As summer begins to fade into fall, females everywhere may start to feel a slight reprieve from “women’s winter” – something a group of Toronto women hope to finally abolish.
For those unfamiliar with the season, it’s characterized by blistering hot temperatures outdoors, but an AC-induced Arctic tundra-like atmosphere indoors.
BBDO, the Toronto ad agency behind the campaign, urges ladies to take action and pretty much lobby their workplaces to have some sympathy on their plight (movie theatres are notorious for blasting the cold air in the summer as well).
It forces women to either forgo summer clothes at the workplace or bundle up in layers, like “office sweaters.”
Another woman admitted she sometimes seeks temporary relief from the frigid work air by sitting in her 37C car for five minutes.
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A lucky few may find warmth from a contraband heater hidden under their desk. But as soon as they step away from the false sense of comfort, their body temperature plummets.
College Humor recently created a re-enactment of the very real daily struggle.
Scientists have actually studied the serious condition, which most men are immune to. The reason it afflicts women basically boils down to a degree of sexual discrimination.
A study in the journal Nature Climate Change explained office temperatures are often based on an outdated 1960s formula which used the resting metabolic rate of a 40-year-old man, who weighed 154 pounds and wore a suit every day.
Times have changed (women now make up half the workforce), but the formula has not.
It fails to take into account that females prefer an average indoor temperature of 25C, compared to 22C for men.
“Women tend to have lower basal metabolic rates, so they tend to burn off energy a lot slower,” Dr. Devi Namiaparampil of NYU’s School of Medicine told Today last year.
“Many men think that women are just nagging,” building physicist Joost van Hoof told the Times. “But it’s because of their physiology.”
WATCH: Why women always seem to find it too cold compared to the men in the same office
Researchers have also found employees are less productive when they’re cold (possibly because their fingers are frozen).
It’s one of the reasons the Toronto women list in their struggle for workplace temperature equality.
If you want to take up the fight in your office, they have a letter you can download on their site.
You can tell your bosses that raising the temperature by just a few degrees will not only help fight climate change, but also improve their bottom line – running that AC isn’t cheap.