NC’d for this because it’s probably outing and I know my boss’s wife uses mumsnet but I’ve been here a long time (but never screamed at a chapel or been a fan of pombears or cutted up pear).
I had a difficult meeting with a client today, I work in a service industry, agency based so spend a lot of my time in front of clients chatting about the performance of their activity and the returns on their investments etc. I’m good at my job, I’m the head of a team of 8 people who are also good at their jobs and we tick along fine.
The difficult conversation arose because the client is challenging and doesn’t listen to our advice. They’ve done something against our advice which has damaged their performance and the call was to discuss how we move forward on this. All good.
After the call, my boss said (completely out of the blue), ‘None of this would have happened if they trusted us in the first place’.
I agreed and went to leave but he told me to sit back down so I did. He then said ‘you’re the head of XXX department, they should be hanging on your every word not disregarding you completely’......
I agreed, can’t remember what I said but sort of said I’d work on building their trust, and he said ‘they’re not going to trust you, they’re old school and you don’t look right’
So I asked what he meant and he went bright red and he said ‘you’re not what they expect when they hear you’re head of XXX, you don’t inspire confidence’..
I’m 28 years old (admittedly young for the job), northern, female and fat. I’m a size 18 and I dress well for work and more importantly I know my shit. I get feedback from clients all the time expressing they’re impressed with my knowledge, feel like I and my team are experts etc. I don’t wear a lot of makeup or heels or anything on a normal day but for client meetings I’ll dress up a bit more etc.
Anyway, I wasn’t having that so I asked ‘exactly what bit of my appearance do you think doesn’t match expectations?’ And he then backpeddled and said that’s not what he meant.
I can’t shake it though. I KNOW exactly what he meant, he meant people don’t think I’m capable and judge me before I enter the room because I have the audacity to be both fat and a woman. It’s like you can be one or the other, never both.
I feel completely humiliated and really dejected. I’ve done well in my career, I’m the youngest woman with my job title in a large geographical area (recognised in an industry press publication recently) and I’ve worked bloody hard to get here. No one has handed me any of it and I’m here because I’m good at what I do. I know that, but I feel like I’m never ever going to be ‘as good’ as a man would be in my role, or as a woman who ‘looks right’ would be since a large part oft job is gaining the trust of clients and I just can’t do that.
Right now I want to quit and get a job doing the technical side of my role where I don’t need to speak to clients. 
I think I know IBU, but I’ve no idea what to do to fix it