Inventions, women's equality by Paul Spencer Sochaczewski

Published in Mensa Magazine
May 1998

WHEN WOMEN WATER LIKE GENTLEMEN
CAN EQUALITY BE FAR BEHIND?

Geneva, SWITZERLAND

One of the more interesting contraptions in this year's Salon des Inventions in Geneva is a disposable funnel designed to enable ladies to "water like gentlemen."

The Dutch inventor, Ineke Dantuma, notes that "most ladies envy men because of their possibility to urinate standing, without the need to touch anything in their vicinity."

Another benefit of the invention, called Lae-Ine, perhaps after the ancient Dutch Goddess of Equality, was expressed on the promotional material: "No more wind under the bumbs of ladies."

Ms. Dantuma, a nurse, designed the device to assist elderly women who had difficulty getting on and off a toilet. But she acknowledges that men's waterworks are, shall we say, more flexible than women's, and that women are discriminated against in the convenience department.

Among the 1,000 inventions featured in this year's Salon were a myriad of innovations that have significant redeeming social value - a Korean concoction that minimizes hangovers, a fly swatter with built in tweezers so that you don't have to actually touch the squashed insect, a toilet seat with a built-in scale, and a device to attach a windsurfing sail to a wheelchair.

But it was the Dutch invention that struck a visionary chord.

Soon the media will anoint the "person of the millennium". Who might that be? Some people will certainly promote warriors. Genghis Khan, for example, raped and pillaged the biggest empire ever seen on earth. Other commentators might shout the names of great social philosophers/activists who changed the course of history, such as Thomas Paine or Karl Marx. And there are the creative geniuses - Michelangelo and Beethoven. My money, though, bets on the inventors. For me it's a tie between Leonardo da Vinci, the artist-visionary-tinkerer; Johann Gutenberg and his Chinese counterparts who invented movable type; James Watt, who invented the steam engine; and Thomas Edison, who mastered electricity.
Dantuma might get in just under the wire. Will her "external device for women" achieve greatness when history is written in future centuries?

She might have competition though from the invention of Sylvie Goulard. Parisian Goulard constructed an inflatable vest made of clear plastic, into which a tropical fish owner would place his pets and a few liters of water, thereby enabling him to take the fish for a walk. The logic was that fish get terribly bored just swimming around in a tank all day, since they need sensory stimulation as much as do all other sentient creatures.

Most of my short-sighted acquaintances scoff at the ambulatory aquarium. But what if the next century establishes a new world order in which basic rights to sensory stimulation rights are accorded to all living creatures? The walking-fish-tank-inventor will then become a patron saint of all tiny-brained creatures. Who will be laughing then?

It is more likely though that women will achieve equality sooner than angelfish. I think that's great. And if the girls want to go mano-a-mano with the boys, then a funnel might make it easier for them to scent mark the trees, just like the guys.

Just in case some impatient women want it all and want it now, they might strap into another invention exhibited at the Salon, the "OUT Standing Wave by Wave Bra". The "two kinds of double liquids" in these Taiwanese undergarments "cause powerful collision [and] women can have their breasts' shapes revealed without pulling their fats into the cups. It simultaneously prevents drooping and massages.
The tactile impression is vivid and beautiful shapes displayed."

But who am I to tell a woman what to do? In any case, it probably wouldn't hurt for the woman of the 90s to hedge her bets and get both inventions. Then she'll no longer need to stoop, nor droop, to conquer.