Excessively Skinny Women Paid More Than Average or Plus-Sized Peers

by Sarah Menkedick · 2010-10-11 09:00:00 UTC
Topics:

It's no surprise that being skinny is an advantage for women in our society. Just how much of an advantage? About $15,000 worth.

A recent study by Timothy A. Judge of the University of Florida has revealed that very skinny women — those weighing an average of 25 pounds less than the "normal" or "average" weight for women of their group — earn $15,572 more per year than women of average weight.

Women whose weight is around 25 pounds higher than the "norm" for their group make $13,847 less than the women of average weight. The study proposed that women are most harshly punished for an initial deviation from the ideal —  a jump from being 25 lbs underweight to "normal" or just below normal weight — and they suffer the biggest drop in salary when they make this initial transgression. From then on out, they'll take smaller pay cuts for each increase in weight.

Men, meanwhile, get a financial pat on the back for gaining weight. They're penalized for being "too thin." Gaining 25 lbs per year brings a man a yearly salary boost of $8,437. This boost drops slightly to $7,775 per year once the men have reached above average weights.

So let's get this straight: women earn in the ballpark of $15,000 extra for being too skinny, whereas men earn in the ballpark of $7,000 extra for being over their recommended weight. Any sort of argument about how our society's obsession with weight is merely tied to health concerns flies out the window in the face of a study like this.

No, there's something else going on here: the total manipulation of one's self-worth and perceived value into a factor of pounds. Thinness has become not one desirable physical quality but the baseline quality, the foundation of one's potential. Skinniness — and a fairly extreme version — is now a moral, intellectual, economic, and corporeal triumph, and those who won't force themselves to achieve it regardless of suffering or unhealthiness will quite literally end up paying the price.

Photo credit: Jcoldironjr2003

Sarah Menkedick is a freelance writer currently based in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has spent the last five years teaching, writing and traveling on five continents. She regularly writes about women's rights.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Canadian Retailer Pledges to Stop Photoshopping Models
NEXT STORY:
Fox News' Trotta Still Doesn't Get It: I Want Her Rape Apologism Off the Air

COMMENTS (6)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.