There was a thread a couple/three weeks ago, where the OP was worried about hir son ending up “too tall”. Of course there were plenty of reassuring replies, but I noticed that several of them specifically said it was better to be tall than short. At least for a guy. (Being a tall woman is a different trip, but I can’t remember if that was discussed.)
I’m 5’1" and female. That would be unusually short for a male, and it’s fairly short for a woman, at that. Yet I don’t feel it’s impacted my life in any serious way. I have to use a step stool to reach shelves and so forth that would be within easy reach of someone six feet or taller. That’s it; that’s the only negative I can think of. On the plus side, I can sleep just about anywhere, like on planes. That’s a woman’s perspective, though. So…
Where on the spectrum does “short” begin, for a man? 5’9", maybe, or is that still “average”?
If a guy is “short”, whatever height that may be, so what? Seriously. No one in that thread was being nasty, mind you, but it comes up so often. IRL, elsewhere on the net, in media. It seems that to some people, being a “short” man is a disfigurement, like having a port-wine stain or a cleft lip. Or that it even makes him less masculine. Has anyone experienced that in their own life?
My crackpot theory is that most of us spent our formative years as children, around other children, whose height roughly correlated with their age, which roughly correlated to their maturity, strength, knowledge of the world, privilege, leadership ability, etc. Even after we grow up, we don’t ever necessarily entirely lose that idea.
I’ve long said that being LGBTQ doesn’t automatically imply any sense of confusion, mental illness, or incremental duress.
Society’s judgment and intolerance does.
To my way of thinking.
Being much shorter, or taller, than average probably has societally-constructed issues that are functional in addition to the ‘judgment’ of peers.
Everything is basically designed for an ‘average-sized’ person. The world – arguably for good reason – shoots for the middle, and those a few standard dev’s from the mean have some non-trivial price to pay.
In time, will more things be ‘tailor made’ for the broader variety of body types that our population represents ? Maybe. Hopefully.
And, then, just as diversity tends to breed tolerance, maybe the ‘stigma’ piece will fade away, too.
I am 45 year White male who is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs around 230 pounds. So I am shorter than most men in my area. I really don’t have Napoleon complex i that is what you mean.
My biggest problem is finding clothes that fit. Pants and jeans that fit my waist tend to be too long and I have to roll up or hem the legs. Shirts that fit over my gut tend to look too long on me as well.
In general, people do not take short men seriously. If they are bold, they are accused of a Napoleon complex. If they are quiet, they are ignored. As the above studies show, they earn less because they are consistently - whether consciously or unconsciously - passed over for taller men, who are perceived as being more capable, better leaders, and more authoritative. Jobs that require physicality are prestigious and short men are virtually barred from them. Very few short men go into professional sports or work in police or fire jobs. Short men learn about microagressions at a very early age. Any successful short man is seen as an outlier and someone to make fun of. Their height will be mentioned on every occasion. If their name must be given, it will be accompanied by the adjective “diminutive.” No group labeled as diminutive ever will be as successful as those who are considered normal or tall.
When I was doing singles, lo these many years ago, the number of women demanding tall men seemed to run about 50%. I never saw any asking for short men.
(For the record, at my tallest I was just 1/4 inch short of six feet. I think I have lost some height, of course)
I earn more than five times the median income in the US, so my short stature hasn’t hurt me there. I’m 5’ 6" and I had a manager for a while who was 2" shorter than me, and it didn’t seem to hurt him. I agree that socially, specifically dating, my height has been a problem or at least my income doesn’t correct for it. And no, to my knowledge I’m not “little Squeegee” to anyone.
I’d appreciate hearing from more actually short men like @dorvann to tell their own experiences rather than theorize.
As far as dating I don’t date so I can’t offer any examples with dating.
I am fairly introverted so its hard for me to know if people interacting with me judge me for being below average height. I have noticed people largely ignore me; I am not sure if its because I am naturally shy or my height.
I have noticed with my extended family I am the last male to be asked when it comes to needing any help that involves intense physical activity. However, that could be more to me being morbidly obese and out of shape than just being shorter than average.
It’s hard for me to pick out any time as an adult I was treated differently solely because I am below average height.
As a child that was a different story I was always one of the shortest boys in my grade. I was joked with and bullied about it(being called the runt, for example). I was fairly skinny and nonathletic as a child as well so I was always one of last picked to play sports with in gym or at recess. (I didn’t start really putting on weight until my late 20s)
Just to get some statistics straight, the average height for an adult American woman is 5’ 4.1" and the average height for an adult American man is 5’ 9.5".
Yeah anytime I see a woman on Tinder and OKCupid if they list “requirements” of men, height is almost always the first one. 6’0" is usually the “starting point” but taller women tend to pick heights that match or exceed their own.
In order of importance if a woman has requirements listed it’s always
I was 5’5" before old-age shrink set it, but I was never comfortable around guys who were lots taller than I was. 5’9" seemed to be the limit of my comfort zone. It’s not that I dislike taller men - it’s just that standing next to someone who towers over me makes me feel insignificant and invisible.
I dated one guy who was (as he put it) 5’15" and he was lots of fun, and quite good-looking, but he was just too tall. I had a couple of classmates who were in the 6’8"-6’10" neighborhood and they thought it was hilarious to stand next to me with their elbows resting on my head. Yeah, whatever.
One of my sisters is a foot shorter than her husband, and privately I always thought they looked funny standing together. I’d never say that to them, but it always struck me as “What’s wrong with this picture?”
So, to answer the OP, for me, male shortness isn’t a terrible thing. Sheesh, it’s not like it’s something one can control or change!
I’m 5’5", and I’ve got a lot of easy settings on my life: white, male, grew up in a family with educated parents who themselves got financial help from their parents, American citizen, straight, cis, raised in the dominant religion in my culture, etc. So I’m not gonna complain about the hand I got dealt.
But height? That’s a harder difficulty setting. It’s not like “trans” or “my dad got killed by the cops when I was five” or anything. But yeah, it’s had an impact.
Psychologically, the shit I caught as a very short boy growing up in the eighties was pretty significant. Dating was really difficult for me, and I think height was a piece of that. 5’5" isn’t terrible, but AFAICT it’s harder than 5’10" would be.
Shrug. We all got difficulties in life, and I think I got off pretty easy.
Heights in America form two bell curves, one for men, one for women. Approximately 4% of men are shorter than the average woman. That’s a huge and noticeable discrepancy. My college roommate and best friend was 6’5". More than a foot taller. We were noticeable every time we walked outside our dorm together.
As said by others, it is mostly a problem in dating, but short men are likely to be paid less than tall men, and short men are less likely to become president. I’m 5’3", and agree with the comments that many women draw a line at 6’ or whatever, for prospective dates. If you’re not looking at dating profiles for hetero women, you’re unlikely to see it. (Maybe gay women’s profiles also have height requirements, but I’ve never spent time browsing those.)
The best gender swapped analogy I can think of for a woman is age. A woman who is 25 is probably going to have many more people interested in dating her than a woman who is 55. I know your sister in-law is 60 and going on dates all the time, or whatever, this is about averages, and typicals, and such, not how many of you find Jennifer Lopez (51 as of this posting) attractive.
Think of the complaint many women of a certain age have of being invisible. It can be similar for short men. Those women at the party are clearly coming over to talk to your tall friend. They’re polite to you, but are clearly not in your group to talk to you.
The other way to put it, is a man being short makes lots of social things harder in a way that a woman being short does not, but perhaps similar to ways that a woman being older does.