Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Doesn't it just figure?

Why does it not surprise me to find that the takeaway message from an article on how overweight women earn less than their average weight counterparts is that women should try harder to lose weight? Of course, there is also a need to throw in some condescending advice that implies that overweight women just don’t know how to lose weight, and of course, that they are lazy. God, will nothing stop the hordes of women that force us to look at their disgusting fat?

I suppose this is somewhat to be expected when the reporting is in the fitness section of the website, but I don’t really understand why that is the place for this article, especially given that the studies referenced report that men suffer no such disadvantage--in fact, men may earn more when they are overweight. I would think this would be more appropriately the start of a conversation on how to avoid this bias, but bias against fat people, especially fat women, is so totally accepted, this sort of thing is automatically viewed as just another hammer to try to force women to conform to societal ideals. Ugh.

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