For years, women across America have dealt with glass ceilings. But now, women in Ohio have a new problem - glass floors.
A $105 million courthouse opened in Franklin County, Ohio, on Monday, but the builders seemed to have forgotten one thing - the bottom of the stairs, reports affiliate 10TV. The staircase is made of glass.
Dress wearers need to avoid taking the stairs, according to Franklin County Judge Julie Lynch, who wears dresses under her robes almost every day.
"I wear dresses because that's my personal choice," Lynch told 10TV. "When you stand under the stairwell, you can see right up through them.”
She speculates that men, who didn’t take half the population into account, designed the stairs.
Attorney Lori Johnson was startled by the transparent stairs. She worries not only about stares, but also how many cell phones have cameras attached.
“The next thing you know, you’re on the internet,” Johnson said, according to 10TV. “It sounds like a lawsuit in the making.”
While security guards warn women about taking the stairs, it seems most are just hoping people will be mature about the situation.
"They hope people will be mature? That's not a solution," Lynch said to 10TV. "If we had mature people that didn't violate the law, we wouldn't have this building."
I can fix the problem with $50 in contact paper. Just stick contact paper to the bottoms of each stair step. Problem solved. Only in a courthouse can you have hundreds of people with graduate degrees, making six-figure salaries, who can't figure out how to turn transparent into opaque.
Unfortunately, NOT only on the internet can you have people who don't recognize stupidity and wasted money (the original design of the staircase).
The TREADS are OPAQUE, the RISERS are clear glass. There are staircases all over the world with NO RISERS at ALL. This is the most absurd thing I have seen on CNN in a LONG LONG TIME!! If somebody wants to see coo ch they aren't gonna hangout under the court house stairs! Good GOD!
Or just put in frosted glass risers and attach a thin frosted glass sheets to the bottom. A fairly simple fix.
Nobody's going to hang out under the stairs probably. But it's a busy public building. That should have been taken into consideration, rather than having to repair it. The beautiful waterfront $170 million Moakley federal courthouse in Boston turned out to not be handicapped accessible. And they, of course, hand down the law. Oops. A bigger design flaw.
That judge sounds like a biaach.
They should tear the stairs down and replace them at the expense of the designer/architect or whoever approved the design for the county. That's just stupid.
It would be the other way around.....the county would have approved the architect's plan. Otherwise, it wouldn't be built and they wouldn't pay for it. I can't believe this stupid mistake!
Sounds like a typical feminist. I'm all for equal right, but if you choose to wear a dress then you choose all the downfalls that come with it. Stairs like this have been built for nearly as long as stairs have existed. The stairs at my work are just like this, but without the glass. They simply have empty space under each stair and we have not had one complaint in the 13 years I have worked there.
Also why are we not targeting the apple stores and their all glass construction? They are FAR worse than this.
oh yea of course. its the womans fault for wearing a dress like many women still do. the professional kind at that, not the bar kind of mini skirt. its all their fault. how could we women not think of that ??
typical anti-feminist response. Sounds like a perfectly legitimate concern to me. you obviously have issues.
Silly remark. If a guy takes a picture under the stairs with a cell camera, it's the woman's fault for wearing a skirt instead of pants??? What planet are you on? Only in relatively recent history have women even beel allowed to wear pants. When I was in school, we had to wear skirts/dresses...even on very cold and snowy days. That dates me a bit, but I'm not all that old, either. Even in the 80's, it was kind of nervy to wear a pantsuit to work. Dresses and skirts are what women wear sometimes now, and it's not something they should be "punished" or inconvenienced for.
Just make sure you shave the beaver.
You read my mind Andrew, why don't they just cover the underneath part of the stairs?
I can just see someone that was convicted by her taking revenge by uploading a beaver shot to the internet.
Who wants to see that old judge's beaver anyway?
I do, I do. Pls post here.
I think they should have walk-in screening of women before they embark on this stairwell just to make sure they are wearing something under their dresses, and are decent. Maybe cavity searches, too.
"If we had mature people that didn't violate the law, we wouldn't have this building."
Oh? It's a sign of maturity to spinelessly obey every idiot law the politicians dream up? If that's the case, all those folks back in 1776 must have been astonishingly immature.
That's what these judges get for using taxpayer money to build these elaborate facilities for lawyers, judges, cops, and other low life.
One can of spray paint and I can solve the problem.
What about us Scotish folks that wear Kilts? We don't want our junk on the internet
My junk is already on the internet...that is why I wear a kilt.
There are thousands of open stairways like this. Sheesh. Who cares what or if you can see anything. It would be quite obvious if someone were standing under the stairs.
@ Bruce......I thought the same exact thing.....either contact paper or adhesive tint to make it opaque. So called "brilliant" people but really only book smart and common sense stupid.
For $105 million, I'm sure the people were expecting something better than contact paper or adhesive tint.