UK: Bias against men and overweight women found in HR

Article here. Excerpt:

'More than half of HR professionals are biased against overweight women, while nearly two fifths are biased against men, according to a survey conducted exclusively for People Management.

Special bias tests were taken by 122 HR professionals to measure their unconscious prejudices in a range of common areas such as age, gender, weight and disability. The tests, designed by specialist provider Hogrefe Implicity, revealed that almost 40 per cent of those surveyed showed a preference for one gender (overwhelmingly, they were in favour of women).

The tests, which assess unwitting associations of gender and competence, found that men were the losers with 37 per cent of respondents revealing a bias against them. Yet only 1 per cent showed a prejudice against women.

However, when asked about overweight women, 51 per cent of respondents revealed a bias against them at a level “likely or very likely” to affect their behaviour. Yet only 4 per cent showed a bias against “slimmer women”.

The strength of men’s prejudice against other men was surprising, with 15.6 per cent of men showing an anti-male bias compared to just 0.5 per cent of women showing an anti-female stance.'