But maybe 2.5% is a good raise?
How’s your wallet these days? Think back to your last pay raise. Did you get as much as you thought you would? How much of that was determined less by the size of your contribution to the company but more by the size of your ass? I’ve always had a suspicion that women in business can only be fat and powerful if they own the company (or are Oprah), and judging by the few women CEOs in the United States and then also comparing the very few females in senior management in my own company, I can only extrapolate that fat girls? You can organize the potlucks, but you won’t be bringing home the bacon. And studies are indicating that I’m not crazy. Not only is it a power issue, but it’s also a secret fat tax. Your salary increase is always a percentage of the previous year’s earnings, so if you keep getting the shaft, eventually, you’re going to fall far behind your body-typical coworkers. To which I say, the fuck?!
Do you feel that you’re being discriminated against at work? Do you suspect (or know) that you’re making less money than a thinner peer? This isn’t just me, right?
Posted by Weetabix
Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Fatism, Question, Work
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I work in a large government department (not in the USA) (we have 4,000+ people) and about 50% of the senior executives are women. About 30% of those are fat, and a notable few would be size 22+. This is remarkably in line with the general population. Because of the way public departments are administered and run, I don’t think anyone would dare try to discriminate on the basis of appearance or weight. And whatever they might think about stereotypes of the lazy fat person, they can see with their own eyes that there are plenty of capable, hardworking, intelligent fat women in positions of power and responsibility – their own bosses. I realise my workplace is something of an anomaly, however, but if it can happen here it ought to be able to happen elsewhere. If only people would get over their goddamn stereotypes about fat.
I’m in the neighborhood of a size 24, approx 300 pounds. In my high tech job (company with 26k employees worldwide) I’m the heaviest female engineer I’ve seen, and I’ve never seen a heavy female exec. There are a lot of fat chicks in HR and support positions. Honestly though, I’m not sure if that is discrimination on the part of the company, or just that my field is so male skewed anyway. I was the only fat person in my graduate program for the last three years as well. Financially I think I’m doing OK. According to all the published salary stats I’m at the very top of the range for a fresh high tech degree. If I fall behind I’m not sure that I’ll ever know if it’s because of the fat or the vag, or both.
In my middle school teaching job I am not in any way out of place, but of course nobody’s making bank in that job either. :)
There is a fat tax, a woman tax, a minority tax, and a tax on anyone who isn’t part of the power structure. The only way to change this? Get some power. Take it, if necessary. You can’t make changes from your middle-management position.
After I was hired here, I was told I wasn’t hired at first because I “didn’t fit the image” of what my boss wanted. Apparently what my boss wanted (and still wants) is a white, thin, attractive, preferrably blonde female to work with him. As I am extremely non-blonde or white, i’ve often felt that I’ve been hired ‘in spite of’ my not fitting in with this ‘image’ (i work in a male-dominated field) and the two women that have been hired after me have fit the bill (although not the blonde part). I’m working on getting my master’s so I can see what kind of excuses can be made for not promoting me then, then leave.
o.O No reason to be surprised there…not that I have any anecdotal evidence, but it just seems obvious, based on the fact that women in general (whether or not they are attractive) make less money than men. And “ugly” (that is, anything but blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 5’11”, 105lb girls who wear Prada and never have a blemish) women don’t even keep the men interested in coming to work, so what could they possibly contribute?
I’m not sure how to feel about Laurie’s comment. Like…the kind of people blogging are just sitting around on their butts complaining that they can’t get a job?? Women have been working VERY HARD towards equality in the workplace for several generations — women ARE educated, knowledgable, and responsible — and yet…all the people at “the top” are still men. Even the majority of “middle management” is men. Obviously, there isn’t room for everyone at the top. All women — fat women, non-white women, etc, etc, etc — want (EXPECT, ARE ENTITLED TO) is an equal chance. If a man has a better resume than I do and/or out-performs me, then he certainly deserves the job/raise/whatever and I don’t. But when I out-perform him with better qualifications and STILL don’t get the job? That’s what this is about.
I’m not fat, but I decided to quit my job the day I finally got my first review — after 13 months of work! — and my first raise. A 4% raise after 13 months of work, despite the fact that we’re having a record year and there were no significant complaints (mostly compliments) on the job I’ve done.
/rant :P
Ha! Zombie, I can top your 4% increase. I was a top performer last year, rating the highest possible in the performance evaluation. And when it came to the payrise… 1.5%! Insulting, right?
Because I’m ‘paid too much’. I happen to know that I’m right slap-bang in the middle of the payrange for the banding I’m on AND performing work that should be at a higher band AND excelling at it. I should have been promoted ages ago, and I know it. (Well, this comment isn’t the place for modesty, it seems).
But I have a number of things against me.
I’m a non-PA/non-receptionist female in a very, very misogynist and sexist team.I’m fat I’m outspoken and assertive and express my opinion.I don’t cater to my management’s preference for female employees to be walk the line between being sufficiently flirty and submissive, but not too giggly and flightly
I’m hanging in with this job for another 4 months to get my 10 year benefits, then I’m out of there like a rocket.
We typically don’t get much of a raise in the industry I’m in (dialysis) because of Medicare reimbursement rates, etc. But I’ve never had the sense, in my particular clinic, that the amount of my annual increase is in any way related to my size. I guess I’m lucky to work as a social worker…
I got a job as a part time proofreader/entry level designer for $9/hr. One month later, I discovered that I’d been hired to replace the graphic design department manager. So, I took over those duties without extra pay, but went from part time to full time.
I thought it was fine until I found out that the part time, entry level designers I was training were making $10/hr.
After a year and a half, I’d never had a performance reveiw or a raise. I managed one of three design departments. I had taken the department that was two months behind the others with the highest amount of errors on proofs and turned it into the department that was done with projects before the other departments started. with the lowest occurrance of errors on proofs. I did all that in two months with no education or previous experience in graphic design. (I learn fast.) As well as managing the department, I did 90% of the design work because the other designers were working on helping the other two departments keep up with me.
I ended up quitting that job because a year and a half of making less money than entry level people while doing way more work with far more responsibility started to eat away at my sense of justice and fairness.
What is this ‘raise’ you speak of?
I don’t personally feel that but my job doesn’t really leave room for anything like this- in the level I’m at you have 2 shots at a raise and it’s all based on very quantified data so there’s no discriminating.
But I’m pretty sure there are some things I’ve been looked over for due to being fat.. but I can’t prove anything and it could just be my shortcomings.. but who knows.
I don’t believe it’s happening where I currently work, but I know a friend of mine dealt with it at a previous employer. She worked retail and is about 300 pounds. She was good enough to be the assistant manager and later the “acting” manager while they filled the position, but only good enough to be paid $1 more an hour as the manager and was told they wanted her “on the floor as little as possible.” Nice, huh?
I work for a lovely woman who is also plus-sized, as is another one of my colleagues in the same position as me. I don’t honestly know what anyone other than me makes, which is fine. Frankly, she and my thinner co-worker should make more than me because they have been there longer and been in the nonprofit sector longer, therefore they have more experience than I do in that field.
So, I think it happens quite a bit but it doesn’t happen everywhere. I think the tough part is proving it.
Ohh and just adding? The only woman that is high up (in our rather large company) is stick thin. Stylish, and stick thin.
God I can’t shut up! Just adding a story that wasn’t me, but rather a friend of mine- she applied for a job at an American Apparel store and was basically flat out told that they wouldn’t hire any fat people to work there. They didn’t give a reason, but it was made very clear they didn’t want any fatties.
I wonder whether there’s a difference in fields that are female-dominated? The last two departments I’ve worked in have not had a single man in them, and I haven’t had a male boss in years. I haven’t worked in enough places to notice any trends in build one way or the other. (I have noticed that all the senior women seem to have curly hair. I’m NEVER going to make it in this field…)
I think in some jobs it’s reasonable that a candidate be able to demonstrate that they can cope with the job’s physical demands, but… that needn’t necessarily equal “skinny”. In my field (archives), sturdy is better, because you have to be able to lift moderate weights without injuring yourself.
FatGirl, I am not surprised by the attitude at American Apparel. I’m sure you’ve seen their advertisements – demeaning to women would be putting it politely. The CEO is a major pervert. Your friend is lucky she didn’t get hired in and no doubt found employment where she is valued.
I bitch about my job a lot (IT/Tech Support and some Business Analysis) but the truth is, in years when the company is giving out raises at all, I get good ones. It’s promotions that are a bitch to snag. The glass ceiling here is because I’m a mature (age 44)woman, and because I don’t have an advanced degree.
Anecdote, somewhat related. I was hand-picked for a position a few years ago by the biggest body-type profiler you’ve ever seen–but he was ambitious, and you can only hire so many pretty ponies. If you want the work to get done, you need a few workhorses to do the pulling.
I made him look so good he made AVP last year.
I work in a male dominated field, but for a company of nearly 200,000 employees that receives high marks for its diversity, as well as its attention to diversity issues.
I do make less than a couple of my male co-workers (who I originally trained), but aside from them, I earn considerably more than the rest of my team. Part of that is due to salaries being partially based on the region the person lives in. My team is virtual and we live all over the US.
I believe the fact that I work in a virtual team has been a benefit to me. I think it has benefited others on my team who are a lot older and who are excellent at what they do but would have a hard time getting hired due to their ages.
Having said that, I have not observed many large people in the upper echelons of the company. In addition, I’ve overheard lots of ribbing between “the guys” in senior management positions about “getting in shape”. A lot of senior managers join gyms and play on sports teams together, so I think that a person’s so-called “fitness” may be an issue that needs to be addressed.
We recently had an opportunity to participate in a diversity survey and I wrote lots and lots of info on body diversity and why I think our company would be smart to publicly encourage body diversity. I hope someone out there in HRland pays attention to it.
Hey out there,
Well, I’m sorry, as the last thing I want is for other people to be miserable so I can have company, but I can’t imagine anything giving me more of what I need right now than this particular post. I just found out yesterday that a colleague hired at the same time to do the same job was hired at 20% more than me. I’m slightly devastated and am not sure how to swallow this and be professional and just carry on. He is a man, and I’m a woman, but I can’t oversimplify this and assume it’s a gender issue (if it is, it would, probably at its base, be an entrenched mentality that men are worth more or that women come more cheaply). The weird thing is – though the money would be nice, I really want, more than anything, to understand why. I want them to say it. I want to see this complicated algorithm that values him more highly. (By the way – they offered us both starting salaries that we both negotiated – only they initially offered him 20% more than they initially offered me. He and I compared notes.) That is an enormous difference in salary – and I cannot imagine that there is 20% latitude in salary offered for the SAME JOB.
Also, by the way – you guys – seriously – these preferential practices can fester because the hiring folk rightly assume that we do not discuss our salaries with our fellow employees. Swallow your propriety and get out there and see what you’re up against.
My female co-workers were discussing this the other day, and the concensus was that no matter the size/age/looks etc it is very hard for a woman to advance, unless she owns her own company.
Nice and uplifting, right?
I think it’s important to remember that weight-based prejudice, like gender-based prejudice, is, as Becky wrote, “entrenched” at a level that’s often not even conscious. Strangely enough, no one from Craigslist (or wherever) has yet trolled over here to scream that of COURSE he has no fat prejudice, fat people really ARE worth less and less able and less healthy and probably morally corrupt besides…but that’s the attitude with which we are dealing. It’s sometimes conscious, but it doesn’t have to be: people–men, women, thin people, and even other fat people–too often make the instant, never-consciously formulated equations that fat=laziness, fat=ill health, fat=lack of discipline, and so on and so on. “I didn’t refuse to hire her because she was fat; she just didn’t seem very together” is a more common justification.
Speaking for myself…when I came into my current job environment, in a rather different capacity, I weighed thirty-five pounds more, not so much, really. I wasn’t qualified then for the job I had now, and I won’t accuse my now-colleagues of withholding it from me for that reason. My drop in weight coincided with gaining an important credential, learning to dress better, and generally producing a “product” that people could buy as evidence that I was, in fact, disciplined, successful, and driven.
But. Did the weight loss evoke endless positive comment? It did–much more so than the other stuff, and always expressed with surprise, an implication of “didn’t think you had it in you.” Did my social treatment change during this period? Absolutely. Did the weight loss play as much of a role as the credential in (barely) getting this job, and in my transition from “real employee’s loser spouse” to “real employee”? I’m pretty daggone sure it did–because it was that which evoked the comments, because some of the people in my old job are overweight, because pretty clearly a part of my “product” was demonstrating the ability to change my body at will. And, yet….am I the same person I was before? In most ways I am. It’s a lot more subtle and complicated and harder to address than “I was fat so I didn’t get job X”; I know that for a lot of people it isn’t, but in this case it was.
I don’t know what to do with this: on the one hand, my change in weight definitely reflected an upsurge in confidence and competence, and I don’t blame people for responding to that: we all do it. But the descending weight reflected the upsurge; it didn’t cause it. The people who waited until I had “proven myself’ to treat me as a human being, to decide I was worthy of their attention–they think they’re my friends. They’re not in any way aware that they were behaving in a shallow way based on prejudice, and would do it again; but I don’t care what they’re aware of, because I know differently. They are shallow in this. They are not my friends, because friends don’t do this to one another. I don’t know what to do with this, except never to forget.
PS In my line of work, actually, 4% is a pretty good year for most of us. Bad years mean 0% across the board for everyone but the executives.
Becky,
When you applied for the job, did you submit your previous salary? It’s possible that you were offered so little compared to your male colleague because the earnings from your last job directed the negotiations. Also, many bosses assume that women are less aggressive in salary negotiations, and thought that starting low would actually work with you. (And it did in this case – you accepted the salary.) Basically, what I’m asking is: was your starting offer based on something you did?
For example, my mother-in-law used to train people in salary negotiation. This one woman she was training was looking good for a very high-paying position. My MIL advised her to not provide the company with her current salary or any specifics at all. The best thing to do is let the company blindly offer a salary, and then negotiate up if it’s too low. She was so convinced that she’d be offered LESS than her current salary that she went into negotiations saying that she’ll work for “no less than X.” And that’s what they offered her. She found out a few months later that everyone at her level was making almost $100k more than she was.