Why are Australians in denial about how cold it really is in our homes? ‘Winter stoicism’ is partly to blame | Reena Gupta
aAustralians often fall victim to national mythologies. Whether it’s pandering to stereotypes of Aussie machismo by telling tourists our one hunter’s tale, declaring that we’re a wildly successful multicultural nation in a time of racial tension, or being so certain that our winters are “mild” that we pretend they don’t happen. It’s not that bad, we tell ourselves. It’s Melbourne, not Quebec. I am wearing a swimsuit.
These aren’t just thoughts I had during one of my many Melbourne winters, wheeling my oil heater around a freezing terraced house. Researchers report that because we think of Australia as a warm country, we downplay how cold it can get, even going so far as to ignore winter altogether. It’s an attitude that’s specific to Australia and New Zealand, and one that researchers call “winter stoicism.”
How did we get here? For years we’ve been told that Australian homes are so poorly insulated and energy inefficient that they’re effectively glorified tents, so why do we pretend everything is fine? It turns out the stories we tell ourselves can be very powerful.
Because isn’t Australia, as a Brit once told me, all about drinking mango smoothies on the beach? That’s our story, and we stick to it. And that’s probably why researchers found that people living in Wollongong were indifferent to how cold the city got, saying that Wollongong ultimately “revolved around summer.” It’s attitudes like this that led to our homes being built without enough consideration for winter temperatures.
None of this is about blaming ourselves for how we’ve adapted to living in homes that are empirically too cold for humans to safely inhabit. I’ve been known to work from home with a hot water bottle on my lap, the kettle on a rolling boil, and sometimes a huge dressing gown over my many layers of clothing, just to stay warm. We do what we have to do.
But what if we changed the story? What if we decided that Australia wasn’t just a summer country, but a country with a series of seasons that – depending on where you live – also include cold seasons? What if we accepted that winter was a season with its own charms and rituals that could be embraced, rather than something to be wished away or ignored because it didn’t fit into the mythology of an eternally warm Australia?
Cold homes have contributed to Australia’s winter death rate of 6.5%, almost double that of Sweden. Australians are hanging around in sweaters, scarves and hats, risking health problems such as heart disease, respiratory disease and mental illness. All the stoicism in the world can’t change the fact that this is a serious public health crisis.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to visit Vienna, and despite it being the middle of winter, I was surprised at how comfortable I was. Whether it was in a café, a shopping mall or someone’s home, I never had to keep my coat on inside. It was all triple-glazed and tilt-and-turn windows – a sign of respect for the harshness of winter and a joy of the warmth that good insulation brings. Why can’t it be the same here?
I don’t want to live in a country where stoicism was born as a kind of trauma response to the fact that our rent costs us half our salary and we still have to wear fleece to stay warm. It’s true: compared to the rest of the world, our winters are Are relatively mild. And our building codes are slowly being updated to ensure that new homes actually keep people warm. But in the meantime, millions of Australians are still freezing in poorly insulated and energy-inefficient homes. Imagine the newness and life that could be opened up if we were all properly protected from the cold?
Reena Gupta is a writer and editor. She was previously Junkee’s deputy editor and before that a staff writer at MTV Australia, with bylines in Kill Your Darlings, The Sydney Morning Herald and more