Heightism is a form of
discriminationDiscrimination is a sociological term refering to treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group that is taken in consideration based on class or category. The United Nations explains: "Discriminatory behaviours take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or...
based on
heightHuman height is a measurement of the length of a human's body, from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head, when standing erect. It is still not demonstrated on what time on a day humans should get measured because the spine shrinks during the day and that makes people almost one inch...
. In principle it can refer to unfavorable treatment of either unusually tall or short people.
Bullying
Research shows that shorter people are more likely to be victims of bullying. Because bullying during childhood and adolescence often undermines the victim’s
self-esteemSelf-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth.Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions...
, some researchers speculate that the lower levels of achievement of shorter people (particularly men) in later life may be partly or largely explained by this lower self esteem rather than by
discriminationDiscrimination is a sociological term refering to treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group that is taken in consideration based on class or category. The United Nations explains: "Discriminatory behaviours take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or...
.
In business
Some jobs do require or at least favor tall people, including some manual labor jobs, most
professional sportsProfessional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are those in which athletes receive payment for their performance. While men have competed as professional athletes throughout much of modern history, only recently has it become common for women to have the opportunity to become professional...
, and fashion modeling. U.S. military pilots have to be 64 to 77 inches (163 to 196 cm) tall with a sitting height of 34 to 40 inches (86 to 102 cm). These exceptions noted, in the great majority of cases a person’s height would not seem to have an effect on how well they are able to perform their job. Nevertheless, studies have shown that short people are paid less than taller people, with disparities similar in magnitude to the race and gender gaps.
A survey of
Fortune 500The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
CEOA chief executive officer or chief executive is one of the highest-ranking corporate officers or administrators in charge of total management...
height in 2005 revealed that they were on average 6 feet (183 cm) tall, which is approximately 2-3 inches (7.5 cm) taller than the average American man. Fully 30% of these CEOs were 6 foot 2 inches (188 cm) tall or more; in comparison only 3.9% of the overall United States population is of this height. Similar surveys have uncovered that less than 3% of CEOs were below 5′7″ in (170 cm) height
or taller than 6'2" in height. Ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height.
Others believe that height has a significant independent impact on economic success, pointing to specific instances of height-based discrimination. Surveys of attitudes do reveal that people both perceive and treat people of shorter stature as inferior, and that economic differentials exist which may be the result of height discrimination. The relationship between height, cognitive ability, and discrimination based on height remains a subject of debate.
Intelligence
Some
epidemiologicalEpidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine...
studies have shown that
intelligenceIntelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence...
is positively correlated, albeit very slightly, with height in human populations (see
Height and intelligenceA positive correlation exists between human IQ and height within national populations, based on studies of developing adolescents that decreases with age....
). This does not imply that many short people are not highly intelligent, or that changes in physical height have a direct effect on cognitive ability. Intelligence is believed to be influenced by many different factors. Individuals with a wide range of intelligence can be observed at any given height.
In politics
Taller candidates have the advantage in electoral politics, at least in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(where statistics are available for study). Other countries may be different, such as Russia, where President
Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich Putin was the second President of Russia and is the current Prime Minister of Russia as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus...
is 5' 7.5" (1.71m) and the newly elected President
Dmitry MedvedevDmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third and current President of Russia, inaugurated on 7 May 2008. He won the presidential election held on 2 March 2008 with 71.25% of the popular vote....
is 5'5.5" (1.66m). France's President
Nicolas SarkozyNicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra...
is 5' 6.5" (168 cm). Of the 44 U.S. Presidents, only five have been more than an inch (2.54 cm) below average height. Quantitative studies of U.S. Senators and Governors have shown that they are on average several inches taller than the U.S. population at large. During the 2004 election, some anti-Bush artwork and political cartoons depicted him as much shorter than he actually stood, favoring Kerry, who was taller.
Non-electoral politics are more difficult to study, as outcomes based on height are more difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, a number of powerful dictators have been below average height. Examples include
Engelbert DollfussEngelbert Dollfuß was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman, who was chancellor of Austria from 1932 and right-wing dictator of Austria from 1933 until his assassination by Nazi agents in 1934....
(4′11″; 1.50m),
Deng XiaopingDeng Xiaoping was a prominent Chinese politician, statesman, theorist, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng became a reformer who led China towards market economics...
(5′0″; 1.52m), Kim Jong Il (5′3″; 1.60m),
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
(5′3″; 1.60m),
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, commonly known as Francisco Franco , or simply Franco, was a military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in 1975...
(5′4″; 1.63m),
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
(5′5″; 1.65m), and
Benito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
(5'6"; 1.68m). Contrary to popular impression, Napoleon Bonaparte at 5′7″ (1.70m) (taller than the average Frenchman at the time) and
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
at 5′8″ (1.73m) were both within the average height range for their times and places.
In the United Kingdom, the influential
Spitting ImageSpitting Image was a British satirical puppet show which ran on the ITV television network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one, for editing, in 1989....
satirical television series depicted
David SteelDavid Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, KT, KBE, PC is a British and Scottish politician and a Liberal Democrat member of the UK House of Lords...
as a midget. This was credited with undermining his political career. When the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
president
Nicolas SarkozyNicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra...
made a state visit to the UK in March 2008, the British press was uncommonly united in passing comment on the fact that he is a short man and in carrying a closeup photograph showing the sizeable heels on his shoes in contrast to the flat shoes of his taller wife,
Carla BruniCarla Bruni-Sarkozy is an Italian-born, naturalized French songwriter, singer, and former model...
.
See also
Napoleon ComplexNapoleon complex is a colloquial term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people, especially men, who are short in stature. The term is also used more generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of...
and Heights of United States Presidents and presidential candidates.
Conflict
Heightism is cited as one of the underlying causes of the
Rwandan GenocideThe Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by Hutus under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 500,000...
, in which approximately one million people were killed. It is believed that one of the reasons that political power was conferred to the minority
TutsiTutsi are one of three native peoples of the nations of Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa, the other two being the Twa and the Hutu.-Origins:...
s by the exiting Belgians was because they were taller and therefore (in the eyes of the Belgians) considered superior and more suited to governance.
Dating and marriage
Heightism may also be a factor in dating preferences. For some people, height is a major factor in sexual attractiveness.
The greater reproductive success of taller men is attested to by studies indicating that taller men are more likely to be married and to have more children, except in societies with severe gender imbalances caused by war. Quantitative studies of woman-for-men
personal advertisementA personal or personal ad is an item or notice traditionally in the newspaper, similar to a classified ad but in nature. In British English it is also commonly known as an advert in a lonely hearts column. With its rise in popularity, the World Wide Web has also become a common medium for...
s have shown strong preference for tall men, with a large percentage indicating that a man significantly below average height was unacceptable.
Conversely, studies have shown that women of below average height are more likely to be married and have children than women of above average height. Some reasons which have been suggested for this situation include earlier fertility of shorter women, and that a shorter woman makes her husband feel taller in comparison and therefore more masculine.
It is unclear and debated as to the extent to which such preferences are innate or are the function of a society in which height discrimination impacts on socio-economic status. Certainly, much is always made in newspapers and magazines of celebrity couples with a notable height difference, especially where a man is shorter than his wife (for example,
Jamie CullumJamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter, pianist, guitarist, and drummer.-Biography:Cullum was born at Romford Hospital in Essex. He was brought up in Hullavington, Wiltshire. Educated at the independent fee-paying Grittleton House School and the sixth form at Sheldon School...
, five inches (12.7 cm) shorter at 5'6" (1.68m) than
Sophie DahlSophie Dahl is an English author and former model. She is the daughter of actor Julian Holloway and writer Tessa Dahl. Her maternal grandparents were the author Roald Dahl and the actress Patricia Neal...
, though the difference is often exaggerated).
In the media
In the
mediaMass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. However, some forms of mass media such...
, heightism can take the form of making fun of people whose height is out of the normal range in ways that would be unseemly if directed at skin color or
massIn physics, mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...
. Examples of characters whose stature is exploited for comic value are:
- Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
- Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond
Everybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 13, 1996 to May 16, 2005.Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of lead actor Ray Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff...
.
- George Costanza
George Louis Costanza is a fictional character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Jason Alexander. He has variously been described as a "Short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man". He is friends with Jerry Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer, and Elaine Benes. George appears in every episode...
from SeinfeldSeinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. The eponymous series was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, with the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
.
- Lord Farquaad
Lord Farquaad is the main antagonist from the 2001 animated feature film Shrek. He was voiced by John Lithgow.- Shrek :Lord Farquaad is the comically short-in-stature, ruthless ruler of the huge castle of Duloc...
from ShrekShrek is a computer-animated American comedy film, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and starring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, the film was produced by DreamWorks Animation...
.
- Jay Sherman from The Critic
The Critic was an American animated series revolving around the life of movie critic Jay Sherman, voiced by actor Jon Lovitz. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, both of whom had worked as writers on The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994, finishing...
.
- Homer Stokes from O Brother, Where Art Thou?
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 adventure film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning...
.
- Bob from Becker
Becker is an American television sitcom that ran from 1998 to 2004 on CBS. Set in the New York City borough of The Bronx, the show starred Ted Danson as the title character, John Becker, a misanthropic doctor who operates a small practice and is constantly annoyed by his patients, co-workers,...
.
- Chet from Scrubs
Scrubs is an American comedy-drama created in 2001 by Bill Lawrence and produced currently by ABC Studios. The show follows the lives of several employees of Sacred Heart, a teaching hospital. It features fast-paced dialogue, slapstick, and surreal vignettes presented mostly as the daydreams of the...
(his jacket is used for Turk and JD's "world's most giant doctor" antics).
- Bob 'Bulldog' Briscoe from Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993 to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Paramount Television.A spin-off from Cheers, Frasier stars Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist...
.
- Louie De Palma from Taxi
Taxi is an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982, on ABC, and from 1982 to 1983, on NBC. The series, which won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for "Outstanding Comedy Series," focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher...
(played by Danny DeVitoDaniel Michael "Danny" DeVito, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer, who first gained prominence for his portrayal of "Louie De Palma" on the ABC and NBC TV series Taxi...
, who is only 5 ft or 1.52 m tall).
- Bud Bundy from Married... with Children
Married... with Children or Married with Children is an American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in Chicago that lasted 11 seasons. The show, notable for being the first prime time television series to air on Fox, debuted on April 5, 1987, and aired its final first-run broadcast on June...
(played by David FaustinoDavid Anthony Faustino is an American actor best known for his role as Bud Bundy on the sitcom Married... with Children.-Career:...
, who is only 5 ft 3 in or 1.60 m tall).
- Radar O'Reilly
Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly is a fictional character in the M*A*S*H novels, the film, the television series, the television pilot, W*A*L*T*E*R, and two episodes of the series, After MASH. The character was portrayed by Gary Burghoff in both the film and on television — the only actor from the film to...
from M*A*S*HM*A*S*H is an American television series developed by Larry Gelbart, adapted from the 1970 feature film MASH . The series is a medical drama/black comedy that was produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for CBS...
.
- Spence Olchin from The King of Queens
The King of Queens is an American sitcom that ran for nine seasons, from 1998 to 2007, on CBS.The show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions , CBS Paramount Television in association with Columbia TriStar Television , and Sony Pictures Television...
.
- Kerry Hennessy from the TV series 8 Simple Rules
8 Simple Rules is an American television sitcom that originally aired on ABC from September 17, 2002 to April 15, 2005. Loosely based on humor columnist W. Bruce Cameron's book of the same name, the show starred John Ritter until he died in 2003...
.
- Gimli
Gimli is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, featured in The Lord of the Rings.-Character overview:Gimli was a member of Durin's Folk who volunteered to accompany Frodo Baggins as a member of the Fellowship of the Ring on the quest to destroy the One Ring...
(played by John Rhys-DaviesJohn Rhys-Davies is a British actor and vocal artist. He is perhaps best known for playing the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which he also voiced the ent, Treebeard...
, who is 6 ft 1 in or 1.85 m tall, but 'miniaturised' by special effects) and other dwarves from the The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings film trilogy consists of three live action fantasy epic films: The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King...
film trilogy (Interesting, John Rhys-Davies was relatively the proper height to the actors playing Hobbits, so that a third scale was not needed in the filming.)
- Edward Elric
, commonly nicknamed Ed, is a fictional character in the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga series created by Hiromu Arakawa. Edward, the "Fullmetal Alchemist", is the youngest State Alchemist in the history of the fictional country of Amestris, and the main character of the series...
from the anime Fullmetal Alchemist, is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution...
.
- Ripto of the videogame series Spyro the Dragon
Spyro the Dragon is a platform game developed by Insomniac Games for the Sony PlayStation. It stars the title character, a young purple dragon named Spyro and his dragonfly friend, Sparx, and is the first game in the Spyro the Dragon series...
.
- Jimmy Hopkins from the video game Bully
Bully, also known as Canis Canem Edit outside of North America for the PAL PlayStation 2 version, is a third person action-adventure video game released by Rockstar Vancouver for the PlayStation 2 on 17 October 2006 in North America, and 25 October 2006 in the United Kingdom. An Xbox version was...
, who is often called shortstack or midget by taller students or adults.
- Pete Kowalski from the same videogame as above, who is shorter than Jimmy and teased because of this.
- Dan Mott from Without a Paddle
Without a Paddle is a 2004 comedy film about three men going on a trip up a remote river in order to search for the body of a long lost thief and his loot...
The portrayal of short men in the media is in general negative. Short men are either ridiculously unsuccessful in regards to career and/or romance (e.g., Spence Olchin and Bud Bundy) or they are unlikeable tyrants in need of compensating for "something" (e.g. Lord Farquaad). Notable exceptions are roles played by
Michael J. FoxMichael J. Fox is a Canadian actor, author and voice-over artist. His roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
(especially Mike Flaherty from the TV series
Spin CitySpin City is an American sitcom television series that ran from 1996 to 2002 on ABC. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York...
, where a short man is portrayed as an attractive and likable person, who is successful both in romance and career), and
Kevin ConnollyKevin Connolly is an American actor and director. Connolly is probably best known for his role on the HBO series Entourage as Eric Murphy and his role as Ryan Malloy in the 90's television show Unhappily Ever After....
's portrayal of Eric "E" Murphy in HBO's television series
EntourageEntourage is an American comedy-drama that premiered on HBO on July 18, 2004. The series was created by Doug Ellin and chronicles the rise of Vincent Chase, a young A-list movie star, and his childhood friends from Queens, New York City, as they navigate the unfamiliar terrain of Hollywood,...
(Connolly is 5' 5" (165 cm)) Similarly, although the actor
Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Jacob Radcliffe is a British actor, best known for playing Harry Potter in the feature film series based on the popular book series....
was cast in the role of
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
as a young child, the fact that he has reached an adult height of 5' 5" (165 cm) means that the Harry Potter film franchise now also effectively provides a positive portrayal of a shorter male hero. When
Daniel CraigDaniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor and film producer. His early film roles included The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
was announced as
James BondJames Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The character has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr...
in 2005, intense criticism of the casting decision (made by
EON ProductionsEON Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...
) included the notion that the actor was too short to play 007, even though at 5' 10" (178 cm) Craig is above average height for a white British man.
In 1987 the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
comedy series
A Small ProblemA Small Problem is a British sitcom originally broadcast on BBC2 in 1987. Intended as a satire on prejudice, the show was set in a Britain with a form of apartheid based on people's height. Anyone below 5ft tall was forced to live in tower-block ghettos south of the River Thames...
imagined a totalitarian society in which people under 5 ft. (152 cm) tall were systematically discriminated against. The programme attracted considerable criticism and complaints which accused the writers of reinforcing prejudice and of using offensive terms; the writers responded that their intention had been to show all prejudice was stupid and that height was chosen randomly.
The "Archaeology Today" sketch in
Monty Python's Flying CircusMonty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC sketch comedy programme from the Monty Python comedy team, and the group's initial claim to fame. The show was noted for its surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags, and sketches without punchlines...
deals with heightism in which an interviewer humorously admits to assessing his subject’s credibility based on their height.
In a 2006 cartoon episode of
Family GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television sitcom, created by Seth MacFarlane, for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family which consists of Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, and their pet dog Brian...
, the second coming of Jesus Christ is depicted, with Jesus very obviously being much shorter than the (modern) crowd he speaks to. In the show, this causes uncertainty and surprise among the crowd. In the cartoon series
Invader ZimInvader Zim, branded as Invader ZIM, is an American animated television series that was produced by and subsequently aired on Nickelodeon. The series is centered around an alien invader named Zim from the planet Irk who is attempting to conquer or destroy a dark and satirical future version of the...
, the alien race of the Irken had a class system based entirely on height, the empire being ruled by those of the greatest stature, literally referred to as the Almighty Tallest.
Similarly, shorter men are often denied leading roles. Although some famous cinema actors such as
Alan LaddAlan Walbridge Ladd was an American film actor.-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas to an American father and an English-American mother . His father died when the boy was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City, where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
and
Tom CruiseThomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known by his screen name of Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2006. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards...
have been short in real life, in their fictional depictions they have been presented as taller.
Randy NewmanRandall Stuart “Randy” Newman is an American singer/songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is notable for his mordant pop songs and for his many film scores....
's song
Short People"Short People" is a song by Randy Newman from his 1977 album Little Criminals. The verses and chorus are a bizarre and pointed attack on the short, with a contrasting bridge noting that "short people are just the same as you and I." Newman confirms that the song is about "prejudice," as was...
deals with heightism in a satirical, light-hearted manner as a protest against bigotry in general. Nevertheless, some people find this song offensive.
On the BBC motoring programme
Top GearTop Gear is a BBC television series about motor vehicles, primarily cars. It began in 1977 as a conventional motoring magazine show. Over time, and especially since a relaunch in 2002, it has developed a quirky, humorous style. The show is currently presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond...
,
Richard HammondRichard Mark Hammond is a British TV presenter, most noted for co-hosting car programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May, as well as presenting Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky1, Should I Worry About...? on BBC One and Total Wipeout, also on BBC One and Richard Hammond's Blast Lab on...
's height is usually mocked by the other presenters, particularly
Jeremy ClarksonJeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster and journalist who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...
.
Legislation
Currently, there is one state in the United States of America,
MichiganMichigan is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, that prohibits height discrimination. There is pending legislation introduced by
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
Representative
Byron RushingByron Rushing serves the Ninth Suffolk district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. A Democrat, first elected in 1982, Representative Rushing, serves as the Second Assistant Majority Leader...
which would add Massachusetts to the list. Two municipalities currently prohibit height discrimination:
Santa Cruz, CaliforniaSanta Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the United States of America. As of the 2006 census estimate, Santa Cruz had a total population of 54,778, up 0.3% from the 2000 Census...
and
San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
. The District of Columbia prohibits discrimination based on personal appearance.
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
prohibits height discrimination under the human rights code. Victoria, Australia prohibits discrimination based on physical features under the Equal Opportunity Act of 1995.
Examples of successful legal battles pursued against height discrimination in the workplace include a 2002 case involving highly qualified applicants being turned down for jobs at a bank because they were considered too short; a 2005 Swedish case involving an unfair height requirement for employment implemented by
VolvoThe Volvo Group is a Swedish supplier of commercial vehicles such as trucks, buses and construction equipment, drive systems for marine and industrial applications, aerospace components and financial services...
car company; and a 1999 case involving a
Kohler Company'The Kohler Company is a manufacturing company in Kohler, Wisconsin best known for its plumbing products. Kohler also manufactures furniture, cabinetry, tile, engines, and generators.-History:...
informal practice not to consider women who applied for jobs unless they were at least 5 feet 4 inches (162 cm) tall. Height requirements for employment which are not a
bona fide occupational requirement are becoming more and more uncommon.
External links
- The National Organization of Short Statured Adults
The National Organization of Short Statured Adults is an American non-profit advocacy group for adults of short stature. The organization defines "short stature" to be men under 5'8" and women under 5'3" in height. The group advocates on behalf of short people and hopes to foster greater...
website: www.nossaonline.org