Feminist Claptrap: Air conditioning is sexist

RADICAL Sanghani - this broad needs a nice warm glass of SHUT THE HELL UP

 
It's this sort of nonsense that gives women all over the world a bad name:  Apparently, women are complaining that office air conditioning is "sexist" just because the thermometer is set to a level that the 'average male' is comfortable with.

This however, prompts the obvious question: if we change things to 'suit women', then wouldn't that just make it sexist against males?

But of course, this question/argument never even enters these women's heads (big surprise - NOT).  To them, who cares how men feel.  As long as women are "comfortable" that's all that matters.  But that's what these denser-than-lead, self-centered cunts are all about: First World Problems.

I guess it never occurs to these women to put on a sweater, or god forbid DRESS PROFESSIONALLY like men have to do (suit and tie, slacks, button shirt).  But because women want to wear some stupid little sundress, spaghetti straps, mini skirt, low cut tops, etc., now everyone has to rearrange their their work environment so that Jane can show off that cute little number she got at the mall. Sorry, but the office is not a fashion runway - it's a place of work.  You don't get paid to prance around in that top that shows too much cleavage - you get paid to get the job done (supposedly).

If you turn the heat up then the problem is that men would be too hot, and we men don't have the luxury of taking off our clothes and working in t-shirts (or a sleeveless blouse).  It is much easier to warm up by putting on layers than it is to cool off. Everybody knows this.  For example, in the wintertime, you can always snuggle under a blanket. In the summer, you can walk around naked and it's still too hot.  Again, common sense, but common sense seems to elude these ridiculous women.

Here are some of the culprits for this 'crusade' (along with the web address to their article):

1. Leigh Whiner Weingus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/science-why-women-are-freezing-at-work_55c0b385e4b06f8bedb5d7d7

2. Joy D'Souza (I wonder if she's related to that conservative idiot Dinesh) and Marc Lamont over-the Hill (the guy in the video for this article)
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/05/air-conditioning-women_n_7941968.html

3. Poor Nag Poorna Bell
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/04/air-conditioning-office-too-cold_n_7930956.html

4. Petulant Petula Clark
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/frigid-offices-freezing-women-oblivious-men-an-air-conditioning-investigation/2015/07/23/bdd1b4b4-30ae-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html

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Let's look at the first article, by Ms. Whiner (I mean Weingus).  In it she writes the following (in italics). My comments are in bold plain text:

"If women have lower need for cooling it actually means you can save energy, because right now we’re just cooling for this male population."

But it's good for the environment!!!!!  Yeah yeah, whatever. I think energy conservation is the last thing on these women's minds.  That's just an excuse to guilt us into turning the thermostat up.
 
"Besides helping the environment out, there are other reasons to cut back on air conditioner use. Air conditioners can lead to breathing problems, fatigue and headaches, to name a few. "

Air conditioning causes fatigue and headaches?  Really?  Mmm-hmm.  You know what else causes those things? Nagging cunts.

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Now let's look at the second article.  This one was so stupid I found it offensive.  It includes a short video clip where the host (a doofus named Marc Lamont Hill (a.k.a Over The Hill) actually has the nerve to call a mathematical equation "sexist".  Really?!?!  A math equation is 'sexist'?  What's next, will science be sexist?  Holy mother of god what an idiot.

The premise of this Huffington Post article/interview is that, because air conditioning settings are based on a formula from the 1960’s using the metabolic rates of men (known as “Fanger’s Thermal Comfort Equation”), it is therefore sexist.

a screenshot of the journal article being discussed . . .

I was actually embarrassed watching the video, because the scientist being interviewed (Dr. Boris Kingma, a dutch biophysicist from the University of Maastricht) was probably thinking, "are all americans this loony"?  It's sad.  Here is a short excerpt from the interview (MLH is Marc Lamont Hill, the Huffington Post interviewer, and BK is Boris Kingma, the scientist who conducted the study). Their comments are in italics: 

MLH: “A lot of people were referring to Fanger’s Formula as ‘sexist’. Would you agree with that view?”.

BK: “No”

MLH: “Especially that second line; seems particularly sexist to me”.

BK: “Fanger’s equation is not sexist.  Fanger’s equation is a physical equation. So it determines the heat load a body will have, dependent on the clothing insulation and also the metabolic rate, and also depending on the air temperature, relative humidity, all those kind of parameters. And it scales that heat load to what would be the thermal sensation. So this Fanger’s equation is not sexist in any way. 

There's more to the interview but I think you get the gist.  Here is Fanger's equation:

Now, I'm guessing Mr. Marc Hill was joking (at least I hope so) when he said that the second line of that equation "looked sexist", but it was still a very stupid thing to say.  Especially when you are talking to someone whose primary language is not english, you have to be mindful that they may not pick up on the nuances of your sarcasm and humor.

the foolish american interviewer. it's easy for him to turn the heat up - he's in a t-shirt

The written part of the article (not the video above) also stated the following:

"Setting the temperature a little higher won't just benefit women — according to the researchers, a warmer office can also also help combat global warming."

So, just like the first article (by Leigh Weingus above), this one also tries to appeal to those concerned by the environment.

You know what else combats global warming? Not going shopping all the time or buying new clothes every season!!

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The third article on so-called sexist air conditioning is by another nutjob at the Huffington Post named PoorNag Poorna Bell. She states the following (in italics):

"In short, your air-con is sexist, as it's based on a gender bias that no longer exists. "

 Utterly bizarre. See, this is what happens when you let (certain) women into the workplace. They wanted more opportunities to work outside the home, they got them, and instead of being happy, they look for some reason to complain.  I thought they wanted equality?  I thought they were as tough as men (if not more so) and could take pain better?  Holy cow, WTF.

Dear Ms. Porno Hell (I mean Poorna Bell): These air conditioning settings were not put in place to 'keep women out' of the workplace. So why is is sexist?

Jeez, (some) women really suck.

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And finally, we have the fourth article written by some self-absorbed cretin at the Washington Post named Petula Dvorak. This one is just nauseating.  Her words are in "italics", and my comments are in bold plain text: 

"It’s the time of year desperate women rely on cardigans, pashminas and space heaters to make it through the workweek in their frigid offices. And their male colleagues barely notice.

"'Is your office too cold?' I asked a clutch of men — pinstripes, charcoal pants, crisp shirts with the faint outline of undershirts beneath.. . ."

"I found a trio, two women — shoulders bare — and a man, in handsome navy twill pants and a smart, checkered, button-down shirt, eating lunch together. . . ."

"So there you have it: the gender divide, thermostat edition. All these women who actually dress for the season — linens, sundresses, flowy silk shirts, short-sleeve tops — changing their wardrobes to fit the sweltering temperatures around them."

"And then there are the men, stalwart in their business armor, manipulating their environment for their own comfort, heaven forbid they make any adjustments in what they wear. 
That’s right, my friends. Air conditioning is another big, sexist plot." 

And THERE's your problem right there.  Unlike women, men have very little leeway in what they can wear to work, especially in a more conservative office setting.  Therefore, it makes sense to adjust the temperature to reflect this reality.  The dress code is actually more oppressive for men, but idiots like Ms. Dvorak just don't get it.  She only sees "oppression" against women.

Many men would dress cooler or more comfortably if they could; alas, many cannot. 


"Marshall [a woman who has been working in Washington D.C. since 1973] explained how frustrating it is to put on a pretty summer outfit and then get hit with that blast of cold. 'And you have to put on some jacked-up sweater you left at your desk.'”

Frustrating? I can maybe see "annoying", but 'frustrating?  Oh boo-hoo.  Try wearing a suit and tie in 90% humidity. SUCK IT UP!


"Setting the temperature to suit men is wrong in ways that go far beyond summer fashion." 

Because as well all know, summer fashion is the most important thing (glad to hear she has per priorities straight).  So, setting the temperature to suit women is . . . right?
Men bad, women good: that's the feminist mantra.

"Frozen workers make more errors and are less productive, according to Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis and director of Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory, who studied office temperatures about a decade ago." 

'Frozen workers'?  That's a little over the top, no? 

"Researchers had their hands on the controls at an insurance office for a month. And when they warmed the place from 68 to 77 degrees, typos went down by 44 percent and productivity went up by 150 percent." 

Assuming this is true (I don't know what their materials and methods were to quantify productivity, and I don't know how they kept track of typos or what they used as a baseline, and I don't know what the ratio of male workers to female workers was), what these results really say is that if your productivity can be affected so significantly because of a few degrees, then maybe you have no business working in an insurance office (or anywhere).

Otherwise, that means maybe the reason why firemen can't save every single life is because things are "too hot". Maybe if the temperature didn't act like such a jerk, firemen could save 150% more people than they do now.


"And the men can just switch to more reasonable fashion choices for warmer offices. I see plenty of tan, summer suits around town. And even some linen or seersucker from the Southern delegations to D.C." 

How about taking your own advice about fashion choices? (i.e. dress for colder offices?). A suit is a suit, whether it's tan or seersucker. A suit is hot. And nobody is going to take a businessman or politician seriously if he's wearing a seersucker suit to work.

But instead of seeing the irony in her statement, the author (Dvorak) just keeps on yapping.  Will this bitch ever shut the f**k up? 


"But come on, men, be bold.
I’m talking short suits. They’re adorable! Plus, we’d all love to see your knees, guys." 

Short suits?  Really?  You mean dress like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie "Twins"? Even little boys don't wear short suits anymore. OMG WTF is this Dvorak character smoking?

Additionally, she makes it sound as if it is up to us.  - It's not.  Management decides the dress code, so if they say conservative suit and tie, they mean it. Doesn't matter how 'bold' we feel like dressing.

Lastly, suit is still a suit. Your legs may be cooler in such a ridiculous get-up, but your upper body will still be sweltering.

Only a feminist newspaper columnist could get away with writing such nonsense.  But maybe that's her job - to complain about useless sh*t.  So to her I say: 
 

Below are the original articles in all their idiocy.


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Science Has An Explanation For Why Women Are Freezing At Work
 
Blame it on the 154-pound man.

Leigh Weingus | Healthy Living Writer at The Huffington Post
Posted: 08/04/2015 12:23 PM EDT | Edited: 08/06/2015 02:47 PM EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/science-why-women-are-freezing-at-work_55c0b385e4b06f8bedb5d7d7


If you're the type of woman who's always wrapping herself in a giant blanket during the steaming hot summer months at work, there's a reason for that. According to a new report, office temperatures are tailored for 40-year-old, 154-pound men.

The report, published in Nature Climate Change, found that the temperature in buildings is based on a 1960s "thermal comfort model" determined by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

The model takes factors like clothing, humidity, air speed and metabolism into consideration, but there are a few problems with that, including that it was established five decades ago. For context, Forbes reported "the percentage of adult American women who are employed climbed from about 37 percent  in 1965 to about 55 percent in 2008, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research."

"Women are generally smaller than men and have a higher body fat percentage. So, their metabolic rate is 20 percent to 35 percent lower," lead researcher Boris Kingma said, according to Business Insider. Because muscle keeps the body warmer than fat does, this explains why office temperatures are usually just fine for men.

As physicist Joost van Hoof pointed out to the New York Times, “If women have lower need for cooling it actually means you can save energy, because right now we’re just cooling for this male population."

Besides helping the environment out, there are other reasons to cut back on air conditioner use. Air conditioners can lead to breathing problems, fatigue and headaches, to name a few.

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Office Air Conditioning Is Unfair To Women, According To Science

The Huffington Post Canada  |  By Joy D'Souza
Posted: 08/05/2015 2:45 pm EDT Updated: 08/06/2015 11:59 am EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/05/air-conditioning-women_n_7941968.html


If you're a woman working in an office, you probably have both a blazer and a blanket stashed away in your desk, and chances are you're using one or both of them on the hottest day of the year.

The reason? Air conditioning turns offices into ice boxes and most men don't even notice.

A new study published in the Journal of Nature Climate Change says that office buildings are setting their temperature based on an old formula which is calculated using the metabolic rate of a 40-year old man weighing more than 154 pounds.

And this doesn't even take into account the differences between the clothing men and women wear in the summer. While most summer clothes for women are designed with thinner fabrics and shorter hemlines, many men's wardrobes remain unchanged, with some offices still insisting men wear suits to work.

Curious as to how the cold air affects women, researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands also monitored the metabolic rates of office workers and found that the women's rates were 20 to 32 per cent lower than their male counterparts, The Star explains.

Setting the temperature a little higher won't just benefit women — according to the researchers, a warmer office can also also help combat global warming, the New York Times reports.
As scientist Boris Kingma explains, “if you have a more accurate view of the thermal demand of the people inside, then you can design the building so that you are wasting a lot less energy."

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Air Conditioning In Offices Is Too Cold (And Sexist) As It's Based On Metabolic Rate Of Middle Aged Men

The Huffington Post UK  |  By Poorna Bell
Posted: 04/08/2015 10:00 BST Updated: 04/08/2015 10:59 BST
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/04/air-conditioning-office-too-cold_n_7930956.html


Almost every woman who works in an office has taken part in the air-conditioning wars.
For a history lesson - this is when we say the air-con is too high, and the men invariably tell us to 'harden up' because clearly our frail female bodies can't cope with the temperature.

However finally, the day of reckoning is upon us.

Researchers from Maastricht University in the Netherlands say that women prefer a warmer temperature of around 25C compared with 22C for men.

Most offices use a rule of thumb from the 60s - selecting an average temperature based on the metabolic rate of a middle aged man. The metabolic rate is how fast your body burns energy and generates heat as a result.

As a result, the air-con is set too high, as women tend to have a lower metabolic rate than men - meaning they need more warmth.

In short, your air-con is sexist, as it's based on a gender bias that no longer exists.

Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Dr Boris Kingma and Professor Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt said: "Thermal comfort models need to adjust the current metabolic standard by including the actual values for females."

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Frigid offices, freezing women, oblivious men: An air-conditioning investigation

By Petula Dvorak | July 23, 2015 | Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/frigid-offices-freezing-women-oblivious-men-an-air-conditioning-investigation/2015/07/23/bdd1b4b4-30ae-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html


You can spot them. The frozen ones who come outside at lunch like sun-seeking turtles, cardigans balled up next to them, bare shoulders defrosting in the noon sunlight, no matter how wilting it is outdoors.

Every single woman I talked to in downtown Washington on a hot, humid July afternoon was thawing out.

“I. Am. Fuh-reezing. Feel my hand — I’m still cold,” said Ruth Marshall, 64, who was seated on a park bench, face to the sky. And, yes, her hand felt like a cold steak.

“I have to come out here for 30 minutes at a time just to warm up,” said Marshall, the director of administration at a construction firm where the air conditioning is set to Arctic.

It’s the time of year desperate women rely on cardigans, pashminas and space heaters to make it through the workweek in their frigid offices. And their male colleagues barely notice.

 “Is your office too cold?” I asked a clutch of men — pinstripes, charcoal pants, crisp shirts with the faint outline of undershirts beneath.

They looked at me as if I spoke in Finnish, confident faces contorted in puzzlement.
“No.”
“Nah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
So I asked another guy in a navy suit eating a taco.
“No. It’s fine.”
Two dudes in matching blue shirts and red ties?
“Fine.” “No.” Zippity happity do da fine.

Hmm. A pattern?

Let’s be scientific about this, then. How about a female-centric office? At Emily’s List, which raises money for women running for office, the temperature setting must be female-friendly, right?

 “It’s freezing — here’s my sweater,” said one of the outdoor she-turtles who works at the woman-powered firm.

“But we don’t have control over the temperature on our floor,” she clarified. “It’s set for the whole building.”

By a man, perhaps?

How about men and women who work in the same office? (Because we’re doing top-notch investigative work here.)

I found a trio, two women — shoulders bare — and a man, in handsome navy twill pants and a smart, checkered, button-down shirt, eating lunch together.

They all work together at a company that deals with international education issues. How’s the weather inside while they’re working on educating the globe?
“Cold.”
“Freezing.”
“It’s fine.”

You know I don’t have to tell you who said what.

So there you have it: the gender divide, thermostat edition. All these women who actually dress for the season — linens, sundresses, flowy silk shirts, short-sleeve tops — changing their wardrobes to fit the sweltering temperatures around them.

And then there are the men, stalwart in their business armor, manipulating their environment for their own comfort, heaven forbid they make any adjustments in what they wear.

That’s right, my friends. Air conditioning is another big, sexist plot.

“It’s been going on for years, every building I’ve been in. It’s awful,” said Marshall, who has worked in Washington since 1973. “Everything is set at 70 degrees for those testosterone-toting people.”
Marshall explained how frustrating it is to put on a pretty summer outfit and then get hit with that blast of cold. “And you have to put on some jacked-up sweater you left at your desk.”

Okay. I think Marshall was finally heated up.

Setting the temperature to suit men is wrong in ways that go far beyond summer fashion.

Frozen workers make more errors and are less productive, according to Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis and director of Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory, who studied office temperatures about a decade ago.

Researchers had their hands on the controls at an insurance office for a month. And when they warmed the place from 68 to 77 degrees, typos went down by 44 percent and productivity went up by 150 percent.

Plus, the U.S. Energy Department estimates that you can save about 11 percent on power bills by raising the thermostat from 72 to 77 degrees.

And the men can just switch to more reasonable fashion choices for warmer offices. I see plenty of tan, summer suits around town. And even some linen or seersucker from the Southern delegations to D.C.

But come on, men, be bold.

I’m talking short suits. They’re adorable! Plus, we’d all love to see your knees, guys.

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Petula is a columnist for The Washington Post's local team who writes about homeless shelters, gun control, high heels, high school choirs, the politics of parenting, jails, abortion clinics, mayors, modern families, strip clubs and gas prices, among other things.