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Do women feel the cold more than men?
We investigate if air conditioning is set too cold for women.
Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable?
This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which describe the summer as a “women’s winter”.
But is there evidence behind the claims of a gender bias in air conditioning?
To find out, we speak to Gail Brager, Director of the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley, and Boris Kingma, a senior researcher at TNO, the Netherlands Applied Research Institute.
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Nicholas Barrett
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge
Sound mix: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
Last on
Sun 24 Aug 2025
23:50GMT
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