Car seats to airplanes, portion sizes to offices, what do all of these have in common?
You guessed it.
They were all designed and made solely for men.
From the details in the architecture to comfortability techniques, all these necessities were designed by men for men in mind.
Men were pioneers in the workplace not because they were smarter or better rather because women didnât have roles in the workforce nor were allowed to nearly as close to half a century ago. They were told to stay at home with the kids, clean and cook. They couldnât find outlets to educate themselves in and were minorities in various fields despite holding more degrees.
Although the rates of women in the workforce are finally rising, the pay gap and positions for them are still bleak. Women earn roughly $.32 cents of the dollar and by retirement women are estimated to loose up to $1.5m for a stable position.
In industries such as consulting, finance/business, venture capital, private equity and engineering, fewer than 21.9% of senior leadership roles were held by women and arenât credited the same way while overqualified.
Companies are reluctant on change since it can imply more work, profit decline or volatility which affects stock price, sales and the whole business for years. Especially if old ways are still working for them even with a lack of diversity, ESG concerns and other factors a company will put on the back burner, they wonât disclose them and move on which just ends up hurting business in the long run.
Women accounted for 51.8% of all workers employed in the U.S. according to BLS Reports. We certainly have a long way to go to bridge this gender gap and a lot of improvements can be made. But letâs start with the basics. The annoying necessities and unfair environmental conditions we deal with as women.
This isnât a competition who has it harder. This is common sense and needs to be changed. First and foremost, we need to tackle the freezing cold offices which are pushing women out of the workforce.
Seriously.
Hot or Cold
At school itâs never comfortable. Temperature and emotional-wise. Pertaining to the temperature, itâs either too hot or too cold. My high school, a 70â80 year old building never had central AC. There were either large loud AC units or just fans in the classrooms which made NYC swelling hot summers in June unbearable and freezing blizzard winters beyond uncomfortable.
To be honest, I didnât truly pay attention to how my male counterparts felt but to me and my girlfriends, we could never concentrate. We would either bundle up to the extreme or dress too lightly. While the boys always wore and brought barely anything. In the winter they would usually wear sneakers and dare I say, shorts and a t-shirt. My male friends donât even own jackets nor boots. I thought it was a sign of sophistication and macho but now that I have seen the truth and science behind it all, itâs that their bodies can acclimate and deal with extreme temperature differences better despite having less body fat than women, which should really make them feel cooler more often.
A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology stated that a slower metabolism causes women to generate less body heat which leads them to freeze more often. We have roughly a 23% lower metabolism. No wonder guys can eat 6 baguettes and not get bloated whatsoever while I eat a crumb of a muffin and canât zip up anything.
The standard system of the temperature for offices and schools according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Adminstiation (OSHA) all year round is set between 68 to 76 F.
Chilly Solutions
As a personal finance guru, I cannot deal with this gender and economic disparity. It is affecting our mood, work ethic and pay. We cannot have another inconvenience blocking us from the workforce! Temperature plays a huge effect!
If youâre curious, although there is no law for minimum or maximum working temperatures, when itâs too cold, an employee is technically allowed to state they cannot work properly and leave. Thankfully WFH is now an option but itâs hard to be rewarded and recognized for doing work behind the scenes not in the office.
Everywhere the temperature should be at a comfortable level for all which is impossible. To fix this requires having more options to work from where we work best a.k.a WFH flexibility. Having to bring layers and deal with a drastic swing in temperature coming from the sweltering or freezing outdoors is beyond annoying especially since women also tend to change their shoes into more formal work attire such as to heels in some conservative industries like in banking, consulting or law when meeting with clients or presenting their work.
Although our bodies have to work harder to keep itself warm in the cold, it doesnât always keep us alert and instead more frustrated and of course possibly to sickness. Exposed to the cold for a certain amount of time reduces your bodyâs ability to fight infection and the cold air in your nasal passages reduces your immune cellsâ ability to fight off the virus as your body temperature drops.
Who knew temperature was another reason women leave the workplace?
With a labor shortage fueled by WFH, 2 rounds of stimulus payments, the discovery of lower costs of living in remote yet scenic areas of the states, and the gig-economy with side-hustles, entrepreneurialism, influencing on social media, women are fleeing in order to find convenience, equality, comfortability and an environment they belong to.
World-wide, 6.2% of women are entrepreneurs versus 9.5% of men since they got a head start and women are traditionally known to be more risk adverse as they live longer and budget better.
As companies are returning to the office, although they saw the immense economical and time benefit being at home, less and less are offering the option for WFH nowadays are in-person connection is vital to spur growth in a new creative direction that just cannot be manipulated in your bedroom home yoga studio kitchenette office.
Although there isnât much research on the percentage of women that have left the workforce due to unbearable temperatures, we know that women surprisingly prefer remote work at a higher rate than men, according to a new study by the jobs platform FlexJobs despite tackling many more âhiddenâ duties. With about 68% of women preferring the remote space, compared with 57% of men, this could be a great opportunity for females to seize.
Before jumping into anything, always weigh your options and if it doesnât feel right, tackle it before itâs too late.
No one wants to freeze.