While ladies love to joke about the ‘Man Cold,’ men keep scratching their heads over why women are always cold at the office.
The gender battle over the thermostat is just as real as the gender battle over the T.V. remote control. The difference is that the former can lead to hypothermia while the latter really only leads to hyper irritation.
If you’re one of those ladies who feels as if you have to dress for an arctic expedition to survive the office air conditioning, you’ll be glad to know that it’s a scientifically proven phenomenon, it’s not ‘just you.’
For those ladies who suffer from feeling cold, there’s nothing more irritating than shivering through a work day enduring inane comments such as “You can’t be cold?!” as your fingers, toes and nose display an unbecoming shade of purple and feel like blocks of ice.
It’s such a universal complaint amongst women who work in offices that we’ve unearthed reports from as far away as the U.K. and Australia. Turns out that women’s suffering at work is the fault of… you guessed it… a man!
Why do women feel the cold more than men? A Week in Science from RiAus on Vimeo.
Jokes aside, apparently it was decided many years ago, that the ideal temperature for office thermostats was based on the resting metabolic temperature of an average man. The ‘average’ man being a forty year old weighing 154 pounds. The 7 point formula for deciding the ‘ideal’ temperature setting is calculated using air speed and temperature, clothing insulation and other factors.
Trouble is, that doesn’t work for women because women run at a different resting metabolic temperature to men. A higher core temperature means that women sense a drop in the ambient temperature much more than men will. Blood rushes away from the skin and extremities to the core to prevent a drop in the core temperature. A drop in core temperature of as little as two degrees could result in hypothermia.
For women it will probably come as no surprise that the pesky metabolism grinch is once again responsible for making things uncomfortable.
Women have been told for years that it was courtesy of their metabolisms that they couldn’t eat the same way as men. Many men, it seems, can chug down hamburgers and fries on a regular basis without immediate weight gain, whereas many women feel that just a casual glance at a fry could be hazardous to the hips.
So ladies, if you’re freezing at work, blame it on the combination of your woman’s metabolism and the office ‘man averaged’ thermostat being responsible for you having to literally work outside your comfort zone, so to speak.
Possible solutions?
1. Raise the temperature setting and make the men sweat a bit
2. Make buildings more energy efficient so that the temperature can be maintained at a comfortable level for all
3. Women ask for a clothing allowance to help finance the extra layers neccesary
We’d love you to vote for your favorite solution by commenting with the number of your favorite, or, give us your suggestion via Facebook or Twitter using hashtags: #FreezingAtWork and #COFCO_Office.
We’ll choose a random winner from the entries on 31st August 2015 and send them an Amazon gift card.
Read more here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33760845
https://fortune.com/2015/08/03/women-office-freezing-cold/
https://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/254-thermostat.html
https://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/health/health+news/why+women+feel+the+cold+more+than+men,13259a
