The problem is that it's still socially acceptable to see short stature as some objective faux-pas. There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. If the guy said "Don't be so sure of yourself, black man" maybe it would have been acceptable in the 1920s, but it surely isn't now, and the fact that we can't see that calling someone "short" derogatorily is the same form of prejudicial discrimination shows that we as a society still don't understand the root of racism and prejudice. It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions.
Maybe at one time short stature was a decent signal for childhood malnutrition, but in our modern society short stature is mostly a matter of genetics, and there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life except socially derived ones. It used to be sexy to be fat, but as social perceptions caught up with the reality that calorie dense foods was actually abundant, we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies.
>there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life
It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact.
Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
> Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
I'm 5'6, and after almost 15 years of dating sites to modern dating apps, I have indeed accepted that yes, I will very likely die alone. My therapist has even half-seriously suggested I try lying about my height, and qualms aside, from the studies I've read, any plausible-in-person exaggeration would gain me a couple of percentile points at most.
Jokes aside, percieved attractiveness privilege is by far the most prominent form of discrimination in society today. (After wealth) Watching good.looking people coast through hard things purely because doors mysteriously open for them, is one of those things that you'd never believe it unless you see it.
Height is obviously the most prominent of those features among men. Sadly, it is tied to the most fundamental of social phenomenon (mating), and no amount of moralizing around it is going to change anything unless women change change their dating preferences. (Goes both ways, but women are generally the ones with hangups over height)
This problem in online dating doesn't just apply to the single physical characteristic of height. It's a clusterfuck of ticking boxes and underdeveloped expectations. A 5 year old boy might tick "no girls", while a 14 year old boy might tick "big boobs", and a 30 year old man might tick "good education and stable job."
It's as if we all go into it like ordering at a Burger King, except Have it your way (tm) comes out tasting like crap because we realize we aren't chefs. Online dating is how a bureaucrat decides to choose their life partner. The boxes you tick in online dating aren't important and are there just to pander to users.
I've experienced the "filter" issue with online dating, but my conclusions are entirely different.
I really don't mind it, in fact I appreciate it.
Anyone who would filter me out over something as shallow as height would undoubtedly be an extraordinarily poor match for me.
I prefer quality over quantity.
As to the "die alone" thing - that seems a bit grim.
I'm 46, since age 14 when I actively started dating the longest I've been single was for about 3 months after a bad break-up, and that was by choice.
Sure, when you don't have a height advantage you have to make it up in other ways - personality, fitness level, professional success, etc...
In general, I think my relatively modest stature has been a benefit to me. It forced me to be a better person, and to focus on qualities that matter, rather than superficial things.
We are on a website filled to the brim of people using their abnormal intellects to excel beyond the vast majority of society and amass wealth. I'd go so far as to say that double digits of posters here are part of the 1%. Stop whining about a superficial perceived inferiority that has no real impact on your ability to survive and thrive, and use your galaxy brains to figure out how the mating game works. I'm relatively short and not that attractive but spent a bit of effort on understanding others are looking for in a man and it paid off. There are billions of people out there.
I went in this fully expecting you to be correct but drastically pessimistic in terms of hard numbers. Instead you were exactly wrong on the easiest point to check divorce rate. Short men tend to marry later on average but divorce at a substantially lower rate.
The part about 200x the matches is both obviously pulled out of the air and grossly exaggerated. It looks like on average women tend to prefer men who are taller but not hugely different in height from themselves.
If you are 5'6" you are most apt to be most attractive to women who are 5'4" or shorter which is helpfully 43% of women in the US.
You say you are very likely to die alone based entirely on a malarkey stat you pulled from thin air. You don't need hundreds of matches in a dating app to find one person you want to spend your life with. You need to instead cultivate qualities that would inspire ONE of many potentially worthwhile mates out there to make time with you and then work on enriching your life and relationship.
The problem with this fatalistic attitude is twofold. Firstly it spoils all hope of success to believe in yourself not one whit and second it holds that somehow MEN or at least yourself are rational whole mental and emotional creatures while somehow women are irrational animals who somehow cannot even see you. It's degrading to you and to hypothetical mates.
I know multiple tall, classically good looking men who, while they can can get dates, can not maintain them because they have zero relationship skills, and I know just as many short men who have a relationship whenever they want.
While height might be an early filter, it is by no means the only source of attraction. Men would do well to build the rest of their personalities to stand themselves out rather than complain about something they have no control over.
I’m a 5’1 guy and I ended up marrying someone who was 5’3, I never expected to get results on a dating site though, I knew my wife from a social setting for months before we started dating.
That's why it's important to lie about height & income (at least until you're looking to settle down with a permanent trusting relationship). If you're not cheating, you're not trying.
This is not true. Women prefer men who are relatively taller than them.
Obviously it’s better to be taller because that opens up more options. But the preference women have is for you to be taller than she is not that you have to hit some absolute value of 6’.
>Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites.
This is why you shouldn't put height in your dating profile, so you filter out a bunch of superficial people.
Lucky for short people, height is a lot less of a factor in modern society. Wealth is a much bigger factor. And what's the best path to wealth? Software. Even more lucky for them, software and internet doesn't care about height.
> Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
Maybe in America. Plenty of countries where the average height is lower than what the article mentions. Not to mention that most European countries are "ahead" regarding respect than America.
Pep talk: Everybody dies alone. Sorry, not very "peppy" perhaps. All right, how about this: Quantity of women (i.e. numbers who prefer tall guys on some app) is not the same as quality of women. It's kind of the opposite in fact, if humanity is anything like a bell curve. The mainstream, with its sheer numbers, is full of dullards. The most blindingly, boringly average people, from essentially the center of the gene pool in every way, are the ones we tend to find most attractive. Which is great for selecting for reproductive fitness for the species overall. Evolution will trick you into doing its bidding. But thanks to modernity, reproduction itself is really only relevant if you choose to make it so, and even then, only for like the first third or half of your life. Which is a time horizon that's hard to see when you're in it, but clear as day by the time you hit 40 or 50 and your kids are starting to be independent.
So try to play the long game. You might meet your special someone later in life, who knows. Meanwhile in the short term, whoever doesn't appreciate you for what you are, look at it kind of like "well fuck 'em anyway," like they just self-selected out of your filter. Regardless, I'm 100% certain you won't be helping anything by trying to trick people into liking you. And I'm about 80% sure you won't even get anywhere by trying earnestly to be whatever stupid thing they want or think they want, or that some cost-free process of entering profile info on an app encourages them to blithely and carelessly say they want (because why not?). This goes not just for being short but for any human trait you do or don't possess. (And the only reason I allow 20% of hope there is because there's a possibility that through concerted effort you might actually manage to improve yourself in some way. But it should be something that came from you, something you yourself want to strive for, not something to please some fickle asshole and make them like and approve of you.)
It's not about what they want. It's about who you are, and whoever is the "audience" for that, is who you should be focusing on. What does Slayer care about Ariana Grande fans? Maybe on some level they wish they had as many fans as she does, but I'm pretty sure they aren't out there trying to impress them or win them over by being more Ariana-Grande-like. (I don't even know if Slayer is still a band; I might be dating myself.)
Editing to further bloviate:
Who is going to mate with all the short women of the world? Tall guys? No, they're mostly looking for tall girlfriends. But short women need love too, and the ones who aren't so shallow and lacking in logistical foresight as to demand someone two full feet taller than themselves, are out there. Just a thought.
One detail stuck out to me in this piece: The fact that this guy continues to read anti-short-people hate online, and still reflexively feels slighted, but then "remembers" that he got this surgery, kind of speaks to the fact that a big part of this is in his own head. Hear me out. I'm not suggesting people aren't being total douches about those of diminutive stature, because I've witnessed it and I'm quite sure they are. If someone is saying a sentence where if you put "black" let's say, in place of "short," there would be hell to pay, well then... there should be hell to pay. It's not right. At the same time, there is always evil shit out there being hurled at someone. Even tall white rich males. (Maybe especially them, lately.) Do you let that inside your head and make it your own thought that follows you around, day and night, far outside the reach of the douche who said it? It's difficult to practice the level of mental & emotional discipline it takes to cast such thoughts out, but it is an area where you have some degree of control over the situation.
Yep. Nobody wants to talk about it, but the amount of abuse that is directed from otherwise-socially-conscious women towards short men is pretty disgusting. It's extremely common for groups of women to laugh at and deride short men, both online and publicly in real life. It's eye-opening. (And before you ask, no I am not short, I've just witnessed the abuse first hand).
100%, but you're right that nobody wants to talk about it. I guess I've just adapted by growing thick skin around the issue and just not letting it bother me.
That thick skin is, IMHO, a trait that I think has become vastly underappreciated in our society.
Didn't see any study about that, but its true that women not only reject unfit men (short, poor, etc.) but sometimes are actively hostile and abusive to them. Perhaps is a instinctive behavior from a past were rapes were much more common than today.
Almost all "socially conscious" people are just pretending so they fit in.
Only ~10% of people have actual social consciousness that affects their life choices.
We'd be in a better place if we started from the assumption that everybody is prejudiced, it takes work for any of us to overcome it, and the work is never complete.
I've seen hypocrisy and cruelty from people of all backgrounds. But anecdotally, among the "socially conscious women" I've spent time around, this, which is one of three top comments on the article, is a common sentiment:
> This is a reminder that the patriarchy hurts everyone and men should be just as invested in destroying it as women.
>There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people.
I get where you're coming from -- criticizing people for what they are, rather than for what they do, is exceedingly unfair -- but I can think of at least three important differences, chief among which are:
1. The shortness of men (barring outright dwarfism) has never been the object of widespread theories about their fundamental inferiority, nor have such theories been enshrined into widespread law.
2. Social institutions have never explicitly conspired to marginalize short men.
3. Redlining, lynching, the selling of persons into slavery, ghettos, etc. have no equivalent in the realm of height.
And to be frank, it's rather shocking that you would suggest otherwise. I don't doubt that you've been treated unfairly, and you are perfectly entitled to complain about it, but that doesn't require you to twist reality.
Height does appear to be correlated with income[1]. So it’s entirely possible that discrimination has existed and continues to exist. People seem to think that because something is difficult to measure, it isn’t there, but that simply isn’t true. Lookism could also be a big problem, but the causal effects of being unattractive are hard to identify. Imagine trying to assemble a treatment and control group for that. Who is going to self identify as being ugly?
I understand your objection to drawing an equivalence between racial discrimination, but even if it isn’t as “bad” can’t it still recognized as a lesser form of bigotry?
no one is comparing the historical treatment of short people to slaves; they are comparing how preference for some unchangeable attributes are somehow acceptable but preference for others are not.
you are forcing additional context where there is none.
There are a reasonable number of women on dating sites that like saying pretty horrible things about shorter guys in there profiles.
I don't know that it does much but I've always treated it as a bit of a red flag and swiped left.
I don't think there's anything wrong with say, being attracted to someone taller than yourself, but I don't understand feeling the need to public ridicule someone about a physical trait you aren't attracted to.
If they were smarter they would know it hurts their ranking in the algorithms. All that, “if you’re not X swipe left” makes you appear less desirable when people do swipe left. I consider it a stupidity filter. You can do niche marketing after the match has taken place, before that you need broad appeal.
> There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people.
People can like whoever they want to like. Some people may only like those of a certain height, weight, race, class, and any other attribute you may want to think of, but it is not necessarily wrong. It is up to each individual to have the freedom to date whoever they wish.
You might be conflating this with the societal denigration of certain races or classes, which is surely bad because there really is no reason to denigrate them, but that is not the same as saying everyone must be attracted to those of any combination of the above such factors.
Racism is not just bad when it's phrased in a negative way. I can say I only like living next to white people because that's my "preference". That is still racist, the same way it is racist if you prefer to only date people of a certain skin color. The fact that many people do not see any issues with such statements says a lot about their relation with the idea of human races. Much of society still very much believes in it. In fact, racial thinking is going through a Renaissance currently.
Mate selection is not and should not be institutionalized which means that you are within your rights to discriminate on...anything. Your criteria may be based on "taste", past experiences or downright prejudice. It is inevitable that as you pick a mate, you discriminate.
You can't stop that nor should you. We can however openly discuss criteria that are unhealthy, perverted, make no sense...in an attempt to open people's minds. Not to control whom they can date, rather to open up possibilities. People may be missing out a lot by being needlessly restrictive.
As old man I might provide a shortcut. Cliche as it is, character stands the test of time. What is somebody like? Select for that, the rest is a bonus.
I don't know if that's the issue people are bringing. I think people are talking about the active derogatory and communicated bias towards shorter men.
Not being attracted to short men and not wanting to reproduce with them is a personal thing. But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height.
I think that's a fair issue to bring up.
It also seems there might be real measurable pay-gaps, and that might need addressing as well.
But one can detect and judge appearance much more quickly (instantly, in most cases) than personality. It seems much more efficient to select those you consider physically attractive first and then date to check for a compatible character, than the other way round. Just like (excepting bisexuals) most of us instantly disqualify 3.5 billion people as potential partners for being the wrong sex, even if they might have great characters.
There's a kind of funny thing here that people see being short as a kind of deficiency.
I'm about 5"8, and am actually really happy with my height - it's perfect for the types of sports I do, I fit quite nicely on an airplane, and have no problem if I were to drive a smaller car.
I imagine for taller people those things could be a hassle, that flying would be a real pain, that they might look silly on a motorbike / skateboard, and coule develop back problems from bending down.
When it comes to dating, online dating apps suck in general, but honestly I've never felt like I've missed out. People don't even seem to truly know what they find attractive until they have someone placed in front of them. I've even had this experience myself where I've found a super tall girl attractive when I'd typically go for the shorties.
It's sad that people feel the need to do these operations. Honestly, I feel they could achieve a better outcome (feeling confident / adequate) by doing some martial arts and hitting the gym.
As others have mentioned it also depends where you live. The only time I truly felt short was in Amsterdam where it felt like the local bars were packed full of giants lol. I Thailand and India I've had the opposite experience.
Deriding people based on their height is wrong. But preference for tall males is based on a preference for strength, athleticism, and ability to fight. This is true in all human cultures. If you think it's outdated, consider sports. Almost all MLB pitchers are > 6' and that's not even getting into basketball. In terms of fighting, although stature is less relevant than ever, there are plenty of ongoing military conflicts.
This is true for lots of things. Being fast is better than being slow. Being smart is better than people simple. Being attractive is better than being ugly. Being fit is better than being fat. This isn't a happy realization but it's true and it's healthy to accept it.
The dimension along which all people are equal is a metaphysical or religious dimension, not an empirical one.
I agree that it shouldn’t be used in a derogatory manner, but it’s a fact that people have preferences in who they prefer to breed with. In fact that’s the reason why we are what we are in a positive way. You are being disingenuous or have genetic maladaptive screening of partners if you think otherwise and that maladaptation is naturally evolved away.
My point is that preferences are malleable and there is no objective reality or grounding in modern society for short stature being an undesirable trait (at least going forward). My hypothesis is that short stature historically has been attributed to malnutrition, and therefore destitution as well, which has shaped modern day preferences, but perception lags reality.
EDIT: Also I should add that people are reading my comments automatically into the context of sexual preference, but I was talking more specifically about the general attitude that it's ok to deride people based on their genetic shortness. That being said, even if OK Cupid (Which is just a proxy for dating preference due to the specific nature of how it operates) showed that black woman were the least likely to get matched on OK Cupid doesn't mean it's ok to now make fun of them based on their skin color / cultural / racial background. Our perceptions about short people, black women, etc, are the results of social conditioning. Conditioned behavior will always lag the current reality. It is my belief that short stature does not hold the negative associations it once had, just as whatever was the reason for our preferences against black woman probably do not hold anymore.
We don't go around forcing people to start liking short people or black woman if they have not conditioned themselves to do so yet, but we also shouldn't be accepting adding fuel to the prejudicial fire.
> It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions.
No... if that were true then it would be OK to deride someone who was born with a deformed limb, because in that case the "inferiority" would really have an "objective basis in reality". They would be objectively inferior at certain tasks then someone without it. Does that make it ok to insult them?
Suggesting racism (or prejudice) is wrong simply because it's not objectively inferior is missing the point.
The actual answer, which I think you would have come to eventually, is that deride someone for an attribute they had no control over, is the essence of prejudice.
People do not chose to be born in a poor country, in an abusive family, black, French, short or handicap, these are simply the hands they were dealt.
Likewise, for some reason it still seems to be socially acceptable among the educated professional and managerial classes to discriminate against the less intelligent and even openly mock them. There seems to be a social consensus now that it's wrong to make fun of people with an IQ below about 70 (intellectually disabled) but apparently those in the roughly 71 - 99 IQ range are fair game. Is that morally right? I don't understand it.
> we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies.
I'm shifting all the way back on that one. Fat is fit. So I was talking to a girl, a model in fact, I was a model too, met a lot of models. I said I am going to want exactly the sort of woman I want, and no other, without any other man's judgment being taken into consideration at all.
So it's actually about white fat versus brown fat cells, apparently. Saturated or unsaturated, based on diet, to a lesser extent fat but to a greater extent sugars and especially toxins[1]. So without it women look ripped and bony. All the models I saw like that looked great on TV but terrible in real life, the models who didn't get work had that...that baby fat I guess you could call it. I got her to come around on the subject she was like, "yeah, a thin but not too thin and even layer of fat, it looks good!"
[1] Many but not all psychiatric compounds. All of them alter body fat, I think. Fluoride, for lots of reasons. So hard to escape that F'ing F atom. Then what other toxins...pesticides and especially fire-retardant.
Sexual preference is largely shaped by societal influences as well. As I stated at the end there's historical pretext to this: fat women used to be preferred by men. Sexual preferences have changed over time. It's just as wrong as assuming that patriarchal society is some universal truth.
Assuming that it is some innate quality that women are attracted to people taller than them is also flawed. What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work?
You're comparing apples to oranges. Not trying to guess your height, but it seems you got personally attacked by the fact that society in general looks down on short guys.
Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Studies have shown that heterosexual women prefer partners taller than them. It's understandable this subconscious bias. And what seems like discrimination, it's just a natural product.
Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
"just a natural product" is an argument that has been used for racism as well. White people claimed to be naturally superior to black people which is one way they falsely justified slavery. See "appeal to nature" fallacy.
Obviously taller men are naturally superior to shorter men and so it's just natural that they make more money. /sarcasm
And saying men have always shown a preference for larger breasts is begging the question. There are plenty of studies out there showing that breast size preference is complicated -- bigger is not always better.
Some cultures prefer medium sized breasts (actually, most studies I found this is the preference).[1]
Poorer men might prefer larger breasts and richer men might prefer smaller breasts [2][3]
Or maybe sexist men prefer larger breasts [4]
I don't think we know why women have the breasts they have or if breast size actually is a meaningful signifier of reproductive fitness.
Seems like evidence points that women get breast implants because of their own opinions of their body image and not because it's an actual reproductive advantage.[5]
We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?
I don't mean to argue that people shouldn't have preferences, but do you know many men who have breast and hip size requirements for a partner and wouldn't consider someone under those measurements? I'm sure there are some, but I can't imagine that's true of the vast majority of men. There's something rather different about a man's height.
> Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference.
Does this difference exist? I recall studies that showed that babies are afraid of people who look very different from them and their family members. As such I was under the impression that there was a genetic basis for discrimination of people based on some outward difference in appearance like skin colour that was due to people having an inherent distrust in the 'other.'
If that's the case it's not unreasonable to desire that society progress in a way that mitigate these biases against short people in the same way that we desire that society progresses in a way that mitigate biases against people of colour.
> Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
What kinds of things that you feel are due to an instinctual bias to discriminate against short people, and why should we not attempt to shut down this discrimination? If your children were short and they felt like they were discriminated against for being that way, what sort of advice would you give them?
Isn't this another discrimination that short men face? They cannot even engage in a conversation without getting an ad hominem attack. Think napoleon complex.
For folks in this thread making statements such as, "I don't see how one can dictate to others what they should find attractive," the negative social stigmas towards men of short stature go far beyond physical attraction. (There's absolutely nothing wrong with women finding taller men attractive.)
> There's absolutely nothing wrong with women finding taller men attractive.
It's another thing if it becomes more a cultural expectation than an actual attraction, and I think the reaction would be rather different if enough men decided not to date women who don't have at least D cups.
Well that's an interesting response. Surveyed women of median height prefer men of above-median height. But a D cup bra size is below the median for American adult females (which is a 34DD). I have no idea why popular imagination believes the bra size scale goes from A to D.
Edited with context: The point is that men don't just prefer larger and larger breasts; there is a peak in preference for medium breast sizes[1]. But women do prefer as tall a man as they can get; there is no peak in male partner height preference among females.[2]
Yeah ngl I wish people would move on from denigrating people on factors like appearance, poverty, disability, etc. and more on things like being inauthentic, unempathetic, manipulative, etc.
I was bullied a lot for being short in high school and at home I was pressured to hang on the pull up bar "to get taller". I hope we stop doing this to people.
My experiences in high school deeply affected my mental health.
But on the topic of hanging, just out of curiosity, I'd like to mention: I've been reading about the benefits of dead hangs for shoulder health, and I've seen a few comments from people who claim that dead hangs actually did make them taller. I wonder whether it's true.
> Swap "short guy" for "Jew" in the quotations from those twits that have nothing to do with attraction:
Yes, I can do that for any statement and it has the same impact replace “people who are mean to me” with “Jews” in the sentence “I hate people who are mean to me”.
I don’t actually disagree with your content though.
This kind of stuff is pretty widespread. One of the major dating sites published a stat showing woman ranked 80% of men as below average attractiveness while men ranked 50% of woman as bellow average. They had to pull the post because it was explosive. I assume no tech company will ever post stats on the data they have showing some kind of meaningful social observation again.
It looks like it's all 20 black women from 2014 as well. I'm not sure what to assume about the intention or circumstances behind the account owner choosing those samples, but it certainly doesn't accurately reflect majority opinion in 2022.
If women aren't morally compelled to find short men attractive, why are they morally compelled to not feel negatively about them in general? I don't see how anyone is morally obligated to feel any way about any other human.
It's just really weird to me that some people get angry about being short (understandably so) but instead of just admitting that, they turn to some kind of universalist morality as a way of shifting the burden to others
This is the one aspect of the show "Last Week Tonight" that always irked me. He makes fun of peoples appearances too much. It's just not good comedy or even a good insult in my opinion.
Which is kind of a fascinating thing if you note that Zelensky is clearly shorter than him by about an inch (~5'5"), and I have yet to see anyone make a comment about his height.
What's your moral/ethical basis for that? Sure, don't do this to others in your personal life (or strangers). It's arbitrary cruelty and simply abusive.
But I'm not convinced punching upward in this manner to the obscenely rich and powerful should be considered universally wrong. If Putin did not want to be so judged, he wouldn't put out all those pictures of himself shirtless posing with horses and dolphins. I think he in particular is fair game.
But isn't it okay to make fun of Trump's penchance for the orange makeup appearance? So long as it is firmly in the realm of choice and not hiding a medical skin condition or other immutable characteristic, isn't it fair game?
(To be clear, this question applies to certain kinds of public figures and not the shy kid in the schoolyard)
I think in the case of Putin, there may be some justification on the basis that he and his supporters (including in the West) portray him as super macho, etc.
Though I believe what is said is (most usually) more important than who said what, I think even they will tell you, regarding statements like these, to consider the source. Also, rock stars, actors and fighter pilots always had insane game, and the tall ones are an anomaly (though, last 20 years or so, there has been a notable increase in average height due to a handful of extremely tall actors getting roles).
Well, yes, but he was short, so who cares what he says? (/s, obviously)
Incidentally, A. T. Great is maybe evidence that this is a modern fixation, not something that's always been with us. It's fairly clear that he was unusually short, but there's little indication that anyone thought much of it; by contrast, the idea that Napoleon (who wasn't even short!) was short was a propaganda point for the UK.
I'm a guy of median height and great fitness, and I had a partner recommend limb lengthening in passing to me once. At the time, I had no idea what it even was but became disgusted as I learned the details. When I asked her why she would ever recommend such a thing, she said it was a joke. However, she had also purchased some pairs of 3 inch elevator shoes for me (also had no idea these were a thing) and insisted I wear them multiple occasions, despite me communicating how offensive the suggestion even was. When she suggested again that she expected me to wear them for the wedding and cared about it enough for it to become a shouting match, I knew for sure that something was VERY wrong. This, along with a dozen other reasons, caused me to call off the engagement. I'm still trying to make sense of it all.
EDIT: It may also be relevant that she was also at least 4 inches shorter than me, so there was no risk of me looking shorter than her, even if she had heels on.
A breakup is always tough but consider yourself lucky it became obvious she was the wrong person before the sunk costs got too high. Often this is not the case.
Speaking from personal experience relationships cause a kind of brain damage where it is hard to notice both the stop signs and the green lights.
I find it very strange that a partner would want this. Presumably the desire for a taller mate is fundamentally a desire for taller children. The procedure is obviously not inherited.
This must have just been a cruel strategic denigration.
This fundamentally misunderstands how evolution works. Evolution's tactic isn't to make you want things that lead to reproduction. Evolution tries to make you do things that lead to reproduction. The wanting is only applied if it's convenient. If the desire for tall men is evolutionarily based (which seems plausible, but has not been demonstrated) then that provides no reason to expect women consciously believe anything in particular about tall men — in fact, there's no guarantee that any other evolved behaviors are the direct realization of corresponding conscious desires, either. Evolution would be perfectly happy giving you a sexual interest for X useful trait without ever explaining to you why you like that. See also: "good with his hands".
I think sometimes you just encounter a loon, and that's what it sounds like on this occasion. This doesn't sound like the sort of person you'd want to be married to, so I'd say you dodged a hefty bullet.
"a 2006 study on online dating found that a man who is 5'6'' needs an additional $175,000 to be as desirable as a man who is approximately 6' tall and only makes $62,500 a year."
I guess I appreciate the brutal honesty. Wealth and height. And not to forget social status, as one woman in the linked article explained how she broke up with a short guy because of what others (might) think of it.
Not a word is wasted on actual love. The stereotype that women barely ever date "below" them, in wealth, height, status, remains true. Your character still matters, but only after checking the above boxes. Men are selected by utility, with disastrous consequences for those that get left behind, as there's no mercy for them.
You can't explain the harsh "be 6' or keep moving" requirement or the open ridiculing of short men on evolutionary selection alone. It's a US-dominant cultural trend. In many other countries no woman would have such exact and absolute demands. It might be a soft unspoken preference at best. Making it a "do or die" requirement is cultural.
Similarly, wealth is not an evolutionary selector for the simple reason that wealth didn't exist until 10K years ago. You could make the point though that wealth is a representation of security, in an indirect way.
In any case, I just find it disturbing how superficial the matchmaking is. When you use a criteria, it's supposed to increase your chance of success, meaning a "happily ever after" story. None of these criteria do that. Beauty fades and none of us are beautiful in the morning. Wealth doesn't buy love. Height does absolutely nothing for a relationship. And yet women insist on it.
The female version is equally disturbing but different. I've never met or talked to a man that finds fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup in any remote way attractive, or a "selector". So the depressing reality is that women largely do this in a competition towards other women, and this perverted rat race knows many victims.
For the cynics that may think that I'm coping, I'm not. I'm 6"4 and in a loving long term relationship. That doesn't stop me from caring about the perverted mate selection dynamics of today that are downright cruel and throws good people aside as if trash.
> Not a word is wasted on actual love.
>
> For the cynics that may think that I'm coping, I'm not. I'm 6"4 and in a loving long term relationship.
As a 5'5" Asian man (statistically one of the lowest rate of matches in online dating), I find it personally demeaning that you feel like you need to be morally outraged for me, because trust me, I sure as shit don't need it.
People are attracted to attractive people. That fact has been true for all of history. Not only do attractive people get more dates, they're more likely to rise to higher positions in business and society, and earn more money. Height is only one factor in attractiveness. Are you going to be morally outraged about attractive people next? Are you going to shake your hand at the sky and ask "what about love?!?" next time you see two tall attractive people on a date?
Also, citation needed on your claim that height selection is US-only. My anecdotal experience is that foreign-born women also have height preferences.
Your assertion on female plastic surgery is equally ridiculous, and dare I say, downright ignorant. No, you haven't met a man who is attracted to plastic surgery, but you've definitely met men attracted to the results of plastic surgery. You've also probably met hundreds of women who have done some form of plastic surgery, you just haven't noticed because it's tastefully done. I'd dare claim the ridiculous plastic surgery is the exception, not the rule. Your idea that women do this to compete against other women in a broken society, and not because men are attracted to certain features, is laughable.
Yes people are attracted to attractive people, but people can also do things to make themselves more attractive. I personally go to the gym, try to wear fashionable clothes, and groom myself. Are you going to gasp in shock and "but you shouldn't have to do that because of love!!!" Note that this is not a cynical take. I would say "the world is going to hell because some women put '6 foot only' on Tinder and get plastic surgery" is more cynical.
If you had bothered to read my post with care, you'd perhaps noticed the nuance where I said height can be a soft unspoken preference, which indeed is widespread.
I objected specifically against this preference becoming a rock hard criteria at some weird absolute point, say 6". That is a societal trend. It's culture, not biology. It's the hardening of a criteria that has led to the guy in the article being so desperate to do a ridiculously dangerous, painful and expensive surgery to "grow" a few inches. If you think it's normal that society sorts people into attractive or unattractive based on 4 inches, I don't know what to say to you.
As for the citation you requested, I come from the land featuring the tallest men in the world: the Netherlands. My 6"4 means absolutely nothing here. There's tons of people towering an additional head above me.
Even in this perfect shopping mall for women as it comes to height, I've never once heard a single woman turn it into a hard demand. There's plenty of short men here too, several of my friends are, they're all doing fine in dating. So no, it's not a thing here from my anecdotal experience. Preferences may still exist, but not in the sickening way where you completely filter out people based on such superficial and useless "quality".
I don't think I said that the world is falling apart, that escalation is on you. In all your rage you're missing the forest for the trees.
But do double down on your superficial attractiveness. You might get a foot in the door, after which true selection begins. Good luck, young one.
I come from a country where 6 ft.+ is considered pretty tall so I totally believe that this type of metric is not universal. In fact, there is no real analogue there and I have never heard of a female mentioning a specific height as a preference.
It was a total culture shock to me how big of a deal your height as a number is in parts of the US culture which frankly I find vacuous and sickening.
I mainly blame this on the toxic culture on the "dating" apps. (Also perhaps the imperial measurement system? lol). I guess those who knowingly participate in it have accepted the terms of use.
> You've also probably met hundreds of women who have done some form of plastic surgery, you just haven't noticed because it's tastefully done
The grandparent poster clearly said "fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup", so they're clearly not talking about women who did any sort of "tasteful" (to use your word) surgery, natural tanning or regular makeup.
> The stereotype that women barely ever date "below" them, in wealth, height, status, remains true. Your character still matters, but only after checking the above boxes. Men are selected by utility, with disastrous consequences for those that get left behind, as there's no mercy for them. You can't explain the harsh "be 6' or keep moving" requirement or the open ridiculing of short men on evolutionary selection alone.
If it was this cut-and-dry, 80% of American women would just be single at any given point in time, or they'd all be in polyamorous relationships, or dating their own gender. Only 20% of American men are 6'0".
I'm assuming that it's not this cut-and-dry, and that most American women are willing to date the other 80% of men.
Fair enough, I'd then rephrase that women generally attempt to select at equal or higher level (in wealth, status, strength) and will at times settle for the closest match to that ambition. Men are far more lax in their criteria.
We could just accept that as "the way it is", but modern developments in this dynamic create horrendous imbalances. There was an excellent article about it a while ago, but I don't have the link, so I'll try to reproduce the gist of it.
Assume the behavior that women select "above" them. Now add the trend where women are rapidly rising in their economic status. The logical outcome is that a growing number of women are basically selecting for a "super man", that are in very short supply. They need to be even more economically successful than before, and of course easy on the eyes and able to do male chores. And emotionally mature/advanced. And....and.....and....and.
This dynamic is often confirmed by research on dating sites where the vast majority of female attention goes to the "top" 10% of men, whilst everybody else is pretty much ignored. This in turn creates a counter-reaction where the ignored men basically just use a drag net, posting many low effort messages (any love is good love) that confirm to the women that those men are of a poor quality.
For sure, a lot of settlement and compromises will happen to match more than just 10%, but the point of the article was that the elevated criteria leaves behind an enormous group of men, in the US running into the millions.
These men might be low wage workers with average looks, and not much else going for them. This used to be enough, but it isn't anymore. They get no match. Ever. Many run into depression, start drinking, end up on the streets, kill themselves.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because it's worthy to know this, it's a fairly new development that few talk about. And I say it to highlight how cruel our society is towards men at the bottom. If as a man you don't make it on your own, there's zero empathy.
I'll be hated for saying it, but women play a decisive role in this dynamic. Whilst for sure they can date whoever they want, the stubborn refusal to even consider vast groups of men based on their wealth or height is inhumane. I find it particularly hypocritical in light of modern feminism where it's often expressed how household and childcare tasks should be more equally divided.
These men would be an ideal fit. They'd have the less important job, thus more ability to do it. I'm sure that amidst millions of such men, one can find a nice guy with reasonable looks.
But no. They're not even considered. I guess the point wasn't equality after all. The patriarchy is powered by women.
For every 1 match a man gets, the average women gets somewhere around 150 matches*. You simply can’t evaluate on anything but looks and basic surface-level traits (how each person responds to 3 random prompts).
How many short men interact with women regularly in-person and still have trouble getting dates?
* Seriously, google it. The ratio of accounts is around 10 men per woman, but lots of men swipe everyone and some men buy unlimited swipes, which is how it’s this bad. The average man gets something like 4 matches per week, while the average woman gets hundreds.
>The female version is equally disturbing but different. I've never met or talked to a man that finds fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup in any remote way attractive, or a "selector". So the depressing reality is that women largely do this in a competition towards other women, and this perverted rat race knows many victims.
I find everything on that list extremely unattractive, minus that last one: what's wrong with makeup? If it's not used excessively, it can look attractive. (I often tend to prefer how people look without makeup or with only light makeup, but some who are very good at makeup sometimes look better with it, in my opinion.)
A lot of men who say they don't like makeup actually do like it without knowing. They just know so little about the makeup world that they don't recognize the "natural" look (while still preferring it). So I would take statements like "I don't like makeup" with a grain of salt, and parse them as "I like the natural look but don't like strong makeup" (what you said basically). Which isn't an uncommon preference at all.
> The female version is equally disturbing but different. I've never met or talked to a man that finds fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup in any remote way attractive, or a "selector"
Tall women face exactly the same issue as short men. HN is overwhelmingly made, though, and has failed to make that connection.
> Tall women face exactly the same issue as short men.
i highly doubt so. Tall women might face _some_ discrimination from men who don't want a partner taller than him, but those men don't deride tall women at all. And i think a tall women stand a better chance at initiating a date with a shorter man, than the reverse.
>I've never met or talked to a man that finds fake boobs
Hang on homie. There are some boob jobs that are AMAZING. Not the California two oranges taped to a rake style, but that’s not everything out there.
Off the top of my head (with only the tiniest bit of shame because she is drop dead gorgeous), Kirara Asuka has an amazing/best boob job. And if you can look at her and not find her attractive, you’re probably lying almost certainly lying.
And while talking about plastic surgery and unwelcome societal preferences, look up the percentage of Asian people that get blepharoplasty in some form. It’s nuts. So imagine your eye lids being added to the list of things to fret over.
That's been true for eternity. Men are attracted by youth and beauty, women by height and wealth. Is everyone in this thread an orphan raised by disney/media. Nobody had mothers, sisters, aunts, female cousins, friends, etc?
> That doesn't stop me from caring about the perverted mate selection dynamics of today that are downright cruel and throws good people aside as if trash.
Nobody gets thrown aside. Women may prefer tall/wealthy and men may prefer young/beautiful, but at the end of the day, everyone settles. Most short and/or poor men marry as do older and/or ugly women. Everybody wants to date the hot cheerleader but everybody can't. So they just accept reality and date someone else instead.
That's incredibly sad, the comparison to boob and nose jobs is apt. It's a symptom of a sick society when people are so insecure about their bodies they feel they have to undergo unnecessary surgery to fit in.
My cousin had this procedure done almost 30 years ago, but she was pathologically small, at a height which makes it hard to function.
As someone who got a nose job, I’ve heard this line too many times to count. It seems that people want to believe the only reason I would remove the hump on my nose is because of society’s beauty standards. I’m not allowed to simply not like it. Why this same logic doesn’t apply to hair dye or clothing, I’ll never know.
Y’know what’s funny too? I’ve never once met someone who both admired big noses and chose to increase the size of their own. I guess that’s society for you…
This is a sensitive topic so don't expect people to comment with anecdotes about people who do want to enhance their nose. That being said, it is popular enough to warrant some businesses [1]. We are also talking about a medical surgery that might not be sufficient for people's needs. Much easier to remove material than add it to the body.
I suppose it's a spectrum of risk and motivation. On one side low risk modifications motivated by vanity such as hair dyes, on the other getting your legs sawn off because you think you're not good enough to find a woman.
Perhaps some nose jobs end up closer to the hair dyes and teeth straightening end of the spectrum, but I can't help but see a clear distinction when you start cutting flesh and breaking bone.
While I agree that it’s probably not worth it for the operation, multiple studies have shown that heigh is an important factor in mate selection (and I believe there’s a consensus on it), so using the word insecurity, which refers to a mental problem, diverts thinking of alternative solutions (like better fitness) to a bad direction.
Sure it affects it, but you don't need to be tall or even fit (within reason) to find a mate. There is no need for alternative solutions because the problem has been misstated from the beginning.
"Safe" is a pretty relative term; there are no shortage of complications that can arise from any of these surgeries (though the risk profiles are different, there are definitely still risks of permanent injury).
At the end of the day, these are elective surgeries too frequently used as an attempt to mask a pathological low self esteem.
I can't comment about the career opportunities that tall people seem to get more of, but the main take away I have from this article is people should stop using social media. It will always surface something to be insecure about.
Also, I've seen short (and bald!) people have amazing dating lives. The key is that they're confident, funny, and actually care about the people they interact with. It's so easy to blame something like height so one don't have to improve who they are on the inside.
I hate, absolutely hate, that men have to worry so much about something they can't control. My best friend is below average height, and god bless him he never let that stop him from getting women, but I've seen him made fun of for it over and over from other "friends" for years. I call it out nowadays but didn't have the chutzpah to do it when we were in high school. It makes my blood boil so much that people will be quick to judge someone so much for their height - this friend is literally the nicest person I know. Would people mock others for disabilities, skin-color, facial structure, weight, chest-size, etc. as openly as they mock men's height, society would look very different.
The problem with your comment is that it classifies short stature as a bad negative trait. In my humble opinion, except in pathological cases, short stature is a normal thing. It should not even be a subject of mockery because being short is not bad or negative or tragic. If a person is healthy, functional, fit and he is 5'4, I don't see why that is viewed negatively in modern society and it is mocked for, like being a 5'4 is a handicape or something. It doesn't make any sense at all. They can run, jump, breed, fight, think, work, drink, fuck, drive, sing like another other taller person, and they can also even be better and excel. It's really an absurd thing. I never understood this and it has always baffled me and when someones makes a joke on short stature, I just don't get it why it's funny or why it's a valid mockery.
I have mentioned this before, but I used to work at a dating service pre-Web popularity. People could state their preferences and also how important that preference is. I handled almost all aspects of the business, including the data entry of preferences. And I found out that women as a trend really really care about height. They cared about it when they wrote it down and the ones who said they didn't care? Ended up accepting dates from or asking out the taller guys. It was a painful eye-opener for me.
Several years ago, there was a guy on Twitter, "heightism" or something, who just re-tweeted crappy things women tweeted about "short guys," much of it in a vein like "ugh, why do they even exist?" I think he got banned but probably resurfaced.
It doesn't matter what people profess under duress, but with whom they go home.
Any man with experience interacting with women has seen evidence of this time and time again.
I really don't understand people who deny that women have a very strong bias for height.
I also don't understand people who object to this surgery. There is nothing wrong with women who have an innate attraction for tall men, and there is nothing wrong with men who want to be attractive to those women.
That is just the reality of the world. Don't hate the players - hate the game.
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The problem is that it's still socially acceptable to see short stature as some objective faux-pas. There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. If the guy said "Don't be so sure of yourself, black man" maybe it would have been acceptable in the 1920s, but it surely isn't now, and the fact that we can't see that calling someone "short" derogatorily is the same form of prejudicial discrimination shows that we as a society still don't understand the root of racism and prejudice. It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions.
Maybe at one time short stature was a decent signal for childhood malnutrition, but in our modern society short stature is mostly a matter of genetics, and there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life except socially derived ones. It used to be sexy to be fat, but as social perceptions caught up with the reality that calorie dense foods was actually abundant, we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies.
It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact.
Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
I'm 5'6, and after almost 15 years of dating sites to modern dating apps, I have indeed accepted that yes, I will very likely die alone. My therapist has even half-seriously suggested I try lying about my height, and qualms aside, from the studies I've read, any plausible-in-person exaggeration would gain me a couple of percentile points at most.
Jokes aside, percieved attractiveness privilege is by far the most prominent form of discrimination in society today. (After wealth) Watching good.looking people coast through hard things purely because doors mysteriously open for them, is one of those things that you'd never believe it unless you see it.
Height is obviously the most prominent of those features among men. Sadly, it is tied to the most fundamental of social phenomenon (mating), and no amount of moralizing around it is going to change anything unless women change change their dating preferences. (Goes both ways, but women are generally the ones with hangups over height)
You're being overly dramatic and don't have any to support your claim. It is not really necessary to date dozens of women before getting married.
Dating many women in the first place is only the norm in a few western countries.
Also, I believe the dating apps are mostly used for casual sex, so the statistics there are not really relevant in the end.
It's as if we all go into it like ordering at a Burger King, except Have it your way (tm) comes out tasting like crap because we realize we aren't chefs. Online dating is how a bureaucrat decides to choose their life partner. The boxes you tick in online dating aren't important and are there just to pander to users.
I've experienced the "filter" issue with online dating, but my conclusions are entirely different.
I really don't mind it, in fact I appreciate it.
Anyone who would filter me out over something as shallow as height would undoubtedly be an extraordinarily poor match for me.
I prefer quality over quantity.
As to the "die alone" thing - that seems a bit grim.
I'm 46, since age 14 when I actively started dating the longest I've been single was for about 3 months after a bad break-up, and that was by choice.
Sure, when you don't have a height advantage you have to make it up in other ways - personality, fitness level, professional success, etc...
In general, I think my relatively modest stature has been a benefit to me. It forced me to be a better person, and to focus on qualities that matter, rather than superficial things.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/link-between-mens-height-divo...
The part about 200x the matches is both obviously pulled out of the air and grossly exaggerated. It looks like on average women tend to prefer men who are taller but not hugely different in height from themselves.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
If you are 5'6" you are most apt to be most attractive to women who are 5'4" or shorter which is helpfully 43% of women in the US.
You say you are very likely to die alone based entirely on a malarkey stat you pulled from thin air. You don't need hundreds of matches in a dating app to find one person you want to spend your life with. You need to instead cultivate qualities that would inspire ONE of many potentially worthwhile mates out there to make time with you and then work on enriching your life and relationship.
The problem with this fatalistic attitude is twofold. Firstly it spoils all hope of success to believe in yourself not one whit and second it holds that somehow MEN or at least yourself are rational whole mental and emotional creatures while somehow women are irrational animals who somehow cannot even see you. It's degrading to you and to hypothetical mates.
I know multiple tall, classically good looking men who, while they can can get dates, can not maintain them because they have zero relationship skills, and I know just as many short men who have a relationship whenever they want.
While height might be an early filter, it is by no means the only source of attraction. Men would do well to build the rest of their personalities to stand themselves out rather than complain about something they have no control over.
Obviously it’s better to be taller because that opens up more options. But the preference women have is for you to be taller than she is not that you have to hit some absolute value of 6’.
This is why you shouldn't put height in your dating profile, so you filter out a bunch of superficial people.
Why would it only get worse? How do you know this? I'm puzzled by the certainty.
Deleted Comment
Maybe in America. Plenty of countries where the average height is lower than what the article mentions. Not to mention that most European countries are "ahead" regarding respect than America.
Is this actually true?
> if you are short, you are very likely to die alone
This also seems like nonsense.
Dead Comment
So try to play the long game. You might meet your special someone later in life, who knows. Meanwhile in the short term, whoever doesn't appreciate you for what you are, look at it kind of like "well fuck 'em anyway," like they just self-selected out of your filter. Regardless, I'm 100% certain you won't be helping anything by trying to trick people into liking you. And I'm about 80% sure you won't even get anywhere by trying earnestly to be whatever stupid thing they want or think they want, or that some cost-free process of entering profile info on an app encourages them to blithely and carelessly say they want (because why not?). This goes not just for being short but for any human trait you do or don't possess. (And the only reason I allow 20% of hope there is because there's a possibility that through concerted effort you might actually manage to improve yourself in some way. But it should be something that came from you, something you yourself want to strive for, not something to please some fickle asshole and make them like and approve of you.)
It's not about what they want. It's about who you are, and whoever is the "audience" for that, is who you should be focusing on. What does Slayer care about Ariana Grande fans? Maybe on some level they wish they had as many fans as she does, but I'm pretty sure they aren't out there trying to impress them or win them over by being more Ariana-Grande-like. (I don't even know if Slayer is still a band; I might be dating myself.)
Editing to further bloviate: Who is going to mate with all the short women of the world? Tall guys? No, they're mostly looking for tall girlfriends. But short women need love too, and the ones who aren't so shallow and lacking in logistical foresight as to demand someone two full feet taller than themselves, are out there. Just a thought.
One detail stuck out to me in this piece: The fact that this guy continues to read anti-short-people hate online, and still reflexively feels slighted, but then "remembers" that he got this surgery, kind of speaks to the fact that a big part of this is in his own head. Hear me out. I'm not suggesting people aren't being total douches about those of diminutive stature, because I've witnessed it and I'm quite sure they are. If someone is saying a sentence where if you put "black" let's say, in place of "short," there would be hell to pay, well then... there should be hell to pay. It's not right. At the same time, there is always evil shit out there being hurled at someone. Even tall white rich males. (Maybe especially them, lately.) Do you let that inside your head and make it your own thought that follows you around, day and night, far outside the reach of the douche who said it? It's difficult to practice the level of mental & emotional discipline it takes to cast such thoughts out, but it is an area where you have some degree of control over the situation.
That thick skin is, IMHO, a trait that I think has become vastly underappreciated in our society.
I've seen hypocrisy and cruelty from people of all backgrounds. But anecdotally, among the "socially conscious women" I've spent time around, this, which is one of three top comments on the article, is a common sentiment:
> This is a reminder that the patriarchy hurts everyone and men should be just as invested in destroying it as women.
I get where you're coming from -- criticizing people for what they are, rather than for what they do, is exceedingly unfair -- but I can think of at least three important differences, chief among which are:
1. The shortness of men (barring outright dwarfism) has never been the object of widespread theories about their fundamental inferiority, nor have such theories been enshrined into widespread law.
2. Social institutions have never explicitly conspired to marginalize short men.
3. Redlining, lynching, the selling of persons into slavery, ghettos, etc. have no equivalent in the realm of height.
And to be frank, it's rather shocking that you would suggest otherwise. I don't doubt that you've been treated unfairly, and you are perfectly entitled to complain about it, but that doesn't require you to twist reality.
I understand your objection to drawing an equivalence between racial discrimination, but even if it isn’t as “bad” can’t it still recognized as a lesser form of bigotry?
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~apostlew/paper/pdf/short.pdf
you are forcing additional context where there is none.
Dead Comment
There are a reasonable number of women on dating sites that like saying pretty horrible things about shorter guys in there profiles.
I don't know that it does much but I've always treated it as a bit of a red flag and swiped left.
I don't think there's anything wrong with say, being attracted to someone taller than yourself, but I don't understand feeling the need to public ridicule someone about a physical trait you aren't attracted to.
People can like whoever they want to like. Some people may only like those of a certain height, weight, race, class, and any other attribute you may want to think of, but it is not necessarily wrong. It is up to each individual to have the freedom to date whoever they wish.
You might be conflating this with the societal denigration of certain races or classes, which is surely bad because there really is no reason to denigrate them, but that is not the same as saying everyone must be attracted to those of any combination of the above such factors.
Mate selection is not and should not be institutionalized which means that you are within your rights to discriminate on...anything. Your criteria may be based on "taste", past experiences or downright prejudice. It is inevitable that as you pick a mate, you discriminate.
You can't stop that nor should you. We can however openly discuss criteria that are unhealthy, perverted, make no sense...in an attempt to open people's minds. Not to control whom they can date, rather to open up possibilities. People may be missing out a lot by being needlessly restrictive.
As old man I might provide a shortcut. Cliche as it is, character stands the test of time. What is somebody like? Select for that, the rest is a bonus.
Not being attracted to short men and not wanting to reproduce with them is a personal thing. But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height.
I think that's a fair issue to bring up.
It also seems there might be real measurable pay-gaps, and that might need addressing as well.
I'm about 5"8, and am actually really happy with my height - it's perfect for the types of sports I do, I fit quite nicely on an airplane, and have no problem if I were to drive a smaller car.
I imagine for taller people those things could be a hassle, that flying would be a real pain, that they might look silly on a motorbike / skateboard, and coule develop back problems from bending down.
When it comes to dating, online dating apps suck in general, but honestly I've never felt like I've missed out. People don't even seem to truly know what they find attractive until they have someone placed in front of them. I've even had this experience myself where I've found a super tall girl attractive when I'd typically go for the shorties.
It's sad that people feel the need to do these operations. Honestly, I feel they could achieve a better outcome (feeling confident / adequate) by doing some martial arts and hitting the gym.
As others have mentioned it also depends where you live. The only time I truly felt short was in Amsterdam where it felt like the local bars were packed full of giants lol. I Thailand and India I've had the opposite experience.
This is true for lots of things. Being fast is better than being slow. Being smart is better than people simple. Being attractive is better than being ugly. Being fit is better than being fat. This isn't a happy realization but it's true and it's healthy to accept it.
The dimension along which all people are equal is a metaphysical or religious dimension, not an empirical one.
EDIT: Also I should add that people are reading my comments automatically into the context of sexual preference, but I was talking more specifically about the general attitude that it's ok to deride people based on their genetic shortness. That being said, even if OK Cupid (Which is just a proxy for dating preference due to the specific nature of how it operates) showed that black woman were the least likely to get matched on OK Cupid doesn't mean it's ok to now make fun of them based on their skin color / cultural / racial background. Our perceptions about short people, black women, etc, are the results of social conditioning. Conditioned behavior will always lag the current reality. It is my belief that short stature does not hold the negative associations it once had, just as whatever was the reason for our preferences against black woman probably do not hold anymore.
We don't go around forcing people to start liking short people or black woman if they have not conditioned themselves to do so yet, but we also shouldn't be accepting adding fuel to the prejudicial fire.
No... if that were true then it would be OK to deride someone who was born with a deformed limb, because in that case the "inferiority" would really have an "objective basis in reality". They would be objectively inferior at certain tasks then someone without it. Does that make it ok to insult them?
Suggesting racism (or prejudice) is wrong simply because it's not objectively inferior is missing the point.
The actual answer, which I think you would have come to eventually, is that deride someone for an attribute they had no control over, is the essence of prejudice.
People do not chose to be born in a poor country, in an abusive family, black, French, short or handicap, these are simply the hands they were dealt.
Stop trying to sanitise the world, that's why no one can live in it.
I'm shifting all the way back on that one. Fat is fit. So I was talking to a girl, a model in fact, I was a model too, met a lot of models. I said I am going to want exactly the sort of woman I want, and no other, without any other man's judgment being taken into consideration at all.
So it's actually about white fat versus brown fat cells, apparently. Saturated or unsaturated, based on diet, to a lesser extent fat but to a greater extent sugars and especially toxins[1]. So without it women look ripped and bony. All the models I saw like that looked great on TV but terrible in real life, the models who didn't get work had that...that baby fat I guess you could call it. I got her to come around on the subject she was like, "yeah, a thin but not too thin and even layer of fat, it looks good!"
[1] Many but not all psychiatric compounds. All of them alter body fat, I think. Fluoride, for lots of reasons. So hard to escape that F'ing F atom. Then what other toxins...pesticides and especially fire-retardant.
Assuming that it is some innate quality that women are attracted to people taller than them is also flawed. What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work?
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Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Studies have shown that heterosexual women prefer partners taller than them. It's understandable this subconscious bias. And what seems like discrimination, it's just a natural product.
Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
Obviously taller men are naturally superior to shorter men and so it's just natural that they make more money. /sarcasm
And saying men have always shown a preference for larger breasts is begging the question. There are plenty of studies out there showing that breast size preference is complicated -- bigger is not always better.
Some cultures prefer medium sized breasts (actually, most studies I found this is the preference).[1] Poorer men might prefer larger breasts and richer men might prefer smaller breasts [2][3] Or maybe sexist men prefer larger breasts [4]
I don't think we know why women have the breasts they have or if breast size actually is a meaningful signifier of reproductive fitness. Seems like evidence points that women get breast implants because of their own opinions of their body image and not because it's an actual reproductive advantage.[5]
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905...
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20862533/
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23412650/
[5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-do-it/202001/...
Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?
Does this difference exist? I recall studies that showed that babies are afraid of people who look very different from them and their family members. As such I was under the impression that there was a genetic basis for discrimination of people based on some outward difference in appearance like skin colour that was due to people having an inherent distrust in the 'other.'
If that's the case it's not unreasonable to desire that society progress in a way that mitigate these biases against short people in the same way that we desire that society progresses in a way that mitigate biases against people of colour.
> Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
What kinds of things that you feel are due to an instinctual bias to discriminate against short people, and why should we not attempt to shut down this discrimination? If your children were short and they felt like they were discriminated against for being that way, what sort of advice would you give them?
https://twitter.com/heightismxposed
Swap "short guy" for "Jew" in the quotations from those twits that have nothing to do with attraction:
> I feel sorta bad, but when short guys talk to me all I can think is "wow, what is this miniature dude even saying?"
> cute short guys are waste of space and life tbh
> I don't take short guys serious at all.
> Ugly, short men kill yourselves!
> I can't respect short guys especially if we're the same eye level, I feel like I can beat you up lol
> Men under 5 feet 9 arent really men.
> There's too many short guys in the world
Hopefully the problem is apparent. (The first quote I listed is by a man, AFAICT.)
It's another thing if it becomes more a cultural expectation than an actual attraction, and I think the reaction would be rather different if enough men decided not to date women who don't have at least D cups.
Edited with context: The point is that men don't just prefer larger and larger breasts; there is a peak in preference for medium breast sizes[1]. But women do prefer as tall a man as they can get; there is no peak in male partner height preference among females.[2]
1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210352/ 2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...
My experiences in high school deeply affected my mental health.
But on the topic of hanging, just out of curiosity, I'd like to mention: I've been reading about the benefits of dead hangs for shoulder health, and I've seen a few comments from people who claim that dead hangs actually did make them taller. I wonder whether it's true.
Yes, I can do that for any statement and it has the same impact replace “people who are mean to me” with “Jews” in the sentence “I hate people who are mean to me”.
I don’t actually disagree with your content though.
It's just really weird to me that some people get angry about being short (understandably so) but instead of just admitting that, they turn to some kind of universalist morality as a way of shifting the burden to others
For example against Putin.
(Doesn't matter what you think of Putin - slurs based on personal appearance are always wrong against anyone full stop.)
But I'm not convinced punching upward in this manner to the obscenely rich and powerful should be considered universally wrong. If Putin did not want to be so judged, he wouldn't put out all those pictures of himself shirtless posing with horses and dolphins. I think he in particular is fair game.
(To be clear, this question applies to certain kinds of public figures and not the shy kid in the schoolyard)
On balance though, I think I agree with you.
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-Steven Wright
Though I believe what is said is (most usually) more important than who said what, I think even they will tell you, regarding statements like these, to consider the source. Also, rock stars, actors and fighter pilots always had insane game, and the tall ones are an anomaly (though, last 20 years or so, there has been a notable increase in average height due to a handful of extremely tall actors getting roles).
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Incidentally, A. T. Great is maybe evidence that this is a modern fixation, not something that's always been with us. It's fairly clear that he was unusually short, but there's little indication that anyone thought much of it; by contrast, the idea that Napoleon (who wasn't even short!) was short was a propaganda point for the UK.
I feel like I need to point out that nobody ever genocided millions of short guys based on their height. :-/
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EDIT: It may also be relevant that she was also at least 4 inches shorter than me, so there was no risk of me looking shorter than her, even if she had heels on.
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Speaking from personal experience relationships cause a kind of brain damage where it is hard to notice both the stop signs and the green lights.
This must have just been a cruel strategic denigration.
I guess I appreciate the brutal honesty. Wealth and height. And not to forget social status, as one woman in the linked article explained how she broke up with a short guy because of what others (might) think of it.
Not a word is wasted on actual love. The stereotype that women barely ever date "below" them, in wealth, height, status, remains true. Your character still matters, but only after checking the above boxes. Men are selected by utility, with disastrous consequences for those that get left behind, as there's no mercy for them.
You can't explain the harsh "be 6' or keep moving" requirement or the open ridiculing of short men on evolutionary selection alone. It's a US-dominant cultural trend. In many other countries no woman would have such exact and absolute demands. It might be a soft unspoken preference at best. Making it a "do or die" requirement is cultural.
Similarly, wealth is not an evolutionary selector for the simple reason that wealth didn't exist until 10K years ago. You could make the point though that wealth is a representation of security, in an indirect way.
In any case, I just find it disturbing how superficial the matchmaking is. When you use a criteria, it's supposed to increase your chance of success, meaning a "happily ever after" story. None of these criteria do that. Beauty fades and none of us are beautiful in the morning. Wealth doesn't buy love. Height does absolutely nothing for a relationship. And yet women insist on it.
The female version is equally disturbing but different. I've never met or talked to a man that finds fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup in any remote way attractive, or a "selector". So the depressing reality is that women largely do this in a competition towards other women, and this perverted rat race knows many victims.
For the cynics that may think that I'm coping, I'm not. I'm 6"4 and in a loving long term relationship. That doesn't stop me from caring about the perverted mate selection dynamics of today that are downright cruel and throws good people aside as if trash.
As a 5'5" Asian man (statistically one of the lowest rate of matches in online dating), I find it personally demeaning that you feel like you need to be morally outraged for me, because trust me, I sure as shit don't need it.
People are attracted to attractive people. That fact has been true for all of history. Not only do attractive people get more dates, they're more likely to rise to higher positions in business and society, and earn more money. Height is only one factor in attractiveness. Are you going to be morally outraged about attractive people next? Are you going to shake your hand at the sky and ask "what about love?!?" next time you see two tall attractive people on a date?
Also, citation needed on your claim that height selection is US-only. My anecdotal experience is that foreign-born women also have height preferences.
Your assertion on female plastic surgery is equally ridiculous, and dare I say, downright ignorant. No, you haven't met a man who is attracted to plastic surgery, but you've definitely met men attracted to the results of plastic surgery. You've also probably met hundreds of women who have done some form of plastic surgery, you just haven't noticed because it's tastefully done. I'd dare claim the ridiculous plastic surgery is the exception, not the rule. Your idea that women do this to compete against other women in a broken society, and not because men are attracted to certain features, is laughable.
Yes people are attracted to attractive people, but people can also do things to make themselves more attractive. I personally go to the gym, try to wear fashionable clothes, and groom myself. Are you going to gasp in shock and "but you shouldn't have to do that because of love!!!" Note that this is not a cynical take. I would say "the world is going to hell because some women put '6 foot only' on Tinder and get plastic surgery" is more cynical.
Get off your high horse. You discredit us all.
If you had bothered to read my post with care, you'd perhaps noticed the nuance where I said height can be a soft unspoken preference, which indeed is widespread.
I objected specifically against this preference becoming a rock hard criteria at some weird absolute point, say 6". That is a societal trend. It's culture, not biology. It's the hardening of a criteria that has led to the guy in the article being so desperate to do a ridiculously dangerous, painful and expensive surgery to "grow" a few inches. If you think it's normal that society sorts people into attractive or unattractive based on 4 inches, I don't know what to say to you.
As for the citation you requested, I come from the land featuring the tallest men in the world: the Netherlands. My 6"4 means absolutely nothing here. There's tons of people towering an additional head above me.
Even in this perfect shopping mall for women as it comes to height, I've never once heard a single woman turn it into a hard demand. There's plenty of short men here too, several of my friends are, they're all doing fine in dating. So no, it's not a thing here from my anecdotal experience. Preferences may still exist, but not in the sickening way where you completely filter out people based on such superficial and useless "quality".
I don't think I said that the world is falling apart, that escalation is on you. In all your rage you're missing the forest for the trees.
But do double down on your superficial attractiveness. You might get a foot in the door, after which true selection begins. Good luck, young one.
I come from a country where 6 ft.+ is considered pretty tall so I totally believe that this type of metric is not universal. In fact, there is no real analogue there and I have never heard of a female mentioning a specific height as a preference.
It was a total culture shock to me how big of a deal your height as a number is in parts of the US culture which frankly I find vacuous and sickening.
I mainly blame this on the toxic culture on the "dating" apps. (Also perhaps the imperial measurement system? lol). I guess those who knowingly participate in it have accepted the terms of use.
The grandparent poster clearly said "fake boobs, duck lips, botox, fake bums, fake tans, an inch of makeup", so they're clearly not talking about women who did any sort of "tasteful" (to use your word) surgery, natural tanning or regular makeup.
If it was this cut-and-dry, 80% of American women would just be single at any given point in time, or they'd all be in polyamorous relationships, or dating their own gender. Only 20% of American men are 6'0".
I'm assuming that it's not this cut-and-dry, and that most American women are willing to date the other 80% of men.
We could just accept that as "the way it is", but modern developments in this dynamic create horrendous imbalances. There was an excellent article about it a while ago, but I don't have the link, so I'll try to reproduce the gist of it.
Assume the behavior that women select "above" them. Now add the trend where women are rapidly rising in their economic status. The logical outcome is that a growing number of women are basically selecting for a "super man", that are in very short supply. They need to be even more economically successful than before, and of course easy on the eyes and able to do male chores. And emotionally mature/advanced. And....and.....and....and.
This dynamic is often confirmed by research on dating sites where the vast majority of female attention goes to the "top" 10% of men, whilst everybody else is pretty much ignored. This in turn creates a counter-reaction where the ignored men basically just use a drag net, posting many low effort messages (any love is good love) that confirm to the women that those men are of a poor quality.
For sure, a lot of settlement and compromises will happen to match more than just 10%, but the point of the article was that the elevated criteria leaves behind an enormous group of men, in the US running into the millions.
These men might be low wage workers with average looks, and not much else going for them. This used to be enough, but it isn't anymore. They get no match. Ever. Many run into depression, start drinking, end up on the streets, kill themselves.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because it's worthy to know this, it's a fairly new development that few talk about. And I say it to highlight how cruel our society is towards men at the bottom. If as a man you don't make it on your own, there's zero empathy.
I'll be hated for saying it, but women play a decisive role in this dynamic. Whilst for sure they can date whoever they want, the stubborn refusal to even consider vast groups of men based on their wealth or height is inhumane. I find it particularly hypocritical in light of modern feminism where it's often expressed how household and childcare tasks should be more equally divided.
These men would be an ideal fit. They'd have the less important job, thus more ability to do it. I'm sure that amidst millions of such men, one can find a nice guy with reasonable looks.
But no. They're not even considered. I guess the point wasn't equality after all. The patriarchy is powered by women.
That’s the problem. Online dating is a shitshow.
For every 1 match a man gets, the average women gets somewhere around 150 matches*. You simply can’t evaluate on anything but looks and basic surface-level traits (how each person responds to 3 random prompts).
How many short men interact with women regularly in-person and still have trouble getting dates?
* Seriously, google it. The ratio of accounts is around 10 men per woman, but lots of men swipe everyone and some men buy unlimited swipes, which is how it’s this bad. The average man gets something like 4 matches per week, while the average woman gets hundreds.
I find everything on that list extremely unattractive, minus that last one: what's wrong with makeup? If it's not used excessively, it can look attractive. (I often tend to prefer how people look without makeup or with only light makeup, but some who are very good at makeup sometimes look better with it, in my opinion.)
To each their own though. I do like elegant makeup, it can definitely amplify natural beauty.
I think this means (hyperbolically) "makeup an inch thick".
Tall women face exactly the same issue as short men. HN is overwhelmingly made, though, and has failed to make that connection.
i highly doubt so. Tall women might face _some_ discrimination from men who don't want a partner taller than him, but those men don't deride tall women at all. And i think a tall women stand a better chance at initiating a date with a shorter man, than the reverse.
Hang on homie. There are some boob jobs that are AMAZING. Not the California two oranges taped to a rake style, but that’s not everything out there.
Off the top of my head (with only the tiniest bit of shame because she is drop dead gorgeous), Kirara Asuka has an amazing/best boob job. And if you can look at her and not find her attractive, you’re probably lying almost certainly lying.
And while talking about plastic surgery and unwelcome societal preferences, look up the percentage of Asian people that get blepharoplasty in some form. It’s nuts. So imagine your eye lids being added to the list of things to fret over.
That's been true for eternity. Men are attracted by youth and beauty, women by height and wealth. Is everyone in this thread an orphan raised by disney/media. Nobody had mothers, sisters, aunts, female cousins, friends, etc?
> That doesn't stop me from caring about the perverted mate selection dynamics of today that are downright cruel and throws good people aside as if trash.
Nobody gets thrown aside. Women may prefer tall/wealthy and men may prefer young/beautiful, but at the end of the day, everyone settles. Most short and/or poor men marry as do older and/or ugly women. Everybody wants to date the hot cheerleader but everybody can't. So they just accept reality and date someone else instead.
My cousin had this procedure done almost 30 years ago, but she was pathologically small, at a height which makes it hard to function.
Y’know what’s funny too? I’ve never once met someone who both admired big noses and chose to increase the size of their own. I guess that’s society for you…
[1] - https://www.floridacosmeticsurgerycenter.com/services/plasti...
Perhaps some nose jobs end up closer to the hair dyes and teeth straightening end of the spectrum, but I can't help but see a clear distinction when you start cutting flesh and breaking bone.
While I agree that it’s probably not worth it for the operation, multiple studies have shown that heigh is an important factor in mate selection (and I believe there’s a consensus on it), so using the word insecurity, which refers to a mental problem, diverts thinking of alternative solutions (like better fitness) to a bad direction.
At the end of the day, these are elective surgeries too frequently used as an attempt to mask a pathological low self esteem.
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Also, I've seen short (and bald!) people have amazing dating lives. The key is that they're confident, funny, and actually care about the people they interact with. It's so easy to blame something like height so one don't have to improve who they are on the inside.
It’s the one bit of advice I’ll make sure to pass on.
Several years ago, there was a guy on Twitter, "heightism" or something, who just re-tweeted crappy things women tweeted about "short guys," much of it in a vein like "ugh, why do they even exist?" I think he got banned but probably resurfaced.
It doesn't matter what people profess under duress, but with whom they go home.
I really don't understand people who deny that women have a very strong bias for height.
I also don't understand people who object to this surgery. There is nothing wrong with women who have an innate attraction for tall men, and there is nothing wrong with men who want to be attractive to those women.
That is just the reality of the world. Don't hate the players - hate the game.