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Whatsapp A cold office experience is common for many women

For 50 years air conditioning in commercial buildings has been set using the Standard 55 guidelines. But many workplaces aren't staffed solely with 40-year-old men dressed in 60s business suits, and that's left women out in the cold, as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki argues.

Worldwide, sales of air conditioning units go up by about 20 per cent each year.

But apart from the cost and energy involved in cooling our buildings, modern air conditioning set-ups all have a fundamental flaw—they are sexist.

You see, men love aircon, but women often shiver.

If we just set the thermostat to a slightly higher temperature, we can save energy and money.

You know what I mean—the men are fine in shirt-sleeves, but the women have to wear cardigans and scarves.

In the good old days, the weather was always fine. But then there was that unfortunate incident involving Adam, Eve, the apple and the talking snake. So God tipped the Earth off its vertical axis, and—according to Milton's Paradise Lost—for the first time, Adam and Eve suffered 'scorching heat in summer ... pinching cold in winter'.

The Ancient Egyptians cooled down by using the evaporation of water, as wind blew over moistened reeds hanging in windows.

The Ancient Romans and Persians used similar technologies.

By the second century AD, the Chinese had huge fans, three metres in diameter and human-powered, blowing air over water rising from fountains.

It was 1902 before the first modern electrical air conditioning was invented, by Willis Carrier in New York.

And for the last 50 years, the air conditioning settings in our buildings have followed the famous—and sexist—Standard 55.

Standard 55 is a set of guidelines for how to regulate indoor temperature and humidity.

It was introduced in 1966, by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers. They considered environmental factors, like temperature and humidity, and some human factors—the metabolic rate, and the clothing worn by office workers.

And you guessed it, the human they chose to base that on was a 40-year-old man, weighing 70kg, and dressed in a full 1960s business suit.

And all modern air conditioning systems are set up to follow this famous Standard 55.

Now that you know the background, you can see a few problems.

First, the metabolic rate varies enormously—depending on height, weight, fitness, the type of work, and of course, gender.

Women usually have both lower height and weight, and a higher percentage of body fat than men. In fact modern researchers reckon women pump out about a third less heat than men do, and so don't need as much cooling.

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The second problem is also obvious—women tend to wear lighter clothing, and expose more skin. In an office you don't often see a man's naked knees.

The third problem is a little more subtle, and it's related to the 'glass ceiling', where women are less likely to get promoted regardless of their qualifications. Boo the patriarchy.

And so, the men get the more attractive corner offices with lots of glass and great views, while the women are clustered more towards the centre of the building.

Now one factor here is that glass leaks heat like crazy, and so in summer, the men in the corner offices want the aircon running colder.

Another factor is that the aircon vents are usually closer to the centre of the building. So the women in their lighter clothes are directly in the blast of the cold air squirting out of the vents, on its way to the warmer corner offices.

And this leads to the situation where sometimes women actually have to turn on heaters, in the middle of summer, so that they are not continually shivering.

Cardigan wars aside, there's a bigger issue with air conditioning—the cost. But the cost could help end the days of sexist aircon.

If we just set the thermostat to a slightly higher temperature, we can save energy and money.

According to Richard de Dear, a professor of architectural and design science at the University of Sydney, just resetting the thermostat from 22 to 25 degrees Celsius could cut a quarter off the cooling bill.

At that lady-friendly temperature, suitless men can chill out, and women won't have to battle a cold front while they're fighting the glass ceiling.