At every place I’ve ever worked the men are forever complaining that it’s too hot while the women are complaining that it’s too cold. Right now, half the women in our office are walking around with sweaters on, even though the temperature seems quite comfortable to me.
Is this a universal phenomena?
And if so, why?
I have my ideas, but I’ll let somebody else walk out on the limb first…
You may wish to look here for an answer.
Yup, this is also my experience. besides the real possibility that men and women may find different temperatures more comfortable, there is the obvious fact that women’s clothes generally cover them much less.
I had an ongoing problem in one of my workplaces with one woman about this. She wanted something like 83F in the winter so she could dress like she was at the beach and I had to wear a coat and tie.
My logic is that the temperature should be adjusted considering several things. One is to lower energy usage. Higher in summer and lower in winter. Another(obvious) one is to please a majority.
There is no such thing as a temperature that will please everybody. Even moderate physical activity will make you fel hot. I say the temperature should be set to be comfortable to those who want it coldest, especially in the winter. That way the others can put some more clothes on. That or allow the men to strip to their underwear.
This coming from a woman who is always hot in her office, gender has nothing to do with it! (of course, I’m probably an exception, because it is true, the women always seem colder…)
Other random thought: maybe the women just complain about it more… guys have to tough and grin it and bear it 
72 degrees is reasonable. I still wear a sweater often at that. I keep it much warmer at home, but i go around naked so hubby doesn’t mind.
This is a universal phenomenon, but not always male/ female. Skinny / Heavy makes a big difference too, but not as much as just plain old personal preference.
I do troubleshooting sometimes to handle complaints such as when an office building upgrades their air conditioning and then notices their electrical demand and usage increase. The building’s EMS show temperatures to be about the same or better with less variation. When they redo the air distribution people sometimes lose their own little thermostat kingdoms. They then seize control by putting 1500 Watt space-heaters under their freaking desks! Argggh! The things play havoc on electric bills by working against the A/C and suck up flippin’ great gobs of juice while doing it. I would rather they open a window than use these things.
Fortunatly can get rid of these and most other temperature related comfort complaints with dummy-stats, which are truly one of the greatest ideas ever. I don’t know who came up with them, but I would like to buy them a beer.
my ex-girlfriend and I came to the conclusion that it might be due to breasts. Extra blood circulating breasts do not use as much blood as limbs in motion therefore they may be a little bit colder than the rest of the body, then you may feel colder in general.
Men just have more muscle mass than women. Muscle mass has way more capillaries than fat, and we ladies have more fat. Guys metabolize faster, too, and it keeps them warmer. It also makes them lose weight faster when they diet (i.e., they give up a couple of beers a week and they drop ten pounds – %$%@!!). Also, as has been said, they wear pants and long-sleeved shirts to the office, and our dresses don’t keep us that warm.
pugluvr got it right, for my money, in saying that there is a difference between men and women when it comes to feeling temperature.
I work in a retail store of, say, about 3600 sq.ft. and there are 6 men and 8 women. The men generally perceive as pleasant a room temperature that is cool to most of the women. The exception being the women going through menopause, who constantly turn up the A/C when no one’s looking. And the women who have more than their share of body fat seem to think it’s cooler than the skinny ones.
To show you how much difference a few pounds make–one of the guys who is 40 and in good health, weighed about 290 a year ago(not sloppy fat, just “big-boned”). He went on a diet this last year and dropped 90 pounds(yep, basically cut out the sixpack each day and watched the snackfood). He used to literally be sweating in a teeshirt and pants when the thermostat read 68 degrees. Now, when the temp. is 70, he is cold.
Women are always cold. It’s seems that way. It will be eighty degrees out, but yet my girlfriend is wearing a sweater. Who knows. Of course, she says that I’m always hot, and radiating too much heat.
Of course, she is always un-radiating heat (is there a better name for that?) She literally sucks away my warmth when touching me. It’s not just that her skin is cold, I swear the heat is being drained from me to go into her.
Have you seen the movie (or comic book) X-Men? Well, take the character rogue, add a few years and longer hair, and bingo. Scary.
I’ve always figured it was due to one’s ratio of body surface area to body volume. People get cool by shedding heat through their skin, and a large body volume means that the surface area (which doesn’t vary a whole lot from person to person, at least not nearly as widely as volume) must work harder to shed heat and thus cool the body. Men tend to be larger than women, meaning they have more heat to shed, meaning they feel more comfortable in a cooler room. The body doesn’t have to work as hard to shed heat when the air is cool.
some bozo saidAnd the women who have more than their share of body fat seem to think it’s cooler than the skinny ones. I, of course, meant that the chubby women think it is warmer than do their skinny sisters.
Also, body hair. Where I’m hairy (my legs) I can take cold. I can wear thin pants even on windy days in the winter. But the rest of my body has to have something heavy on in the winter, 'cause I’m nearly hairless everywhere else.
Up until I turned 30, whenever I went to sleep, my body temp would go up 2 or 3 degrees. I was a furnace. Inexplicably, I stopped sleeping hot. I also remember working outside (International Falls, -40) without gloves, for 20 minutes – now I think 10+ degrees is freezing. As I get older, I seem to be homing in on 72 degrees as an upper limit of comfort, 45 as average, and 20 as low. Of course, I’ve lived in Alaska for the last decade, and the climate has impacted my comfort zone.
Well, we women have these swell hormones that can plunge our body temps, don’t forget. My theory is that the body temp of most women is normally a bit below the average of 98.6. Why it makes such a difference in how we experience the ambient temp, I don’t know, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Besides, we know you guys really just want to keep it cold so you can see our nipples.
That’s just a fringe benefit; we really do like it cooler.
Holy cow! How devious/brilliant! I will keep this in mind wherever I work from now on. But am I to understand that as soon as people THINK they’ve turned up the heat, they stop complaining about the temp? i.e.- It’s all in their heads??
I took that to mean they stop complaining about the thermostat setting. If it’s already at the highest setting, you can’t argue for setting it higher.
As long as we’re on the subject…
I once thought maybe this was partially due to mild anemia which women can experience due to their periods. Older women don’t have periods, but it seems to me they are still subject to chills. So basically I don’t know.