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WEKU
WEKU
Pallavi Gogoi

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

Ginni Rometty Pat OBrien IBM Harvard University Instagram United States
Research over the decades has consistently shown that women face a weight bias in the workplace that's proving hard to reverse. (Jeff Haynes/AFP via Getty Images)

"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.

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