity leave, etc.

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say women use toilet paper (and arguably most toiletries) and baby formula more than men.

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steroidsandcocaine t1_j9cqtd8 wrote

Sounds like a personal anecdote to me.

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AdventurerLikeU t1_j9crmpb wrote

Sounds like common sense to me, considering women use the bathroom more frequently than men and use toilet paper for more things than men - but here’s a source I found after a quick Google that says the same thing.

As for the “women use baby formula more than men” - maternity leave is often longer than paternity leave (if it even exists). So women are by that very fact more likely to be feeding the baby, simply because they spend more time with the baby during that maternity leave. According to the International Labour Organisation, 98 countries meet the ILO standard of at least 14 weeks maternity leave and 107 countries finance maternity leave cash benefits through social security. Compared with paternity leave, which is found in 78 countries, and only five of those countries provide paternity leave for more than two weeks. So of the percentage of babies who receive formula milk alongside or instead of breast milk, there’s a fairly good chance that - at least in a heteronormative household with a father and a mother - the mother is doing more feeding and so using formula more than the father.

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