Could this be passive aggressive fat shaming?

[Blueberryancakes]

Im a UK 20 and I feel the heat. I’m always a bit warm. My work gets very hot. Big windows and no ventilation.

I rarely put the air con on because as soon as I do some of the woman I work with complain it’s too cold. I bring a desk fan to
work with me and keep it aimed at me and no one else.
I work at a doctors surgery. Lots of the patients make comments about how hot it is in the waiting room. Some even wait outside.Very often woman patients always make a comment on my fan saying how they could never work with a fan as they’d be freezing. If the air con is turned on some woman will comment how cold it is.
I think FFS it’s not you that has to sit in here all day. Men never complain, never comment. It’s mainly middle aged
woman. Yes I’m fat, yes I get hot. I try my best to have a small discreet fan on my desk. But woman seem to make such a song and dance about it.
My husband said today he thinks it’s a passive aggressive way for them to call me fat.
Anyone else think there’s any truth in this?
Is it a way to come across ultra feminine to be cold?
Sorry if this come across bonkers?

This made me laugh!

I always get very "A Christmas Carol" about it and suggest if they worked harder they might warm up!

Is the op doing the 'poor me' act by sitting there with a fan? How is that any different to someone who is cold sitting with a scarf or a heater? Is the op performing fragility? Ooh poor me I can't cope with the heat.

On average women need the room to be warmer than men as they run colder. It's biology. Obviously there are outliers but that will be why it's mainly women. Most office air conditioners are set to male level of comfort because they could only be bothered to get the data for men, meaning women have to be cold at work all the time. It's in Caroline Criado Perez's book 'invisible women'

It's difficult to be theatrically fragile if one is size 20. And I mean that in DEFENCE of the OP!

How does that work when someone has to stay at their desk under a draught ? Please let me know as I’m always freezing in the office, especially my hands. Should I type faster? Click faster? Think faster?

There's a definite correlation between competitive undereaters and competitive cold-feelers.

So yes OP, I 100% think there could be a link between the things I mention and there's a lot of faux naivety on this thread.

My take on this is that the ladies are being friendly and making a connection with you, OP - like we all comment on the weather when we pass a neighbour outside our house. I don't think there's anything else to it.

The men just aren't bothering to make small talk.

For what it's worth I'm slap bang in the normal weight range and get REALLY cold. Am married to a hot radiator and we nearly come to blows over this temperature in the house and the car.

Oh right so it's OK for fat people to sit fanning themselves and walking around in barely anything because they can't possibly be fragile but a skinny person standing beside a heater with their sleeves pulled down is being theatrically fragile

I hope you can see how ridiculous you are being.

I've been every size from a 6 to an 18 and this hasn't changed the fact I'm always boiling hot and need a fan on my desk to function.

I don't equate being warm with being fat and I doubt your colleagues make that link either, they're simply cold and remark on it because your body temperature is notably different.

I think the obvious hyperbole of your post is what’s actually performative. 😂

My colleagues seem quite capable of getting on with their work utterly undistracted by whether I’m wearing a scarf or drinking tea or not.

Well find the source of the draught and plug it up?

Maybe a walking pad under your desk. Hook it up to the meter and you can use it to lower the outrageous cost of the office utility bills, win win!

You do understand that it is being thin that is prized in our culture, not being fat?

So a fat person can walk around fanning themselves and turning the aircon to artic but a skinny person has to suck it up and hide that they are cold because their weight is 'prized' and if they do anything but suck it up they are performing fragility and flaunting their skinniness in the face of fat people. Gotcha

If I'm cold, I'm cold. (Usually)
If I'm hot, I'm hot.

I don't analyse the body types around me before asking to put the heat on.

Air-con also plays hell with my contacts so that plays a role too.

I would say your husband has just found a way to fat shame you himself! There is no connection with what you’ve said and fat shaming so why would he even say this? Does he have a problem with your weight and is using this as a way to get some sort of message across?

The draught is coming from a window which is about 3 m higher than any person of an average height can reach. No plugging that up as the constantly hot people won’t allow it to be closed.

i have sat at my desk with 5 layers on in the past as shivering makes my muscles ache and I can’t get any work done.

But yeah we’re all just doing it for the performance 🙄

Pretty much sums up how @TheGreatIndoors has come across.

Deeper issue than just being annoyed at people who feel the cold I think

Pretty much exactly the message both this poster and another are aiming at, I'd say. Deeper issues at play than body temperature, which is quite clear. Not that they'll admit it.

Freezing teeny tinies are the only ones who can have issues.

Exactly. “Teeny-tinies” already enjoy society’s approval of their body size so they can’t possibly expect to also enjoy a physically comfortable environment, especially as they’re no doubt physically punishing themselves in service of gaining the aforementioned societal approval. Or something like that.

Erm yes, there are smug skinny women out there who look down their noses at fat women and will do absolutely anything to lord it over them.

Is it news to you that women can be really bitchy and passive-aggressive to one another?

Is this your first day on MN?

Have you never watched Mean Girls?

"I'm a bit cold, can we turn the heating up" - ok

Dressing like Nanook of the North and making being cold their entire personality - fucking tedious

Who does that, though?
And even if they did, is it really to cock a snook at fat people??
I don’t think so.

Oh fuck, you're right!

When I have an office day, I layer up in my thermals, take my biggest cardigan, and make sure I've got tea on hand all day just to get at those fat women. When my fingers turn white, I'm sitting there brimming with glee because those fatties will be able to see just how cold I am!

That time my legs went numb and I fell down the steps outside at lunch? Fucking fantastic, I was rubbing my hands together. When I go home with aching muscles from shivering all day, I get DH to give me a massage and relay to him how the fat women in work were sweating as I was freezing. It turns him right on, knowing he's got a teeny tiny fragile wife.

It must be true, because you've heard all about it. In Mean Girls.

It's your DH who's being passive aggressive here.