What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

by Aubrey Gordon

The aftershocks of our bias aren’t just limited to the workplace, either. Fat people feel its effects in the criminal justice system too. A 2013 Yale University study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that men were more likely to find a fat woman guilty of the same crime. “Male participants rated the obese female defendant guiltier than the lean female defendant, whereas female respondents judged the two female defendants equally regardless of weight. Among all participants, there were no differences in assessment of guilt between the obese male and lean male defendants.”34 And the bias isn’t just limited to jurors. In 2017, a Quebec judge made headlines by saying that a fat seventeen-year-old woman might have been “flattered” by being sexually assaulted, saying the woman “is a bit overweight, but she has a pretty face. [. . .] The court specifies that she is a pretty young girl.”35 While his remarks were publicly decried, he faced no formal censure or consequences.