Your Office AC Is Sexist
It's also absurd.
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When Kathy Hochul took over as governor of New York, the first woman to hold the job, she did many things. She created an HR department for the first time, and an anonymous sexual harassment hotline. She did a listening tour, and set up one-on-one meetings with staffers. And then she turned the office thermostat up by more than 10 degrees.
It was a triumph — at least for her female staffers, who were always freezing. That was, in part, because Hochul's predecessor, Andrew Cuomo liked it famously meat-locker cold, so he wouldn't sweat.
But he was also a middle aged man in a suit — which is precisely the profile to which most public thermostats are set. (Specifically, they're set to acommodate a 40-year-old man weighing about 154 pounds.)
Indeed, every year around this time, or in fact typically earlier, we begin the office temperature debate. Why on earth must I keep a space heater under my desk? Is it really necessary to wear wool socks with my sundress when it's 90 degrees outside? (Sometimes I actually wear mittens; my hands get so cold that it makes it hard to type.)
These questions feel particularly relevant at this moment, as many large companies prepare to bring their employees back to work.
Office air conditioning is indeed sexist. It's also just absurd, when we know how much energy could be saved by not overcooling. We seemed to have picked this up when it comes to heat — people don't complain about being too hot at work — so why is it so difficult to get the office AC temp right?
Back in 2015, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change gave at least some explanation for this persistent overcooling: Most building thermostats are set to comfort preferences developed in the 1960s (the 1960s!) — and simply haven't bothered to modernize for the makeup, and dress code, of the contemporary workplace. A 2021 study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, dubbed this temperature excessive. Gee, ya think?
Now reader, I don’t need to tell you this, but the incentive to finding a more reasonable temperature is boundless: Global warming. Energy consumption. Price of cooling. And, actually, productivity! A 2019 USC study published in the journal PLOS One, found that women are more productive at warmer temperatures, specifically on math and verbal tasks, while men perform better when they're slightly cooler.
Key word slightly cooler. Isn't there a happy medium we could all agree to?
Mark that down as yet another reason to work from home forever. (Though don't tell that to Malcolm Gladwell.)
What I'm Reading:
Everything you wanted to know about bad sex but were afraid to ask. My review of Nona Willis-Aronowitz's new book, Bad Sex.
R.I.P. Olivia Newton-John. She died this week at 73. Want to know the secret history of her in that leotard? Read last month's newsletter.
“I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete.” Serena Williams said goodbye to tennis in an essay in Vogue. My pal Talya Minsberg writes on athletics and motherhood in the NYT.
Breeders and birth rates: Despite everything Elon Musk seems to think and say, a new study finds that more than 1 in 5 adults don't want children.
Your data isn't safe. A Nebraska teen and mother are facing charges in an abortion-related case after their Facebook messages were turned over to law enforcement. From period apps to Planned Parenthood to Google searches, data privacy in a post-Roe world is getting very tricky.
Possibly TMI, but I can't stop thinking about this tweet.
Just for Fun: Kids at Coney Island 🎡
The kids' section of the New York Times (highly recommend!) sent a photographer, Caroline Tompkins, to capture kids having summer fun at Coney Island. They're super cute!
This is Alexander, who was celebrating his 6th birthday.
On This Day in History... Woodstock '69 🌼
On foot, by car, atop buses, in vans...
Fifty three years ago this week, some 300,000 hippies descended on the town of Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock Music Festival.
They were there to see artists like Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix; but also to, as a New York Times headline put it back then, "smoke 'grass' and take LSD to 'groove.'"
Have a groovy week!
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