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Do women feel the cold more than men?
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23 August 2025
Available for over a year
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