Workplace heating and gender discrimination

Across Europe, countries are reducing CO2 emissions and energy demand by lowering the temperature in public office buildings. These measures affect men and women unequally because the latter prefer and, indeed, perform better under higher temperatures than the standard temperature. Lowering the temp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bioethics
Authors: Albertsen, Andreas (Author) ; Pedersen, Viki M. L. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2024
In: Bioethics
Year: 2024, Volume: 38, Issue: 2, Pages: 107-113
IxTheo Classification:NBE Anthropology
NCC Social ethics
Further subjects:B Discrimination
B workplace discrimination
B harm-based discrimination
B gender discrimination
B biological discrimination
B workplace heating
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Summary:Across Europe, countries are reducing CO2 emissions and energy demand by lowering the temperature in public office buildings. These measures affect men and women unequally because the latter prefer and, indeed, perform better under higher temperatures than the standard temperature. Lowering the temperature thus further increases an already existing inequality. We show that the philosophical literature on discrimination provides an interesting theoretical approach to understanding such measures. On prominent understandings of what discrimination is, the policy would be considered direct discrimination against women if it could be shown to reflect a broader inattentiveness to the needs of women in society. Alternatively, and more straightforwardly, the policies can be considered indirect discrimination because of their disparate effects on men and women. The final part of the paper shows that the policies are also wrong for the reasons it is often argued that discrimination is wrong—to wit, that it harms or disrespects those who are discriminated against. The final section suggests a range of measures to offset the discriminatory aspects of the policy.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13234