We’ve talked about body-shaming before. Actually, we’ve talked about body-shaming literally too many times to count. Most of what we’ve talked about was fat-shaming, mocking skinny people for being too skinny, and generally being a bully about things people can’t change about their looks.
But you know what? We’ve never really talked about height-shaming short men. Well, sure, we did a little, but we didn’t really go into it. And, yes, as ludicrous as it seems, mocking people for being too short can fall under body-shaming.
Before you say something like “hey, don’t you think you’re being a little too dramatic?”, gives us two seconds to explain.
See, here’s the thing. Making short jokes about your friend who can’t reach the top shelf while you easily can is one thing and mocking someone, in general with no context or relationship needed, for being too short is something else.
It’s different because the kind of mockery that some short men face is basically an attack against their entire personality. See, while being tall is seen as masculine and assertive and, generally, attractive, being short isn’t at all like that.
Shorter men are actually seen as…not all that. And since this is a common societal notion, they’re seen as too kid-ish by many people and not as respectable as taller men. And — here’s the kicker — they’re actually seen as unattractive to date…BECAUSE they’re short and nothing else.
And, sure, we know what you’re about say about that last thing. Dating is all about preference and height is a factor in this. And, sure, you’ll be in the right about this.
But just because it’s a preference doesn’t mean that people don’t judge women who date shorter men. And it doesn’t mean that some people actually see it as something so embarrassing, it might as well be a curse.
Because this is what happens and as much as we wish it wasn’t this way, this is just the way society functions. Everyone makes fun of the way other people look and then they pretend it’s all about ‘preference‘ or ‘an opinion‘ — and some actually just admit they’re bullies!
Let’s start by doing something drastic — admit the fact that we have underlying perception of what ‘the ideal body‘ is for both men and women.
And then let’s admit that sometimes, this ideal type doesn’t really exist and that we need to accept people might not fit the standards we’ve ingrained and that it’s perfectly okay.
