Business Day Live publishes shorter man hate letter

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2014/02/27/letter-warner-falls-short

For no apparent reason, Business Day Live have published a hateful letter directed at Australian Cricketer David Warner, under the HILARIOUS title 'Warner falls short'.

You can read the letter at the above link but the essence of it is that Warner is a shorter man, so that explains why he is allegedly aggressive and argumentative. As shown in this quote.

Warner stands a mere 170cm tall — the same height as Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems likely that Mr Warner suffers from the same short-man syndrome as did many of history’s aggressive and dangerous characters.

So lets address what's wrong with this one point at time. 

Point One

For the last time world, Napoleon was average height for his time.

Also lets take a look at some of history's other aggressive and dangerous characters.

Osama bin Laden - 6 foot 4

Saddam Hussein - 6 foot 2

In fact if you look into the subject you will find that there are lots of aggressive and dangerous characters across the spectrum of height.

It's almost as though there is no correlation between height and personality. Shocking I know!

Point 2

Comparing a sportsman, however much you might dislike him, to a dictator is pretty disgusting. To my knowledge, David Warner has not instigated any wars or attempted to cease political power for himself. To compare him to a man who caused huge suffering and upheaval in people's lives is deeply unfunny.

Point 3

I don't follow cricket and I don't know David Warner. Perhaps he does say lots of things

in a highly aggressive manner designed to bring on controversy.

 and perhaps he does deserve some criticism for that. I  have no idea, but I do know that attributing this to his height in this cruel and mocking way is just wrong. Perhaps his personality is down to the fact he is a sportsman who are known for their competitive nature and well developed egos? Perhaps he was just born that way? Who knows.

Pulling out the oh-so-tired short man syndrome joke is wrong and ever so ever so dull.





 

Newspaper makes fun of womens sexual assualt - in order to make a height joke.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/cops-hunt-extremely-short-man-groped-woman-brooklyn-article-1.1612696

The NY Daily News recently posted the details about the alleged sexual assault of a women at a train station in Brooklyn. It is claimed that a shorter man fondled her before running away.

Sadly the NY Daily News didn't just report this story, they decided to lace it with heightism puns, because shorter people are hilarious!!

Some quotes

This little guy is going to be in big trouble when cops get their hands on him.

He's short geddit!! And he'll be in BIG trouble. Lolz!

 A man described as being “extremely short in stature” grabbed an unsuspecting woman’s backside at a Brooklyn train station and then hightailed it out of there

He hightailed it. Because he's short. Geddit! LOOOOLLLLzZZ!

They also refer to the man as a

tiny creep

There is an element of mockery here which is really cruel. The women involved in this case has suffered a traumatic experience, no one reporting on it should mine it for silly jokes. The jokes may not be directed at her, but she is the one who suffers from them. Linking her suffering with a few cheap jokes cheapens her and implies that her assault is funny too.

I also wonder if this story would even have made the papers if it had not involved a shorter man and lacked, what in some people's eyes, is a comedy element. I'm told that assaults of this nature on public transport are, sadly, fairly common. I imagine in a such a big metropolis as New York they happen every day if not several times a day.  Yet they don't seem to make the papers. Only this story with it's comedy shorter man has made the news.

I feel really sorry for this poor women.

They never say this about taller people

I saw a trailer for some sort of reality show today, one of those American ones which focuses on people running a business. Each member of the team was introduced with some comment about what they brought to the business. No comment was made about their bodies. Even the women, who was very beautiful, was only described in terms of her skills and no mention was made to her being 'hot' which is somewhat unusual and was nice to see.

There was a shorter man on the team and they said something along the lines of 'This is Bob, he's only 5 foot 5 but he has a big heart'.

Why on Earth did they feel the need to say this? It was almost like they were apologising for the fact that he was a shorter man. It felt like what they were saying is 'Hey everyone this is Bob, he's short, but don't let that worry you, he is still a fully functional human being with the normal amount of human emotions.'

The tone of the comment made it seem like being shorter was a defect so bad it needed to be offset by some other positive quality.

It's this sort of thing, just quietly tucked away in the back ground of everyday life, that I want to show people when they claim that 'heightism' isn't a thing. If no one cares how tall you are, why do people feel the need to explain away a mans height.

A women's view on heightism

Yet more articles prompted by the Oxford study. This piece was written by Daisy Buchanan, a journalist writing for the Telegraph not the one of Great Gatsby fame, and it's a really good read.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10608220/How-I-learnt-to-love-short-men.html

As a shorter women I found this section written by particularly interesting.

Looking back, I think my problems were mainly to do with my own insecurities. I’m no giant, at 5”7, but I’ve been that height since I was 12, and when the other girls around me seemed delicate and petite, I always felt a bit ungainly. It took me a long time to feel feminine on my own terms, but being on the arm of a tall man did the trick.

It's really sad to hear of yet more unnecessary pain and mental anguish caused by heightism.

Ms. Buchanan goes on to describe her initial prejudices against shorter men, but how she overcame them when she met her boyfriend. She goes on to decry the general prejudice against shorter men.

This next section particularly chimed with me.

Very occasionally, in my online dating days, I’d encounter men who would be ultra specific about a preferred hair colour, body shape or breast type, and be outraged. Surely you’ve got to be horribly shallow and creepy if you’re basing your requirements for long term happiness on cup size? But it seems far more common, and far more acceptable for women to rule out romantic suitors because they don’t measure up in feet and inches. It’s a damaging double standard, and one that women need to address if they’re looking for love, otherwise they might find themselves staying single for a long time.

 I particularly enjoyed the way she signs off the article.

 If single women make one dating resolution for 2014, I think they should give a shorter guy a chance. You might end up looking down a lot, but your odds of finding The One can only go up.

Good advice for all. 

Sean O'Grady's excellent comments on Oxford shorter people study

The story about the Oxford University study I mentioned in my last post has really taken off and been picked up by many news outlets, usually under patronising headlines about short man syndrome - alas.

However I really enjoyed this take on it written by Sean O'Grady, who writes for the Independent. It's great to see his take on the situation so do pop over there to have a look.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/short-shrift-a-new-oxford-study-confirms-prejudices-about-the-vertically-challenged-in-a-lessthanscientific-way-9094397.html

I particularly enjoyed his closing comments.

I would prefer to see a study of "Tall Man Syndrome", to discover whether those over, say, 6ft are predisposed to be arrogant, bossy and perhaps a bit too relaxed about their position in life. Or maybe, as I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of these tall poppies, I'm just being insecure.

Scientists prove what shorter people know all too well.

Scientists from the University of Oxford undertook an interesting virtual reality experiment, the results of which confirmed what shorter people already know - being shorter makes people nervous when interacting with others.

I wish I could find out more details but the article on the ITV website is scant on them and they posted the article under the awful headline 'Short man syndrome does exist - research finds'.

What I find interesting about this study is what it suggests about the mindset of people who are so called 'normal' height. It seems to me that people are aware of heightism either consciously or unconsciously, so much so that the experience of suddenly finding themselves in a shorter body is disturbing for them. They know they aren't safe from that type of prejudice anymore and they respond accordingly.

Interesting.

A real and imaginary dating anecdote compared.

Trigger warning for terms offensive to shorter people and overweight people

Yet more heightism courtesy of the dating world.

This time it's from 'Joanna'. I have no idea if Joanna is a real person or if she was made up by a journalist to fill some space in the Chicago Sun Times. Whether real or imaginary Joanna took the time to contribute to a piece about terrible blind dates. Here is what she had to say.

JOANNA: I had a friend who was always trying to fix me up with short guys. I’m 5’2” and she was a lot taller. She wouldn’t date a guy who was too short and passed up some really nice guys. I never turned a guy down because he was too short, but I did tell her I didn’t want to perpetuate a race of Munchkins.

It drove her crazy when I married my 6-foot tall husband. She’s still single.

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/25080826-423/when-bad-dates-happen-to-good-people.html

I've read this several times trying to find a thread of logic in what she's saying but so far I've failed.

Firstly she critises her friend for not wanting to date men shorter then herself whilst piously claiming she wouldn't do this herself. But then says she would because, heaven forbid, if she married a short man she might have short children. I guess she's trying to argue that her taller friend could get away with marrying a shorter man because they might balance each other out? How charming.

Then she married a 6-foot tall man. I hope he had some other redeeming qualities because this is the only one she seems to find worth mentioning.

It's funny how you can read something so breath-takingly shallow and still feel like you are drowning.

On this blog I often argue that things that are written about shorter men that you would never see written in a newspaper about any other group but I never really explored the point further. So I wrote it out again but this time I changed the genders and imagined that it was a man writing about fat women. I'm a fat women myself, so it wasn't pleasant to use these hateful terms but I found it a good exercise in challenging my thinking. 

JOHN: I had a friend who was always trying to fix me up with fat women. I'm fat but he was skinny. He wouldn't date a women who was too fat and passed up some really nice women. I never turned down a women because she was fat, but I did tell him I didn't want to perpetuate a race of Fatties. It drove him crazy when I married my skinny wife. He's still single.

I just don't believe that any newspaper would publish a thing like this. Blogs in the dark recesses of the internet - sure. The newspapers and established publications however wouldn't do it because they'd know that they would be on the receiving end of so many complaints it wouldn't be worth it. Something like this wouldn't make it through the editorial process. Even in our current atmosphere of fat shaming, where pictures of skinny actresses who've gained 2 ounces are tabloid fodder, you wouldn't get this. Nothing this nakedly openly hateful. I think there would be a lot of people saying John and his friends were small minded misogynists.

Yet a person writes something so hateful about shorter men and no one seems to care.