How a Senator Plans to Solve the Very Public Problem Many Dads Face

Most moms can agree that public restroom changing tables aren't the best places in the world, but at least they have them. Most men's bathrooms are devoid of the feature altogether.

Ashton Kutcher's recent plea for more changing tables in men's rooms has been swiftly followed up by a similar call to action from New York senator Brad Hoylman. The democratic senator, tired of him and his husband having to change his 4-year-old daughter on a "pee-covered floor next to a urinal," has drafted a bill that would require all new buildings to be built with changing tables in both women's and men's public bathrooms.

"This is a personal issue for me, but it's also about men needing to pick up the slack in parenthood," he told BuzzFeed News, adding that it "is highly representative of the inequality that exists in parenting responsibility as well as the lack of recognition by businesses of same-sex marriage."

This issue isn't a new one. Last fall, two legislative efforts by two different California state senators were rejected by Governor Jerry Brown. Although he believed it was good business sense for building owners to create equally accessible changing tables, he didn't think it should be a legal mandate.

Until Hoylman's bill — which is being introduced to the New York State Senate today — passes, perhaps it's time for parents looking for gender equality to vote with their dollars: frequenting establishments that already offer men's-room changing tables and encouraging those that don't to start.