Heightism
Encyclopedia
Heightism is prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...

 or discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

 based on height
Human height
Human height is the distance from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head in a human body standing erect.When populations share genetic background and environmental factors, average height is frequently characteristic within the group...

. In principle it can refer to treatment of either unusually tall or short people.

Origin of the term

The term heightism was coined by sociologist Saul Feldman in a paper titled "The presentation of shortness in everyday life—height and heightism in American society: Toward a sociology of stature", presented at the meeting of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...

 in 1971. Heightism was included in the Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1971) and popularized by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine in a 1971 article on Feldman's paper.

The word is an example of Time magazine's habit of supplying new words through "unusual use of affixes", although Time itself objected to the term's inclusion in the 1991 Random Webster's College Dictionary, citing it as an example of the dictionary "straining ... to avoid giving offense, except to good usage" and "[lending] authority to scores of questionable usages, many of them tinged with politically correct
Politically Correct
Politically Correct may refer to:*Political correctness, language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seeking to minimize offence to groups of people-See also:*Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, book by James Finn Garner, published in 1994...

 views."

Heightism is one of a proliferation of neologisms relating to prejudice and discrimination that are lexically patterned after sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...

.

In business

Some jobs do require or at least favor tall people, including some manual labor jobs, law enforcement, most professional sports
Professional sports
Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

, and fashion modeling. Military pilots have to be 64 to 77 in (162.6 to 195.6 cm) tall with a sitting height of 34 to 40 in (86.4 to 101.6 cm). Conversely certain professions have upper height limits, such as female ballet dancers who are usually required to be under 5 in 7 in (1.7 m). 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 500
Fortune 500
The 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...

 CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 height in 2005 revealed that they were on average tall, which is approximately 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) taller than the average American man. 30% were 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 in height. Ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height.

Dating and marriage

Heightism is also a factor in dating preferences. For some people, height is a noteworthy 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. However, more recent research has drawn this theory into question, finding no correlation between height and offspring count. Moreover, research on leg length and leg-to-body ratio conflict with the notion that there is a distinct preference for taller mates. A 2008 study found that both extremes, tall and short, reduced attractiveness, and a 2006 study found that a lower leg-to-body ratio in men and higher leg-to-body ratio in women increased aesthetic appeal . Biologically, from an evolutionary perspective, these findings are consistent with data relating height to human health. Therefore, a biological or, more specifically, an evolutionary argument for the preference of a taller mate is questionable, lacking definitive evidence.

Nonetheless, on a cultural level in Post-industrial society
Post-industrial society
If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.-Characteristics:...

, a sociological relationship between height and perceived attractiveness exists. This cultural characteristic, while applicable to the modernized world, is not a transcendental human quality. Quantitative studies of woman-for-men personal advertisement
Personal advertisement
A 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. A study produced by the Universities of Groningen and Valencia, has found that men, who felt most anxious about attractive, physically dominant, and socially powerful rivals, were less jealous, the taller they were themselves. The study also found that women were most jealous of others' physical attractiveness, but women of medium height were the least jealous. The report, produced by Dutch and Spanish researchers, stated that because average height women tend to be the most fertile and healthy, they would be less likely to feel threatened by women with those similar features.

Paradoxically, a study has shown that in Britain, short women were the most likely to be married and have children. Some reasons which have been suggested for this situation include the fact that short women start puberty earlier than taller women who experience delayed fertility since they spend more energy growing, and that shorter women have a larger pool of men to choose from if they wish for a taller mate. Dr. Adam Eyre-Walker from the Centre for the Study of Evolution at the University of Sussex, argues that the study was done on British people, and so the choices may actually be a result of the influence of culture.

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 Cullum
Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...

, 7 inches (17.8 cm) shorter at 5 inch than Sophie Dahl
Sophie Dahl
Sophie Dahl , born Sophie Holloway, is an English author and former model. She was born in London, the daughter of actor Julian Holloway and writer Tessa Dahl. Her maternal grandparents were author Roald Dahl and actress Patricia Neal. Her paternal grandparents were actor Stanley Holloway and...

, though the difference is often exaggerated).

In the media

In the media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, 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 weight
Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...

. The portrayal of short men in the media is in general negative. In general, short statured men are portrayed as unsuccessful in career, romance, etc. (e.g., Spence Olchin, Bud Bundy, and George Costanza
George Costanza
George Louis Costanza is a character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Jason Alexander. He has variously been described as a "short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man" , "Lord of the Idiots" , and as "the greatest sitcom character of all time"...

) or they are unlikeable tyrants in need of compensating for "something" (e.g. Lord Farquaad from the Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...

 films or to a lesser degree Edward Elric
Edward Elric
, commonly nicknamed , is a fictional character and the main character of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga series created by Hiromu Arakawa. Edward, titled , is the youngest State Alchemist in the history of the fictional country of Amestris...

). Notable exceptions are roles played by Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...

 (especially Mike Flaherty from the TV series Spin City
Spin City
Spin City is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 until April 30, 2002 on the ABC network. 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...

, where a short man is portrayed as an attractive and likable person, who is successful both in romance and career), and Kevin Connolly's portrayal of Eric "E" Murphy in HBO's television series Entourage
Entourage (TV series)
Entourage is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on HBO on July 18, 2004 and concluded on September 11, 2011, after eight seasons...

 (Connolly is 5 inch)

Similarly, shorter men are often denied leading roles. Although some famous cinema actors such as Alan Ladd
Alan Ladd
-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...

 5 ft 5 in and Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

 5 ft 7 in have been short in real life, in their fictional depictions they have been presented as taller.

When Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, 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 Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 in 2005, intense criticism of the casting decision (made by EON Productions
EON Productions
Eon 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 inch Craig is above average height for a white British male.

In 1987 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 comedy series A Small Problem
A Small Problem
A 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 the height of 5 feet (1.5 m) were systematically discriminated against. The program 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.

In Jhonen Vasquez's Invader Zim
Invader Zim
Invader Zim is an American animated television series created by Jhonen Vasquez. It was produced by and subsequently aired on Nickelodeon. The series revolves around an extraterrestrial named Zim from the planet Irk, and his ongoing mission to conquer and destroy Earth...

, the Irken hierarchy is based on height, with the tallest being the leader, and the shortest receiving no credit for conquering planets or given the worst assignments, such as Skoodge's case.

The Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...

 episode Jones features a serial killer who preys on shorter women. The detectives theorize that these women are targeted because "they made [the killer] feel powerful, [the killer] could dominate them." Eventually Alexandra Eames
Alexandra Eames
Det. Alexandra "Alex" Eames is a fictional police detective with the NYPD Major Case Squad featured in the NBC-USA Network Law & Order: Criminal Intent, portrayed by Kathryn Erbe...

 (played by Kathryn Erbe
Kathryn Erbe
Kathryn Elsbeth Erbe is an American actress known for her role as Det. Alexandra Eames in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a spin-off of Law & Order, and death row inmate Shirley Bellinger in the HBO series Oz.-Personal life:...

, 5 inch) baits herself for the suspect, who shows an attraction to her.

In an episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

 called Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy
Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy
"Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" is the tenth television episode of The Simpsons sixth season. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on December 4, 1994. In the episode, Marge and Homer's sex life is struggling, but Grampa perks things up with a homemade revitalizing tonic...

, Homer criticizes his father for never saying anything nice to him. In response, Grampa says, "I was always proud that you weren't a short man."

Legislation

Currently, there is one state in the United States of America, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, that prohibits height discrimination. There is pending legislation introduced by Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. 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. As of the 2010...

 Representative Byron Rushing
Byron Rushing
Byron 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, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...

 and San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. The District of Columbia prohibits discrimination based on personal appearance. Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends 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 Volvo
Volvo
AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...

 car company; and a 1999 case involving a Kohler Company
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 inch tall. Height requirements for employment which are not a bona fide occupational requirement are becoming more and more uncommon.

See also

  • Human height
    Human height
    Human height is the distance from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head in a human body standing erect.When populations share genetic background and environmental factors, average height is frequently characteristic within the group...

  • Discrimination
    Discrimination
    Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

  • Napoleon Complex
    Napoleon complex
    Napoleon complex is an informal 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...

  • Heights of Presidents of the United States and presidential candidates.
  • Height and intelligence
    Height and intelligence
    Height and intelligence research investigates the relationship between height and intelligence.- Correlation :Studies of developing adolescents...


External links

  • The National Organization of Short Statured Adults
    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 5'7" or below and women 5'2" or below in height. The group advocates on behalf of short people and hopes to foster greater...

    website: www.nossaonline.org
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK