Women are Cooler than Men. Scientifically.
But actually that's not completely true.
At the core - women are hotter than men. Scientifically.
Women have a higher core body temperature than men (even higher when on birth control because hormones & fluctuates during menstruation because hormones). Meaning they are more sensitive to cooler temperatures than men to begin with. (Average core temperatures of men versus women: 97.8 degrees versus 97.4.)
((fun fact: buildings, especially office buildings, are set to be more comfortable for the temperature of men because they were set in the 60s when women weren't really there to complain.))
Women's extremities are colder
(By about three degrees - 90 degrees for men and 87.2 degrees for women.) Because women's bodies are actually better at conserving heat than men. Their bodies pull the heat back to their organs to conserve warmth when it is cold. So though more women die because of the cold than men annually - it is actually scientifically more likely for men to die than women. Because women's bodies conserve heat better.
Men's metabolisms are faster than women's.
(Men have about 23% higher metabolic rates.) In the process of burning food to fuel your body, you heat up your body. So women get more cold and less cookies. Boo. Also, just generally women have more soft and cuddly fat and men have more muscle. Muscles generates heat.
Women are generally smaller than men so they have a higher ratio of surface area to volume (idk, I took that word for word from the website), which causes women to experience a more rapid rate of heat loss. And women who have cooler skin are also more sensitive to incremental changes in the air temperature: they begin to feel the cold faster than someone with a higher starting skin temperature even when experiencing an equivalent drop of air temperature.
I couldn't find anything explicitly supporting what I had heard about women's brains just registering the cold faster because of the survival thing, but I can see where that is deduced maybe by a couple other things.
1. That women's bodies preserve the cold more (seems like a survival tactic)
2. Women are more likely than men to survive a critical injury - 14% more likely. But differences between the genders are only seen between the ages of 14-65, or when hormones are like ragin'. Doctors hypothesize "there is something about testosterone...that diminishes male survival while estrogens in females are somewhat protective." A possible theory is that female hormones have more of an immune-enhancing effect that can be beneficial when the body is in shock (but when gone wrong is bad - women have more auto-immune disorders than men).
3. The typical boy-to-girl ratio at birth is 105-to-100. But during stressful times (earthquakes, natural disasters, even the 9/11 attack saw this) women's bodies are more likely to abort male fetuses than female (oops, there's that pre-baby word again). The sons that are born during these times are healthier than average. Doctors are perplexed by this pattern. In any time though, male fetuses are more vulnerable to being miscarried.
4. The difference between male lifespan and female lifespan varies based on location (i.e. US vs India) but has remained stable throughout monumental shifts in society and even across societies. Actually, even across species this is the case.
At the core - women are hotter than men. Scientifically.
Women have a higher core body temperature than men (even higher when on birth control because hormones & fluctuates during menstruation because hormones). Meaning they are more sensitive to cooler temperatures than men to begin with. (Average core temperatures of men versus women: 97.8 degrees versus 97.4.)
((fun fact: buildings, especially office buildings, are set to be more comfortable for the temperature of men because they were set in the 60s when women weren't really there to complain.))
Women's extremities are colder
(By about three degrees - 90 degrees for men and 87.2 degrees for women.) Because women's bodies are actually better at conserving heat than men. Their bodies pull the heat back to their organs to conserve warmth when it is cold. So though more women die because of the cold than men annually - it is actually scientifically more likely for men to die than women. Because women's bodies conserve heat better.
Men's metabolisms are faster than women's.
(Men have about 23% higher metabolic rates.) In the process of burning food to fuel your body, you heat up your body. So women get more cold and less cookies. Boo. Also, just generally women have more soft and cuddly fat and men have more muscle. Muscles generates heat.
Women are generally smaller than men so they have a higher ratio of surface area to volume (idk, I took that word for word from the website), which causes women to experience a more rapid rate of heat loss. And women who have cooler skin are also more sensitive to incremental changes in the air temperature: they begin to feel the cold faster than someone with a higher starting skin temperature even when experiencing an equivalent drop of air temperature.
I couldn't find anything explicitly supporting what I had heard about women's brains just registering the cold faster because of the survival thing, but I can see where that is deduced maybe by a couple other things.
1. That women's bodies preserve the cold more (seems like a survival tactic)
2. Women are more likely than men to survive a critical injury - 14% more likely. But differences between the genders are only seen between the ages of 14-65, or when hormones are like ragin'. Doctors hypothesize "there is something about testosterone...that diminishes male survival while estrogens in females are somewhat protective." A possible theory is that female hormones have more of an immune-enhancing effect that can be beneficial when the body is in shock (but when gone wrong is bad - women have more auto-immune disorders than men).
3. The typical boy-to-girl ratio at birth is 105-to-100. But during stressful times (earthquakes, natural disasters, even the 9/11 attack saw this) women's bodies are more likely to abort male fetuses than female (oops, there's that pre-baby word again). The sons that are born during these times are healthier than average. Doctors are perplexed by this pattern. In any time though, male fetuses are more vulnerable to being miscarried.
4. The difference between male lifespan and female lifespan varies based on location (i.e. US vs India) but has remained stable throughout monumental shifts in society and even across societies. Actually, even across species this is the case.
My conclusion: this is so under-studied and really interesting.
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