Scientists suggest air conditioning could be sexist; here's why
The air conditioning temperature settings used are not favourable for women. This can affect their comfort and productivity.
Do you often feel chilly in the office during the summer months? If you're a woman, there's a high likelihood that the answer is yes. Moreover, if you're older, both men and women may feel discriminated against by the typical air conditioning settings. The popular temperature range of 21-22 degrees Celsius maintained in most office spaces is often insufficient for most people, except for men in their prime.
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Is air conditioning designed with men in mind only?
If you search for the perfect temperature setting for air conditioning on Google, you will find that most results suggest a range of 18-23 degrees Celsius. However, in a speech by Australian writer Jamila Rizivi at the 2023 Leadership Summit, she asserted that these recommendations are calculated considering a 40-year-old man's resting metabolic rate.
Women and the elderly have slower metabolisms and function better at higher temperatures, which can also impact their cognitive performance. In a 2019 study titled 'Battle for the thermostat: Gender and the effect of temperature on cognitive performance,' researchers from Maastricht University in the Netherlands conducted experiments on men and women at different temperatures. The findings were published on the scientific portal journals.plos.org.
Women perform better in warmer environments
The study involved giving participants simple mathematical calculations and making as many words as possible from the available set of letters. The results confirmed that while men performed best at a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius, for women, the optimum was 25 degrees Celsius. When the influence of temperature was removed from the data, there was no difference in the ability of men and women to complete the tasks successfully.
It is widely known that setting lower temperatures for air-conditioning during summer can be costly and less eco-friendly. This is because a significant amount of electricity is required to maintain the temperature difference between the inside of the building and the higher temperature outside. Therefore, it is advisable to review your thermostat settings, particularly in areas where most of the working population is female.
Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk, journals.plos.org
