Overweight Women Hit A Glass Ceiling, Overweight Men Get Promoted
Posted by: Annika Harris
Filed in:
news
12:30PM, Friday April 10th 2009
A larger waistline may enhance a man’s chance of being promoted in the U.S., whereas overweight women have little prospects of being promoted, according to a study published recently. Researchers found that only 5 percent of male and female bosses at 1,000 leading companies in the U.S. were considered obese—an average of 36 percent of men and 38 percent of women of a similar age are obese in the United States. However, they also found that of the leading male bosses, 61 percent were overweight—only 41 percent of males the same age are overweight in the United States. In contrast, overweight women made up only 22 percent of the chief executives, compared with 29 percent of same age women in the U.S. “The results suggest that while being obese limits the career opportunities of both women and men, being ‘merely overweight’ harms only female executives – and may actually benefit male executives,” said researcher Mark Roehling, an associate professor of human resource management at Michigan State University. The study also backs up previous research that shows weight standards for women are harsher in white, middle-class communities. The study also suggests there’s a preference for larger-sized men and smaller-sized women in the business world. “It appears that the glass ceiling effect on women’s advancement may reflect not only general negative stereotypes about the competencies of women, but also weight bias that results in the application of stricter appearance standards to women,” said Roehling. [News.Scotsman.com]
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Lynn
wrote on April 10 2009 @ 01:27 pm: [report]
This could mean a lot of things. Women often gain weight when they have children - which is also a time when they leave work entirely, or at least shift their priorities more than men do and start focusing less on their office job. Overweight women could be feeling bad about themselves because “society” judges overweight women more harshly, so maybe their confidence levels (and their go-get-em attitudes) suffer. I don’t think we can totally blame the people who hire. There are a lot of other factors.
Tetrine
wrote on April 10 2009 @ 02:47 pm: [report]
I agree with Lynn… also, I don’t see anywhere that states these statistics take into account the fact that there are less total women overall in these higher up positions than men, which would of course mean less overweight women than men.
Lynn
wrote on April 10 2009 @ 03:44 pm: [report]
Tetrine - I was a little confused about that as well. This article says
“...of the leading male bosses, 61 percent were overweight…In contrast, overweight women made up only 22 percent of the chief executives…”
I don’t know if the writer of the Scotsman.com article wrote that incorrectly or if the original article was just dumb, but those are two different things. The first one says that OF the group of male bosses, 61% of them were overweight. The second statistic only gives a number to say how many overweight women are chief executives in the first place. It doesn’t actually say how many OF the group of women bosses are overweight.
It’s messed up.
nemesis1
wrote on April 11 2009 @ 06:25 am: [report]
Great. Another whinge-fest.
Not that this is representative of the entire universe, but I know a female Wall Street trader who is fairly - as some would say - overweight. She’s one of the best paid traders at the huge, global firm where she works. She is such a good trader, in fact, that her firm bent over backwards to accomodate her when she had twins. Why do they treat her so well? Because she makes them scads of money.
You’re paid what you’re worth in this world. Women are more successfull than ever. They’re running major corporations and universities. They’re running for president. They’re earning as much as men in comparable proffessions. (I.E. a female corporate lawyers earns as much as a male corporate lawyer at similar levels of proffesional standing.)
And yet, feminists REFUSE to acknowledge female success. Why? Because in doing so, they’ll have to acknowledge that women are no longer the eternal victims feminists claim them to be. And if women are no longer seen as eternal victims, their Big Daddy State backed entitlements might dissapear. Boo hoo!!
Hence, zero acknowledgement of women’s success, and more obscure studies that do their damndest to show that women are still poor widdle victims.
Shut up and get to work already.
PinkRanger
wrote on April 11 2009 @ 08:15 am: [report]
@Nemesis1:your ignorance blows my mind. Do some research before you run your mouth. While there are many successful women, when it comes to national averages women still make less then men doing the same work. I’m sure you don’t care because you obviously hate women, but we do. We like to discuss why that is, and who can blame us? This isn’t some study that Annika pulled out of her ass, this is real. You’re constant insistance that all women, and especially the women on this site, are lazy and pouty is pointless and usually quite contrived. Good try being devil’s advocate, but you fail once again.
retro chic
wrote on April 11 2009 @ 09:15 am: [report]
*Gasp* Another gender study spits out shocking revelation: “Double Standard Large and In Charge for Promotions!?” And I am *SO* relieved that only obesity hinders both men and women [tic].
Hmmm… strangely déjà vu of 100 years ago when a man’s large girth was called “prosperous.” A woman of status was shoehorned into a corset with 2 ribs removed while posing on her pedestal. Today’s woman has to lie back on HER pedestal, crunch abs AND spreadsheets, while painting the “The Creation” on the glass ceiling between Lamaze breaths for a 67% paycheck. Corpulent execs make winkyface to her from their upwardly mobile elevator to the penthouse. So what’s the problem…
Personally, I’m looking forward to the study that analyzes dick-size-to-breast-size ratio for promoted bosses.
lil_jake
wrote on April 12 2009 @ 05:40 am: [report]
Alright, so sorry for you folks who want to jump on the “OMGWTF Gender Disparity?!” bandwagon, but the stats, as are, are pretty much useless. Not only, as Lynn pointed out, do they not quote the proportion of men:women in executive positions when they quote the % of female execs, but they also make some rather quick and, in all probability, wildly faulty, conclusions.
“The results suggest that while being obese limits the career opportunities of both women and men, being ‘merely overweight’ harms only female executives – and may actually benefit male executives,”
Uh, if those are all the results you’re giving me, then no. No, they do not. The results show that 61% of male execs are ‘merely overweight’, and that 22% of all execs are ‘merely overweight’ females. Not only are these number incomparable, they’re, uh, not displaying any kind of cause and effect whatsoever.
What can we say? People tend to gain weight as they get older. People also tend to (have kids) and (get promoted) as they get older. Usually it is women in the first category and men in the second category. Don’t like the facts? DEAL WITH IT. That would be a POSSIBLE explanation. Another possible explanation: Men in executive positions are more susceptible to alien fat-injection experiments. See where I’m going with this?
That’s why statistics, used by people who don’t know what they’re doing, are dangerous.
That’s also why Michigan State sucks. (Go Blue!)
retro chic
wrote on April 12 2009 @ 12:43 pm: [report]
Haha… “comments” can be dangerous, too!
Here’s the actual MSU study:
http://news.msu.edu/story/763/&topic_id=11&keyword_search=obesity&keyword_action=exact_phrase
Before anyone goes off the deep (or shallow) end, consider: MSU designed this study w/o cause-and-effect criteria b/c Michigan is the ONLY state with “weight discrimination in the workplace” laws, and no other criteria was required to determine THEIR view of discrimination for THEIR needs only. It was not intended to investigate health/lifestyle, just evidence of said discrimination. I’m sure a quick Google search will reveal a more comprehensive study-du-jour to more accurately debate/dismiss, or is surely just around the corner.
But, make no mistake, there is gender discrimination in the workplace. To deny this, is just as silly, and has been around forever. The proportion of women-to-men execs is below even the 67% salary they make, too. Btw, I DO believe in superior intelligent life beyond earth… as evidenced by some *interpretations* much closer to home.
...
For the causation theorists, the hormone cortisol, and disrupted sleep schedule, also play havoc with a woman’s metabolism under increasing stress from the rigors of exec/management. And, as Lynn noted, women managers take more time off as they are still the primary caregivers, and cannot fast-track as much as their male counterparts, somewhat slowing advancement. It doesn’t take a study (tho, there are numerous), to understand that… just look around.
Little Lamb
wrote on April 12 2009 @ 05:03 pm: [report]
It makes sense if you think about the kind of jobs that men have and the kind of jobs that women have.
The jobs which involve a significant amount of physical labor are the jobs which attract men, and thus leaving the men, IN GENERAL, more physically fit. While the kind of jobs that women are often more attracted to are usually more sedentary jobs.
Therefore, it makes sense that men whose jobs are sedentary (such at CEOs) are more likely to be in the “overweight” category, while the “overweight women” are going to be more evenly spread out amongst all careers of women.