If You're Freezing in Your Office Right Now, Cynthia Nixon Can Relate
If you’ve ever had to drag a space heater into your cubicle or resort to that workplace Snuggie tucked under your desk to beat the office chill, New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon understands how you feel.
Nixon, the SATC alum up against Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, sparked a conversation we didn’t know we needed over office thermostats when her team requested that event organizers turn up the heat (literally) at Wednesday night’s scheduled debate between the two, hosted by New York station WCBS-TV.
Cuomo reportedly prefers his AC blasting high, but because Nixon refuses to shiver through her first and only debate with New York’s current governor, she’s asking for a comfortable 76 degrees. According to The New York Times, Nixon strategist Rebecca Katz wrote to WCBS-TV with the request, noting that working conditions are “notoriously sexist when it comes to room temperature, so we just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here.”
In other words, blame the patriarchy for your chattering teeth.
The idea of sexist room temperatures has now ignited a Cold Room War of sorts. The conversation is, in part, a matter of workplace attire deemed appropriate for men and women: Men can usually don a suit and feel perfectly comfortable in an arctic room. But for anyone who shows up for a 9-to-5 in a dress or a skirt, office climate quickly becomes an issue.
Kerry Howley, a professor at the University of Iowa, shared her perspective on Twitter and with the Times, saying that she feels like “cold office temperatures are a burden that are placed on women.”
“I feel like it affects performance in a way that is surprising to people. I become less effusive, less articulate, less extroverted when I’m uncomfortable with the temperature,” she added. Other women also chimed in quickly: “Cynthia Nixon asks for the debate hall to be 76 degrees, and I’m sitting here in my work Snuggie wondering if this is actually the opening salvo of the revolution,” writer Monica Hesse shared.
Still, plenty of people (both men and women) dismissed Nixon’s 76-degrees request as simply too hot.
While the discussion may feel heated on the Internet, Governor Cuomo’s camp responded to the whole situation with a statement that can be best described as, well, chilly:
“Unlike Cynthia Nixon, the Governor has more important things to focus on than the temperature of a room,” Lis Smith, a Cuomo campaign spokeswoman told The Hill.
Nixon, for her part, isn’t letting this get in her way. She told Refinery 29 that she’ll debate Cuomo in a parka if she has to. We’re sure anyone sitting at their desk, wrapped in a blanket while doing their job effectively, can relate.
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