There’s one thing that’s driving a wedge between men and women in the church every single week, that creates discomfort and distrust for both. Is it polygamy? Gender roles in the proclamation? No. It’s the Gospel Doctrine Thermostat Wars. Every week the drama plays out again in my Arizona ward: the men want the AC cranked up, and the women are shivering under pashminas and cardigans. It’s largely because of the ridiculous dress code at church in which women (who are often colder anyway) have bare legs and feet in sandals and short sleeves while the men (who are often warmer anyway) are wearing socks, closed shoes, heavy pants, jackets, long sleeved shirts buttoned to the neck.
I would say this is a heated argument, but not from where I’m sitting.
To defend my sisters, I stake out a position by the thermostat like a goalie, ever vigilant. If I duck out to go to the restroom, though, if I leave my post for even a minute, inevitably some unnamed man will crank that AC up to the max. When Gospel Doctrine ends, and the women are the only ones left in the Relief Society room, the sisters unite in complaints about the low temperature, huddled together like sides of beef in a meat locker.
Apparently, this phenomenon has sexist origins beyond the dress code at church. Who knew? An article in Fortune magazine explains why the thermostat is also conspiring to make women uncomfortable in the work place. Yes, men are literally freezing women out of male spaces. The article points out the dress code problems already mentioned that apply doubly at church. At least in the workplace women often wear pants and even jackets, although I noticed real problems dealing with the AC living in Singapore. Outside temperatures are so consistently high that I found pants to be much less comfortable than skirts, but interior temperatures were so low to combat the humidity that I was often freezing indoors. Just walking from my car to the office, I was often soaking from the heat and humidity. Within minutes in the office, I’d be shivering under a cardigan. In the US, I had my own thermostat in my office, so I didn’t have a problem, but in Singapore, the office wasn’t built that way.
“Many men, they wear suits and ties, and women tend to dress sometimes with cleavage. The cleavage is closer to the core of the body, so the temperature difference between the air temperature and the body temperature there is higher when it’s cold. I wouldn’t overestimate the effect of cleavage, but it’s there.”
Even if women aren’t wearing something that shows cleavage, they aren’t generally buttoned to the neck either, and menopausal women often have temperatures that range broadly during the day. The dress code problem led to a creative solution from one 20-year old male worker in Buckinghamshire who was sent home for wearing “smart shorts”:
But rather than changing into a stuffy suit, the call centre worker decided to don a bright pink dress as a ‘protest’ against the rules. Predicting that he’d be sent home again, Joey posted a chic selfie to Twitter, racking up dozens of likes and retweets.
Instead his act of defiance sparked a change in the rules – with bosses sending out an email allowing ‘gentlemen in the office’ to wear three-quarter length shorts in ‘black, navy or beige only’. Despite the u-turn – which Joey branded a ‘partial win’ – he opted to wear the colourful dress for the whole day in an act of defiance against the policy.
While I doubt the men at church are going to be this progressive to help regulate the differences in male and female comfort, a girl can dream! Beyond traditional dress codes, the other issue that causes the comfort disconnect is physiological, and changing our clothing isn’t going to do much about that.
Most office building temperatures are set using a decades-old formula for a “thermal comfort model” that takes into account factors like air temperature, air speed, and clothing insulation. That’s converted into a seven-point scale and compared to the Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied, which gauges how many people are likely to feel uncomfortably cool or warm.
The problem is that one variable in that formula is inherently sexist. Turns out that the resting metabolic rate, or the measure of how fast we generate heat, that’s used in the calculation is based on a 40-year-old man weighing about 154 pounds. But women, who make up half of today’s workforce, typically have slower metabolic rates because they’re on average smaller and have more body fat. Thus, the study says the current “thermal comfort model” may overestimate women’s resting heat production by up to 35%.
In fact, this disparate cooling ability is actually a cause of more global warming. As a NY Times article points out:
“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,” said Joost van Hoof, a building physicist at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
I’m saving the fricken planet, guys.
The war continues. Men and women responded to the NY Times article, weighing in on these issues, but mostly just talking past each other.
“It’s the men who are discriminated against, as we are required to wear heavy shirts, shoes and socks, and long pants. Women get away with T-shirts and flip flops, literally.” Dan, Palm Beach FL
Susan W. in NY fights back:
“The suggestion that women should dress differently (ie, in warmer clothes) makes sense, except when you consider the enormous pressure women are under to look ‘fashionable. Apparently women’s comfort just isn’t important, whether it’s what they wear or where they work.”
And as Carolyn of NY points out:
“Let’s not pretend that women just need to put on a sweater and our fingers will stop turning purple. All of the whining from male commentators completely disregards the point of this article–that indoor temperatures are calculated based on men’s body temperatures ALONE. In what world is that not inherently discriminatory?? It needs to change.”
In the meantime, I will be at my post every Sunday, on the lookout for sweaty, self-centered men who think nothing of freezing their faithful sisters with the touch of a button.
Viva la resistance!
Discuss.
** This post originally published at By Common Consent.
Wheat & Tares 
You go, girl! Although, full disclosure, I keep my thermostat low at work and wear giant sweaters, but that’s because I teach middle school and the BO smell gets overwhelming if the temperature is tolerable 😂😂😂
There’s nothing worse than cooked BO.
My ward is so hot! We must have a Hawkgrrl posted at the thermostat. Halfway through gospel doctrine there’s no oxygen left, and as I have asthma, I find myself lightheaded and wheezing, and have to go out to the hallway to get some air. Walking back into that fetid “air” almost knocks me over. It’s an issue, like you said, in more ways than one. Sadly, I have no solutions. But a good start would be sisters wearing slacks to church and brethren losing the suit coats. I’d also point out that it’s easier to layer to warm up in a cold place than to strip in a hot one. I feel for everyone’s discomfort.
Do most church buildings have an adjustable thermostat? I’ve never seen one in our building.
People suffering hot flashes might also be winners….
I remember attending a singles ward and the air conditioner was broken. The bishop got up and said, “take off anything you dare!”
Naismith –
The thermostats in most church buildings I’ve occupied have not appeared adjustable to the casual observer, but teaching in public schools in the US teaches you a lot more about tampering with institutional HVAC, photocopiers, and AV equipment than I ever expected. It’s been years since I met a thermostat I couldn’t manipulate 😏.
“…the men want the AC cranked up, ….” Down south we crank the AC “down,” not “up.” In other words, to get the room cooler, the thermostat setting is turned down (say 68 degrees) to make the AC kick on to achieve a lower temperature. In the winter, the heat is “turned up” to warm the room. Semantics.
I am not the least bit sympathetic to healthy young men and women complaining about the temperatures with modern heating and freezing systems in our buildings . Our pioneers pushed handcarts barefoot in blizzards across Wyoming and conquered the Arizona desert wearing those old “wollies” (wool garments that went from neck to wrist to ankle). There used to be a reason why the called us stinkin’ Mormons.
What really burns me is the way we treat the old people. The church may be their best social link if their busy grown children neglect them. They have often lost spouses and outlived children and undoubtedly bid farewell to many friends. Their minds are turning to the next stage in life, that would be life after death where religion might actually have something important and comforting to say to them. Most also are burdened with serious health problems that are aggravated by temperature extremes. ?What about them?
My father when he was in his late 80’s weighed about 115 pounds and he got so cold. He wore his old navy coat, 2 inches thick of tightly woven wool designed for arctic sea duty he liberated during his service in the navy in WWII (Not this phony modern designer label “Old Navy” cloths). He was bald and they wouldn’t let him wear a hat in meetings. He wore a woman’s wig once but that wasn’t accepted either. He got a Jewish kippah and was told that was sacrilegious.
His parents raised 8+ children in a small 3 room rock house without central heat in the mountains of Utah. One room was the kitchen and family room. One was the parents and babies bedroom, one was the girls room. All 5 of them. The boys slept on the back porch where the temperature reached 40 below zero F in the winter with constant high canyon winds. The outhouse was no better. The boys had to get up before dawn and get the coal stove going in the house. So you would think he had suffered enough as a child to not have to endure such discomfort at church in the 21st century. But no, the Lord inspired his prophets and local leaders to make it a little bit more miserable for him at church during his final years.
I say keep the old people comfortable and to hell with fashion and feminism for the rest of us. We are doing it already doctrinally anyway, why not environmentally?
This is a mission of mine, too! I’ve had lots of conversations about this with my male leaders. Lots of great reasons to turn up the temp a bit: consideration for the elderly, gender equality, saving energy and money. I would love to see men liberated from their neckties and wool suits. Women deserve liberation, too. I wear pants to church a lot simply because I don’t like to be cold.