Study says office building temperatures are unfair to women

There is a new misogynist in town.

The conclusion of the study’s authors was that adjusting buildings’ internal temperatures to make both male and female employees comfortable would likely save energy, which could thus combat global warming, according to People.

And not just any men: 40-year-old men, weighing 154 pounds – in other words, a typical office worker in the 1960s, when researchers say the “empirical comfort model” that underlies indoor climate control policies was developed. It turns out the decades-old formula for choosing air temperature is based on men’s needs.

The factors are organized into a seven-point scale and then juxtaposed against the PPD, or “predicted percentage dissatisfied”. To give you the basics, if the females in your office are too cold, you’re formula for what the temperature in the office should be is flawed, and therefore you are expending more energy than is necessary.

Researchers said temperature standards in office buildings are based in part on the resting metabolic rate of a 154-pound, 40-year-old-man.

Ignoring the physiology of women when creating the “thermal comfort model” saddled ladies with an estimated 35 percent deficit in heat production.

Joost van Hoof, a building physicist (and expert in lady bodies) at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, shared his opinion on how to fix this defecit with The New York Times – despite his distance from the actual study. For example, men often wear formal suits and ties, even during the summer; meanwhile, women frequently wear less clothing when the outdoor temperature is high. I wouldn’t overestimate the effect of cleavage, but it’s there.

A 2014 study found that the physical sensation of feeling cold is actually contagious, and that merely watching a video of another person experiencing cold caused a physical change in body temperature of the viewer.

It’s not just women who suffer. Women’s metabolisms are around 20 to 30 per cent lower.