Remember that when you're too hot in an office, there's really nothing you can do about it and you just have to suffer. At least you have the option to do things like put on a sweater when you're too cold. Given that, it seems to make sense to keep the office at the coolest temperature preferred by anyone in it.

I like your logic And like lower temperatures when working. The idea that someone would ask for the whole company to be set at the temperature they want and everyone else wears a jumper quite funny.

My girlfriend strongly believes this comes from "patriarchal society" and specifically a "study" that said office thermostats are set based on an old formula designed in like the 60s and that only looked at how HVAC interacted with men.

I thought the idea that offices set thermostats to an actual standard instead of just whoever cries the loudest or has the most power to be almost laughable, so I looked for the "study" she got it from. Indeed, I don't remember the details, but the governmental bureaucracy involved in recommending HVAC did actually use a formula that was obsolete and didn't consider women. However, there was zero evidence in the study that anyone actually used that formula in consideration of anything.