Height Standards in Dating are Harmful, Ridiculous, Patriarchal Bullshit

This article won’t cover every angle of heightism’s pervasivenesses in our culture.

I won’t dive into the eugenics-style bullshit regarding sperm banks having a minimum height requirement of 5’8-5’9 for potential donors. Some are even more stringent, requiring white men specifically to be over 5’10.

I won’t dive into the fact that short men make less money on average and are less likely to get promoted than their taller counterparts. In part, because that’s actually not even something unique to short men. Women and people of color also, pretty famously, make less on average and are less likely to be promoted than tall white men, who seem to have a “leg-up” on everyone, not just short kings.

And, I won’t dive into the hypocrisy of my fellow progressives who, for all their legitimate, significant differences with the far right, do share one belief: When it comes to body shaming the opposition? Anything goes. Well, okay, let me dive a little, regarding this point.

If you spend any time on Twitter, you’ll notice jokes aimed at the likes of Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan are less about their ridiculous, comically bad, and often dangerous views, and more about their physical stature. 

Yes, the people who claim to be all about body positivity and ending the patriarchy also sometimes like to pay $17,000 for a skywriter to attach the phrase “Joe Rogan is literally 5’3” to the end of their marriage proposals.

Rogan isn’t actually 5’3, but the joke is that, for all his talk about being an “alpha male,” and his endorsement of stereotypical masculinity, he’s short. And short men can’t be masculine - because, they’re short! Get it? It’s funny. Even if a few vertically-challenged allies catch a stray in the process.

Only it’s not. I shouldn’t have to come to the defense of truly awful people in order to make a legitimate point, yet here we are. 

But again, I won’t dive into any of those things. I’ll uh, I’ll keep it short - this article will focus solely on how the pervasiveness of heightism affects dating.

If you haven’t heard, Tom Holland and Zendaya are an item. But, because we live in the world we do, a lot of people can’t just congratulate them on their happiness, or at the very least, mind their own business. They have to comment on the fact that Zendaya is *gasp*, noticeably taller than Tom. Well, this week, they finally talked about it. 

Spoiler alert! Neither of them care! Nor should any of us, but, you know - for the purpose of this article, we will.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the fact that Tom Holland isn’t actually short! He’s listed at 5’8 - one inch taller than the global average height of a man, and one inch shorter than both the US and UK average. He’s not exactly a “short king,” but the fact that he referred to himself as “quite short” in the interview above shows he feels he has to wear that label anyway - once again, proving how ridiculously obsessed this country in particular is with height.

And here’s why that obsession is problematic when it comes to dating:

First off, miss me with the “preferences” defense - a buzzword that comes up frequently when discussing this issue.

We all have preferences. But there’s a significant difference between preferences and requirements.

I very much prefer my potential partners to have the ass of an Instagram model. What can I say? I’m an ass man. Love me a big ol’ booty.

However, I don’t use the size of someone’s ass to decide who I will or won’t date. My soulmate (if she exists) might have a pancake ass for all I know. 

We’re so much more than our bodies. Am I really gonna walk away from something real, something meaningful, something special, because a woman’s ass size didn’t meet my requirements? How shallow would I have to be to do that?

But I get it - just like round, meaty butts are considered more attractive in our culture, so, too are taller men. I can understand a woman preferring a man be taller than her, but when it gets to the point that she’s rejecting anyone and everyone who doesn’t meet a very specific height? Yeah, that’s not a preference. So let’s stop hiding behind that word and call it out for the shallow, patriarchal absurdity that it is.

You’ll also hear the word “biology” thrown around a lot when it comes to this topic. People will actually use pseudoscience to explain why the man just has to be taller than the woman.

The problem is, if we’re to posit that women are subconsciously looking for “safety” and “protection” and are merely responding to the demands of their most primal, lizard brain emotions, and that it’s a biological fact that men have to be tall to be considered masculine:

(1) Are we ready to say that women need to be curvy to be considered “feminine?” You know, child-bearing hips, generous, milky breasts and all?

(2) Are we ready to say women aren’t as capable as men, hence why they need protection in the first place?

(3) Are we ready to say people in the LGBTQ community are biologically “broken,” because their attraction to the same sex doesn’t lead to childbirth, and the only reason we fuck is to reproduce and strengthen our species?

I’m assuming no, we’re not ready to say any of those patently false and offensively wrong things. You can’t pick and choose pseudoscientific beliefs when it benefits you. So, just like the “preferences” defense, let’s leave science out of this. Especially when it’s not even real science.

And I haven’t even touched on the depiction of short men in our culture as being testosterone-deprived, insecure, bitter little men who overcompensate by working out, or wearing nice clothes, or being funny, or, basically existing.

We’ve created a culture that insults short men and portrays them in a negative light at every turn, then have the audacity to say they’re insecure or overcompensating. The cultural equivalent of “Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself.” 

The fact I’m even writing this article will probably be seen by some as a sign of insecurity, I’m sure. Although, I’m not. I’m just acutely aware of how short men are perceived in our culture.

But of course this kind of thing is going to have a harmful effect on men in general. Just like we’ve created a litany of insecurities in women, some of which lead to eating disorders and an obsession with plastic surgery - some men are gonna fall victim to their height insecurities. Only, when men are insecure, they express it in misogynistic, often dangerous and violent ways. It would help all of us, regardless of gender, to start eradicating some of these dated, patriarchal norms.

And none of this even begins to address the negative experiences of people on the other end of the dating spectrum - tall women.

How do they feel about all this? How do they feel about growing up in a culture that says being dainty and petite is feminine, and anything other than that is masculine and gross?

They’re faced with two options: 

(1) Join the overwhelming majority of women who refuse to date a shorter man (one study showed only 4% of women are willing to do so), reinforce the dated gender norms and look for someone taller than them, which would obviously be a statistically harder road to take, especially when you have to factor in other real, legitimate requirements for a partner to meet, like age range, location, lifestyle, beliefs, etc.

(2) Break away from social norms and date someone shorter, facing ridicule, scrutiny, and their own insecurities in the process.

Neither option is easy, and to be fair, there are men who would be uncomfortable dating someone taller, so sometimes even if you are ready to take the short king plunge, the dude may not be, and for that I’m sorry.

But for the record, when it comes to me personally? A proud short king? I’m more than comfortable with a taller woman. I’m also comfortable with a woman making more than me, for what it’s worth. I don’t tie my “masculinity” to ridiculous things like height or money or status. I’m confident and comfortable in my own skin - namely because I can’t change my skin, so it is what it is.

I say, let me be the Tom to your Zendaya. I’m cool with it, if you’re cool with it.

But that’s just me.

So, big picture here - what do we do? 

Well, with 2022 only weeks away, let’s make a resolution to normalize relationships between a taller woman and a shorter man. 

Let’s get rid of these “masculine” and “feminine” labels that box us in. Not just for cis men and women, but also for people transitioning who feel like they won’t be a “real” man or a “real” woman because of their unchangeable physical stature. 

If we’re serious about finding love, let’s be a little more open minded in our search, especially when it comes to something as insignificant as a height difference.

And if you consider yourself a progressive, a feminist, someone against body shaming, and/or someone who wants to bring an end to the patriarchy, maybe don’t actively embrace one of its last culturally acceptable tenets by demonizing short men, viewing tall women as less feminine, and/or placing ridiculous height requirements on your dating partners at the expense of everything else.

Some people are short. Some people are average. Some people are tall. Height is a benign physical attribute that says nothing about a person’s character.

So let’s stop assuming things about one’s character based on it.

It may prevent you from finding your Zendaya or Tom.