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Researchers: The Thermostat In Your Office May Be Sexist
sciencehabit writes: If you're constantly bundling up against your office building's air conditioning, blame Povl Ole Fanger. In the 1960s, this Danish scientist developed a model, still used in many office buildings around the world, which predicts comfortable indoor temperatures for the average worker. The problem? The average office worker in the 1960s was a 40-year-old man sporting a three-piece suit. But fear not, those for whom the 'work sweater' has become a mandatory addition to office attire: Researchers say they have built a better model.
Since TFS doesn't say, the old model says 21C is the best, while the "new" model says 24C is the best. The problem is, of course, that one can wear a sweater in colder temperatures, but it's difficult (or inappropriate) to cope with higher temperature.
As a young fat (by European standards, not American) male in a job with no format attire requirement, I usually wear a t-shirt and shorts in the summer, so there's not much left to take off. I'm still more comfortable at lower temperatures (22-23). I actually like wearing a hoodie, but I never do at the office because it's too hot there.
And no, opening a window (as suggested in TFA) is not a solution when there's 30 degrees outside.
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Clearly the solution is to popularize "basketball uniform" as masculine business costume, so we can all be comfortable at 24 oC.
At 24C I'm not even comfortable naked and I'm pretty sure that nobody else would be comfortable with me being naked either.
"His name was James Damore."
Indeed, calling this "sexist" just devalues the word. It's based on old data and demographics have changed, that's all. Only a refusal to acknowledge that and act on it might be considered sexist.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's not really old data, it's just that the modern author hasn't considered the practicalities of the situation.
Offices *still* have 40 year old men (and 20 year old ones, and 50 year old ones) in them, it just happens they have a bunch of women too. Those men can not remove clothes to become cooler without incurring the wrath of HR (quite rightly). Those women can add clothes to solve being too cold. Simply averaging the temperature people want the office to be set to does not make everyone comfortable, it just makes a bunch of mean sweaty and sleepy, with no way to correct for it.
It's not really old data, it's just that the modern author hasn't considered the practicalities of the situation.
Offices *still* have 40 year old men (and 20 year old ones, and 50 year old ones) in them, it just happens they have a bunch of women too.
So how do we manages this so as not to be a part of the Patriarchy and it's incessant microagressions?
Do we adjust the temperature to suit the one lady in my office who likes it at 80 degrees?
Do we adjust it to another lady who likes it at 68 degrees?
Or how about the one who likes it the way it's set now? Is she a dupe of the male dominated hegemony, and a traitor to her sisters?
Even if my personal experience of a slim majority of women preferring temperatures higher than what I like, calling the temp settings sexist merely shows the lengths that people will go to when they want to feel oppressed.
I'm envisioning Big Red freaking out about a one degree too low thermostat setting, and how little girls are set up for a lifetime of subservience and disappointment when they notice the thermostat at home is set up as the patriarch demands it.
So - can you tell a persons gender by the temperature thay are most comfortable? tl;dr version. This is bullshit - non gender biased human entities happen to have different temperatures at which they are most comfortable.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It seems like every other post lately has someone raving about clickbaiting and users leaving the site
That's very true, though in this case, the article is particularly stupid, or at least referring to the air temperature as "sexist".
Just don't let the Weather Channel find out about this - I can hear it now......
"As the cold front approaches, the temperatures will be dropping into the sexist region, and we're expecting it getting to patriarchy level by tomorrow morning. So bundle up ladies, the microagression index is off the charts tonight!"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.