The weight bias against women in the workforce is real — and it’s only getting worse

“Pat, you think I eat too much?” Ginni Rometty asked her boss Pat O’Brien at IBM, more than 30 years ago. 

O’Brien was talking to Rometty about her weight, exhorting her to get in “good physical shape” if she wanted to become a high-level executive. Rometty recounts she’d been “chubby” as a little girl. “Gaining and losing weight was a cycle” she was all too familiar with. 

But it was the first time her appearance had come up as an obstacle to her career aspirations — though it didn’t stop her. Rometty went on to become the first female CEO of IBM, in its 100-year history.