more males than females suffer and die from diarrhoea in every region except southeast asia absence or inadequate provision of public toilets for women reflects and reinforces womens exclusion from public power and public spaces more generally yet many millions of people in the world lack even the most rudimentary means of obtaining safe water while billions do not have sanitation facilities that are protected from outside contamination un un unwomen who and unicef water and sanitation access demand provision priority health organization and policy are gendered even if this is manifested in different ways in different places the gendered dimensions of the water sanitation and hygiene wash sector are increasingly reflected in public policy agendas but concrete results have been partial and uneven water was generally thought of as a physical resource whose provision was determined for the most part by the hydrological cycle and physical infrastructure