It’s an enduring old chestnut by now — the trope of a woman in an office bundled up in sweaters while the men around her are positively jolly temperature-wise. Or of a married couple reaching their ironic boiling point over how cool the thermostat should be set.
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I had kind of always assumed that it was just one of those bits of antiquated, gender-based jokery that a friend’s dad would find hilarious. Something that would be featured in a Dilbert strip taped to their fridge. The dad would point and laugh and laugh, while the mom just looked on, very, very tired. A joke told by a Boomer stand-up whose act boils down to “my wife is a bitch, and the only thing stopping me from ascending to shining godhood.”
Let’s be clear, the jokes are still incredibly boring. Interestingly, though, there is scientific data backing up the fact that it’s not based on some imagined sensitivity or “toughness,” but just a base difference in how different temperatures feel between men and women. It’s all tied into the disparity in base metabolic rate between genders. If your muscle mass is burning more calories, as well as creating more energy, you’ve got your own little internal furnace running all the time, and comparatively, the male body is heaving in coal with abandon.
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The end goal is the same: keeping your body at the doctor-approved 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At a higher metabolic rate, with more natural heat being generated, the body doesn’t need as much outside help, so you won’t feel any of the sensations we tie into being chilly.
On the other hand, the body of someone with a lower metabolic rate at the same temperature will start flipping the levers for shivers to help it reach that temperature. So it’s not just a matter of toughing it out, that second body is legitimately going into cold-weather mode, with all the attendant side effects, to produce more heat and energy.
All of which is to say that women, with generally lower body weight and higher body-fat-to-muscle ratios, typically have a lower metabolic rate than men. This means that they do actually feel colder than men, even at the same temperature. The difference, borne out by studies, is nice and neat: about five degrees, which is no small thermostat swing.
Women’s ideal temperature is around 77 degrees Fahrenheit, while men feel the same way at about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Something backed up by the anecdotal evidence of my own A/C being set to precisely that temperature right at this very moment.