The Gaslighting of Short Men

On one hand, when Ben Shapiro lies about his height, it's compared to pretending to be more intelligent:

Sperm banks also ban all short men from donating. Basically, it's clear how shortness in men is viewed.

But on the other hand, there are people who will randomly say "why is every leftist man 5'8?" then gaslight anyone who thinks this was meant negatively:

Suddenly, it's all in your head. You're projecting if you think people don't like short guys. 😒

Short Pro Wrestler Tries to Call Out Society's Double Standard Regarding Height

 

I say "tries to" because she was met with the usual suspects in the replies.

The most common excuse for the double standard is that society hates fat people more than short people:

What proof do they have for this claim? Especially considering how I can prove the opposite quite easily using both anecdotal and statistical evidence. As for the medical issue, what do fat people expect? It's literally logistics. It's insane how weight is controllable, yet the world is expected to change to accommodate the morbidly obese. Instead of taking responsibility and losing weight in order to fit something, they want it the other way around, and it's considered oppression when they don't get their way: [1][2]. Heavy smokers are also often denied medical care, should they be a protected group too? We're expected to view fat people the same way as a disabled person or a racial minority, when in reality fat people have more in common with a drug addict. It shouldn't be okay to bully a junkie, but let's also stop acting like they became that way by chance. On the other hand, while height is uncontrollable like race, it's often fair game to disrespect a short person.

This isn't the first time all of this has happened to a wrestler though. Back in 2018, another wrestler also tried to address this issue and was met with the typical responses, where people attempted to drown him out with labels such as  "insecure" and "short man syndrome": https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/9muq8q/austin_aries_on_wol_in_this_day_and_age_were/

He references his failed attempt here: https://twitter.com/AustinAries/status/1311097264102764545

But as they say, it's the thought that counts.

It takes guts to be a short public figure and discuss this topic, because you will be met with gaslighting, deflection, hypocrisy, and ad hominems. You will be tarnishing your image in an attempt to make society a slightly better place. After all, a truly confident short person never raises their voice about this stuff. At least, that's what I've been told by most of the people on /r/short.

Elizabeth Warren Takes Shot At Mike Bloomberg's Height

It seems like the one thing her and Trump can agree on, is that insulting people based on height is just a prank bro: https://www.news18.com/news/world/in-american-politics-height-matters-trump-knows-it-decoding-us-prezs-obsession-with-nicknames-2503855.html

But while Trump mocks everyone, Warren is a feminist who has complained about women being called "fat broads" and "horse-faced," and many of her followers have likewise taken issue with body shaming.

Fortunately, based on some comments from users on YouTube and Twitter, it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks there's an added layer of hypocrisy here from Warren:

AKA the message in Shrek.

On a related note, it seems like there are people who don't know there's this thing called high heels:

https://twitter.com/jimgoad/status/1230769806317481988
https://twitter.com/HayekAndKeynes/status/1232492389144678401

Common Misconceptions About Height

Taller is healthier.
Failing to reach one's maximum height is linked to undernourishment, but short stature itself is not unhealthy when genetic. For example, short people live longer on average[1][2]. Being taller has also been linked to cancer and collapsed lungs. More research on this here.

Height is mostly dietary.
"...about 60 to 80 percent of the difference in height between individuals is determined by genetic factors, whereas 20 to 40 percent can be attributed to environmental effects, mainly nutrition.". One can see this in how certain families, like those of Manute Bol or Steven Adams, are all extremely tall. In Manute's case, he reached a height of 7'7 despite being malnourished (although he may have gotten even taller had he not been). Point is, just because someone is very tall doesn't mean they were fed correctly.

Every younger generation gets taller.
The average American has not gotten taller in the last 50 years. In fact, average height in the medieval ages was only slightly shorter than it is now. If you've been noticing how youth are tall for their age nowadays, it's because kids today hit puberty sooner.

Short men are angrier on average.
This study found that tall men fly off the handle more quickly. Every other study I've seen on this topic either didn't test for aggression, or tested women rather than men, tested wild animals, etc. Examples of these more questionable studies: http://archive.is/cYusN

Every human being innately prefers tall people.
They've done height studies on various tribal cultures, and these people don't care about height the same way modern society does.

Height is viewed no differently than baldness, big noses, etc.
None of these other groups are labeled with a complex or syndrome the moment they display aggression or ambition. Sperm banks ban all men below average height, but they do not ban men based on the Norwood Scale. Height affects the ability to defend oneself during physical altercations, most other superficial traits do not. The differences go on.

Height is a good indicator of IQ.
Most sources say the correlation coefficient between height and IQ is 0.1 or 0.2. This is considered a weak correlation, which makes using height to gauge IQ virtually pointless. Some of these studies are also conducted on children. If a bunch of youth are the same age, but some receive growth spurts sooner, these taller kids will have more developed brains. Yet these researchers ignore that in order to claim tall adults make more money due to higher IQ (even though simply controlling for IQ shows that it's not the reason for the height premium: [1][2]). These IQ/height studies are also intra-racial, which means they fail to address why Asians for example are typically shorter than Westerners, yet they consistently score higher on IQ tests.

Men and women are equally strict about height.

• The average man's ideal height difference is for the woman to be 1 inch shorter. On the other hand, women desire men to be 8 inches taller on average.
• "Nearly half of men in the study indicated that their tallest acceptable date could be taller than them or their height (24 and 23 percent, respectively), while 53 percent required their date to be shorter than them. But a whopping 89 percent of women said the shortest person they would date would still have to be taller than them. Only seven percent would accept someone who was their height, and just four percent would allow for a shorter guy."
• For online dating, it's been found that "women care quite a bit more about the height of their partners than vice-versa."
• Study: "Women want taller men more than men want shorter women."
• According to this study on the top 10 words to include on your dating app bio, "the top word for female users was "love" and the most-swiped right male users had "6'" in their bio". Height is nowhere to be found on men's wish list.
• Google "sperm bank requirements" then "egg donor requirements." Both short and tall women are not excluded from participating, but any male below average height is.

Height has never played an important role in being targeted.

• "At the start of the 20^th century, most of the Rwandan population belonged to the Hutu ethnic group, who were traditionally crop-growers. Over many centuries, Rwanda attracted another group, traditional herdsmen, the Tutsis, from northern Africa... It wasn’t until European colonists arrived during the 1950s, that a divide developed between the two groups. The Europeans saw the Tutsis, who were taller with European ‘aristocratic’ appearances and, as was the practice of the time, selected this group to be both privileged and educated." - Source..."When RTLM (Radio Télévison des Milles Collines) began broadcasting on July 8, 1993... The RTLM called for the Tutsi to "cut down the tall trees," a code phrase which meant for the Hutu to start killing the Tutsi." - Source
• According to one of Kim Jong Il's former tutors, the leader used pamphlets advertising wonder-growth drugs to lure small people into traps, from where they would be deported to "uninhabited islands" to remove their "substandard" stock from the genepool. - Source
• "The one noticeable similarity with almost all serial killer victims is their short height and low weight. "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" should be the serial killer theme song. These small lightweight victims are easy to attack, easy to beat up, easy to carry or drag, easy to put in the trunk of a car, and easy to dispose of. Big victims are far too much work. Smallish men, smallish women, and children are easy for the killer too handle. This is one reason why the top choices for women serial killers are invalids and babies." - Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers
• More on this topic here.

Short Men Are Expected to Be Jesters in the Face of Discrimination

This Reddit thread is a clown show, and yet has over 200 upvotes:

http://archive.is/7rqRX

Basically, for some reason people think a short guy has to either become a raging lunatic in the face of height prejudice, or turn into a dancing monkey. The only one remotely making sense in that thread is the person who said, "There is a third option. It is called learning to accept that you are short while not making a fool of yourself." Otherwise the whole topic is a disaster. You have a bunch of short clowns, some 7'3 guy telling short men how to behave... Even the main short guy questioning the whole thing says he believes the "short man syndrome" stereotype, even though there is zero good science behind it.

When people discriminate against a short guy, he is expected to essentially turn into a jester and just take it. But whenever a short guy is the one doing the discriminating, for some reason I never see others apply that same "take it in stride and just make fun of yourself" mentality to themselves. No, it basically becomes a free-for-all to slander and insult short men back. Odd. Almost like short men are expected to be more docile than everyone else, lest the "short man syndrome" label rear its head. Of course, nobody else is diagnosed with a syndrome when they get angry about being mocked or dehumanized.

If I were working the register, and I insulted some fat or bald customer, I doubt many would take my side. At most, people would just tell the customer to not overreact. They wouldn't pressure that customer into becoming a personal comedian for literally any random asshole (not just friends and family). It's only with short men where the reaction is gauged more harshly than the initial action. People spend more time lecturing short men about how to react to discrimination, rather than talking to the ones actually doing the discriminating in the first place. When it comes to the latter group, it's always "just ignore them" or something like that. But it seems like people are unable to ignore indignant short men. Short men are the ones told about how height isn't uncontrollable and to accept shortness, when others should also be taught that.

P.S. I doubt College"Humor" would send a similar message about women's weight. It's no wonder their employees are getting laid off, people are sick of their hypocritical preaching. They once made a video about how oppressed women are, because the moment a woman isn't always smiling and amiable, people say she's on the rag. Well, these same folk call any short man who isn't completely castrated a "pocket prince," probably excusing themselves with the "it's fighting the patriarchy when we do it" mindset. If there was some way to magically make short men unable to ever become angry, I swear a frighteningly large number of people would go for it, many of them from the "tolerant" left.

Related: a woman receives almost 50k likes on Twitter for getting mad at a store's weight jokes. The difference in who's allowed to defend themselves is interesting, especially considering how height is an immutable trait but weight isn't. This would be like some bizarro world where it's okay to judge a person's skin color but not their political beliefs, because the former isn't controllable but the latter is.

People Have No Comeback When It's a Tall Guy Calling Out Double Standards

Whenever a short guy expresses any concern about height related issues, the responses are predictable. "You're just insecure about your height/you have a napoleon complex." Somehow, this is often considered an intelligent counter to whatever the short guy was talking about.

This is why it's great when it's a tall guy exposing society's hypocrisy. 

Take this for example:

A guy then changes the same "joke" about short men into one about fat women. No more, no less:

 

Needless to say, shit hits the fan. The best part is how everyone instantly assumes he's short:

But he isn't:

 

The same thing happens here in a reddit thread:

 

Notice how the white knight throwing the "you're insecure!" label is initially upvoted, yet he got downvoted the moment it's revealed he was dealing with a tall man. Like usual, it's not the point being made that matters, it's who's making it. Two men could make the same point, but the short man would be wrong and the tall man right.

Despite short men being on the receiving end of the discrimination, a short guy's voice means less than a tall guy's. This is very rare in any other circumstance. For example, when it comes to poverty, would you listen to a poor person or someone born rich? Do people take male feminists more seriously than female feminists?

Whatever the case, the only responses people have to a tall guy in these situations is usually something uncreative, like "you have a small dick." Of course, since it's not as easy to prove a guy's penis size compared to his height, this usually just comes across as a desperate insult.

All in all, shout out to the tall guys out there for making hypocrites uncomfortable.

Kevin Hart Admits to Being Insecure About His Height and Lying About It

Full thread on this here: https://heightismhub.freeforums.net/thread/384/kevin-hart-admits-insecure-height

Keep this in mind whenever people tell a short man to self-deprecate in order to show how he's not insecure about his height^[1][2], because there is no short guy who self-deprecates more than Kevin Hart.

The Guardian Attempts to Shed Light On Height Prejudice

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/21/praise-short-men-king-toxic-masculinity-jaboukie-jonas-brothers?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I say "attempts" because partway through the article, it essentially shifts the spotlight from heightism, to how short men react to heightism. Starting from here:

"Insecurity generally manifests in oversensitivity to insult (which may contribute to the stereotype of short men as angry, resentful, over-compensating Napoleons.)"

The article then goes on to give various examples of short men who cope with heightism in their own ways.

That's okay and all, but if one looks at The Guardian's articles about fat shaming (of which there are many), the focus is usually only on the prejudice itself. Do a ctrl+f search for words like "insecurity" on their articles about weight, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single hit. Why? Because the word "insecure" is inherently negative, and makes it seem like the problem is with the person on the receiving end of the stigma. Mainstream websites avoid using such phrases for issues like body shaming, because they don't want readers to think it's the fat person's mentality that's the problem.

There's this part as well:

"As to whether or not short men really require kudos just for being secure … well, it depends on your perspective."

Whatever your perspective is, good luck finding the same line of questioning in mainstream articles about fat women. The message I've gotten from those, is that you're a bigot if you don't automatically praise females for being proud of the bodies. People basically have no choice nowadays but to pat women on the back over body positivity, or else feminists will show up to teach everyone a lesson. Less double standards here would be nice.

The existence of The Guardian's article about height shows how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go in terms of both quantity and quality. On one hand, it's nice that a mainstream website has an article about heightism at all. On the other, it's interesting how many more posts there are about weight than height. The way the topics are discussed is also worth noting. When it comes to weight, the responsibility to behave is placed entirely on how everyone else views overweight people. But when it comes to height, we start talking about how short men should view themselves. It's ironic how The Guardian's height article talks about "toxic masculinity," because the idea of men manning up while women are catered to is a classic gender dynamic. We're getting somewhere though, there's no doubt about that, and a lot of short guys are grateful to get any scraps at all from these publications. I still recall being told to stop discussing heightism years ago because it'd never get any recognition.

Feminist Claims People Only Care About Height Because of "Toxic Masculinity"

 
I like how she phrases everything in the present tense, like some guy born in the last few decades is still responsible for whatever she thinks happened ages ago. How did this get over 200 likes? All I know is that this is why there's so much resentment towards feminism these days. Imagine being told you're sexist unless you're a feminist. Then other feminists basically say, "I think one of your ancestors wronged my ancestors, so it's no big deal when I wrong you." Yet somehow people are still shocked when any male doesn't identify as a feminist.

It doesn't even make any sense. Men tend to be taller than women, so if a man is below the average male height, even in the most feminist of societies he would be classified as "short" for his gender. Otherwise it'd be like saying women would enjoy micropenises and think they're big, if only it weren't for that pesky toxic masculinity. Things like looking up at or being carried by a tall male, that's all physical and has nothing to do with social concepts. If anything, it sounds more like toxic femininity to me.

This also makes it seem like women are puppets whose strings are easily pulled. Men allegedly tell women to be biased based on height, so even feminists simply comply? Very strong, independent, and empowered. When was "toxic masculinity" supposedly invented anyway, and what's forcing these woke feminists to misbehave right now? Clearly not their own choices, that would mean taking responsibility for one's actions.

Article About Height Discrimination Written By 6'4 Man

Appreciate it, because short men are labeled as insecure whiny Napoleons when discussing the same issue:

http://archive.is/RIujz

Excerpt:

Why is discrimination against the short considered not only tolerable, but also amusing? In an era constantly on the lookout for prejudices to denounce, this obvious one gets a pass.  

The main reason our culture doesn’t denounce short-shaming is highly revealing about the essential nature of wokeness.

People Physically Humiliating Short Men

Concepts like consent and personal space don't apply to short men:

Some girls wear heels so often, they start thinking that's their real height.

Not even being a cop is enough:

Imagine the reaction if this happened to a female officer.

Of course, if either of these guys got mad in the moment, at best they'd receive the usual "it's just a prank bro/make fun of yourself" spiel. At worst, they'd be labeled with short man syndrome.

At least some people actually called out the behavior in the first clip:

"He just gets bullied all day on something he can't control..."

"How's this even socially acceptable? People just acting as if there was nothing wrong going on here. It's pretty fucked up if you try to put yourself in his shoes. It's like going back to middle school and getting bullied, but instead of standing up for you, everyone just laughs at you."

"People act like you have a condition if you are short."

"It's fucked up how much people abuse him about his height.
Genuinely fucked up. I say this as someone who cannot stand the guy. He didn't want to be picked up, just leave it alone."

Here as well:

"I have a tough time as a 5'6 man, I can't imagine 5'2 (or whatever he is). He has been shitted on all Twitchcon and seemed to be taking it like a champ, but I knew it was hurting him inside. And if he tried to rebuttal, he'd be labeled Napoleon complex. Making fun of his height is an easy meme for the unoriginal"

"I saw so many people saying shit like, "If he had a problem with all of the comments and stuff about his height then he obviously would say something or tell them to stop". Just conveniently ignoring the fact that making fun of a guy for being short is a pretty normalized thing in our society, and if a short guy does voice his opinion about not wanting others to poke fun at him for his height the issue is with him for just not being confident enough and getting bitter about people just trying to have some fun. Even if "just having fun" is at someone else's expense in regards to something which they have no control over."

Seems like it takes constant and blatant degradation of a short guy, before people realize short men are human too. Most seem to think short men are unpaid jesters, who exist on a 24/7 basis to make everyone else feel good about themselves. Having a bad day? Need a self-esteem boost or just a quick laugh? Target a short dude and play it off as a joke. If he has a problem with it, just claim he's insecure and takes himself too seriously.

It's funny how short men are stereotyped as angry midgets, even though none of these guys got remotely mad despite being physically humiliated let alone verbally. Here's another one:

I've seen people think this last video is fake because it was conveniently being filmed. It may very well be staged, but it could also be something like, "Hey bro, get the camera ready and watch what I'm gonna do to that little guy." Either way, those first two videos are real.

On one last note:

"For real though there's nothing a short person can do if this exact same scenario happened. If they fight back they'd get call out as "short man syndrome" if they don't fight back everyone laughs at the short man because "it's funny". Short people, specifically short men really have it worst when it comes to social interactions. It's a losing scenario no matter what road they take."

They're right. At least a small girl can play the gender card in these scenarios, by making it seem like the guy manhandling her doesn't respect women. A short male is trapped, and even other shorties will come out of the woodwork to ensure he stays docile. "Don't fight back, or else you'll confirm Napoleon Complex."

Height Discrimination Is Real When Tall Guys, Women, or Transgenders Talk About It

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rv73r/as_a_tall_male_w_a_short_male_friend_i_just_had/

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/b5y05o/screw_girls_that_openly_remark_about_a_guys_height/

https://twitter.com/CaseyExplosion/status/1082957276393205760

This is good, because short men are labeled as insecure and whiny when talking about height prejudice (even when backed up by statistics).

Apparently, Short Men Are No Longer Judged As a Group

Well ain't this something. Here's a thread (with thousands of upvotes) insinuating that short men are not judged as a group whenever one short guy offends people: https://old.reddit.com/r/IncelTears/comments/b1mbvj/incel_believes_in_backlash_against_short_men/

This is ludicrous of course, because otherwise, stereotypes like "napoleon complex" wouldn't exist.

Here are examples of people circlejerking about alleged cases of "short man syndrome": We have a cop pulling someone over, a guy throwing a fit over a restaurant order, domestic violence, and a common road rage incident.

Now you're telling me mass murder wouldn't garner the same reaction? The only hope here is if the killer isn't actually short, because we've already had a short gunman, and that was portrayed as expected: "Congress shooter was 5'6" rude loner... His lawyer called him an 'angry little man'."

In the past, I've talked about people who censor short men with the message being, "Watch your mouth or else short men will be stereotyped." Yet when others want to downplay heightism, they'll make it seem like short men are suddenly never blamed as a group.

I Hope She Fails Her Courses

Excerpt from Heightism Report: 

"Also, her minor in Criminal Justice is extremely troublesome because we know that the criminal justice system has faced scrutiny for profiling various groups of people. How would you like for your life to be in the hands of someone who proudly boasts that they have a pre-disposed prejudice against you based purely on your physical characteristics? We’re constantly bombarded with stories where this comes-up in-regard to race, nationality, social class etc., thus, you can guarantee that someone who claims to care about justice would not be able to make objective decisions involving short men when they’re proudly boasting their heightism for all of the world to see."

"When Comparing the Badness of Two Words, and You Can't Say One of the Words, That's the Worst One."

The quote above is from comedian John Mulaney. You can see how popular it is by the upvotes here. I don't know if this was ever meant to be used as a logical argument rather than just for comedy, but either way, I often see people cite it to prove a point. Sometimes this point is correct, but let's look at whether or not it's a cardinal rule.

For example, I've seen this line of reasoning used to prove fat shaming a woman is worse than height shaming a man. It's politically incorrect to merely ask a female her weight, let alone insult her about it. On the other hand, you can talk about a male's height however you want. Therefore, this clearly means fat shaming is objectively worse, right?

Nope. All this proves is that one form of prejudice is currently considered worse than the other. It doesn't prove why it's logically worse.

Mulaney’s quote confuses the way things are, with the way things should be, also known as the is–ought problem. By his own logic, racial slurs weren’t as bad back when people were allowed to say them, but hopefully we all know that’s not true.

While racism is considered worse than discrimination towards those with dwarfism, I've seen a lot of people take that as a go ahead to downplay, ignore, or justify the latter. This is called the fallacy of relative privation. Make no mistake, whether you think saying "midget" is as bad as a racial slur or not, prejudice is prejudice.

Now if only people could be as sympathetic about this as the late Roger Ebert. Someone with dwarfism once wrote to him about using the word "midget." After a polite exchange, Ebert immediately agreed to stop using the slur. He also didn't seem to care whether "midget" will ever be as taboo as "nigger," he simply said:

"Words that cause pain should be retired..."

Now wasn't that easy?

People Will Agree With Anything That Makes Short Men Look Bad

Click to zoom in image.

Notice how she didn't state exactly what these short men did to prove they have a napoleon complex, nor did she provide a sample size of how many short guys and tall guys she's dated. None of that stopped her claims from receiving almost 400 upvotes. We all know how even if a male has a thousand examples of women acting a certain way, if he generalized them, his stereotyping would still be considered untrue. The best part is how any short man calling this out will likely also be labelled with the napoleon complex.

We also have to keep in mind how women admit in surveys that they don't prefer short men, so who do you think women would more likely start a fight with: Jason Momoa or Danny Devito? There's a good chance that (consciously or subconsciously) these women will treat a tall partner with more respect than a short partner, thus leading to more incidents with the latter, then these women will claim relationships are worse with shorter men. I'm sure someone out there will be taken aback by the insinuation that women would treat a tall partner with more respect than a short one. Of course, nobody would bat an eye if I said I'd fight a mouse before an elephant.

Either that or some short boyfriends out there made the mistake of confiding in their partner about how height bias bothers them. If a short guy does that, then you can bet he'll be labeled with a complex. But if a woman talks to her man about bodyshaming, then she has no complex. Whatever the case, people love these stories of gentle giants and little napoleons, because due to the just-world hypothesis, everyone can make it seem like it’s about personality rather than height. If that were the case, sperm banks and dating sites would have personality requirements rather than height requirements.

I actually prefer ugly women, but they all have bad personalities so I never date them.

Why There Are No Popular Hate Forums About Height

There are various hate forums online, ranging from racist communities, to the now defunct "fatpeoplehate" subreddit. I've seen people use the existence of these forums to lessen the severity of height prejudice. "If height discrimination is so prevalent, name one popular hate forum about short people."

The reason various hate groups exist, is because if these people shared their views outside of their domain, they would be massively downvoted or banned. This is why they have to create their own space to talk freely. On the other hand, you can openly talk like this about height. You can even be rude in person, so there is no need to hide in a corner if you want to discriminate based on stature.

This is also relevant when it comes to those who say, "You can find hate against anyone online, so all these examples of height discrimination is no big deal." What matters is whether or not that hatred is mainstream. For example, you can find people body shaming women online, but is it politically correct? Nope.

Anyway, this whole thing is just another form of the fallacy of relative privation. People try to downplay height prejudice to make it seem more okay.

Common Fallacies When Discussing Height Prejudice

• Relative Privation: "Height discrimination is not that bad because someone else has it worse."
• Just-World: The belief that bad things happen to bad people. "It's not about height, it's your bad personality."
• Survivorship Bias: "Whether it be movie stars, or athletes, or musicians, or CEOs of multibillion-dollar corporations who dropped out of school, popular media often tells the story of the determined individual who pursues their dreams and beats the odds. There is much less focus on the many people that may be similarly skilled and determined but fail to ever find success because of factors beyond their control or other (seemingly) random events. This creates a false public perception that anyone can achieve great things if they have the ability and make the effort. The overwhelming majority of failures are not visible to the public eye, and only those who survive the selective pressures of their competitive environment are seen regularly."
  
• Kafkatrapping: People accuse short men of having short man syndrome or being insecure, then when any short man argues against this, it's used as further confirmation for these claims. However, putting up no resistance results in these claims going unchallenged, and therefore accepted as fact.
• Appeal to Nature/Naturalistic/Biological Determinism: "Height prejudice, and the inequity that stems from it, is just the natural way of things." Plenty of things are natural and instinctive, such as the urge to assault somebody in a fit of rage, indulging in unhealthy but satisfying cravings, or taking a male more seriously than a female because the latter is physically weaker on average. Yet all of those things are discouraged, because something being natural doesn't inherently make it excusable. Unless someone has mental illness, a person's words and actions are their own responsibility.
• Burden of Proof: The burden of proof lies with the person who is making a claim. Society claims many nasty things about short men, yet expects short men to "disprove" these stereotypes - the accused is guilty until proven innocent (I've written a series of posts specifically about this).
• Composition/Division: Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. "I have never experienced heightism, therefore nobody experiences heightism.
• False Dilemma: When something is falsely claimed to be an "either/or" situation. "You can either think about heightism, or live a fulfilling life."
• Appeal to the People: Believing something is true because many or most people believe it. "If so many talk about angry short men, it must be a real issue." Could also be done in reverse, "Society as a whole doesn't acknowledge heightism, therefore it doesn't exist."
• Argument by Laziness: A person makes a statement or gives an opinion on an issue without having studied the topic being discussed. Everyone seems to be an expert on height related issues, but how many have done their research?
• Strawman: Substituting a person’s actual position or argument, then attacking that new, false narrative. One person could be talking about height discrimination, but the other will act like the first is mad about dating issues.

There is of course also the fallacy fallacy, which people use to excuse committing any of the above fallacies, but this only works when you still have a point despite being fallacious. Most of the time, a person has no argument aside from their initial fallacy itself.

Just Saw People Comparing Being a Short Man to Being a Pedophile

This was in response to someone wondering why discrimination based on height is okay, but fat shaming isn't, even though height is less controllable. The rebuttal is that being a pedophile is also uncontrollable, but we still judge people on that. Now I have seen it all.

Even if the paraphilia itself isn't controllable, the choice to act on those urges is controllable. Nobody can tell someone is a pedophile if they're just standing there, but you can see a person's height clear as day in public. When pedophiles genuinely can't help themselves from committing the crime, then there's a reason why the law goes easier on those who successfully plea insanity: because it's uncontrollable. Yet when height is less controllable than weight, we are more accepting and harsher when discriminating based on it. Where's the logic?

People are so desperate to justify their hypocrisy, they're willing to place a photo of their face next to the definition of "false equivalency." When an aspect of a person is immutable, be it height or mental illness, being unnecessarily judgmental about it is an asshole move. And anyone who thinks being an asshole to short men is also uncontrollable better be able to prove it, because I'm pretty sure if someone held a gun to their head and told them to shut up, they'd suddenly be able to.

For more endless mental gymnastics trying to justify the height vs. weight double standard, go here: https://heightismandothershit.blogspot.com/2018/10/insane-mental-gymnastics-when-asking.html

Is It Still Just a Joke When Most People Actually Believe the Stereotype?

This thread is full of "it's just a prank bro" comments: old.reddit.com/r/short/comments/9opev7/can_someone_explain_this_tweet_that_152k_people/

If we lived in a culture where most people know this is nothing more than a derogatory stereotype, then I'll be the first to agree that it's a laughing matter. Unfortunately, people treat this stereotype like it's factual:

• https://i.imgur.com/lwW6rVT.jpg
• http://archive.is/CpsvF
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqeRv4SSkNM

So while we can view that tweet with 152K likes as a joke, I view it as someone with a large audience spreading a negative stereotype. A negative stereotype which is not yet recognized as such, but rather regarded as folk wisdom. I don't think people realize something is only a joke if society recognizes it as prejudice when played straight.

The other insidious thing about this stereotype is that if any short man has a problem with it, people will kafkatrap him by claiming he's confirming the angry short man stereotype. In fact, there's a 6'5 guy right here trying this, although fortunately he's called out on it by a user saying, "You can’t insult a group of people and then make it a social crime for them to be upset about it".

Here's another case, this time of a shirt depicting supposed instances of short man syndrome. The artist claims it's tongue-in-cheek, but one quick search on twitter of "short man syndrome" will show how most people view this stereotype as a clinical diagnosis rather than a joke. Fact of the matter is that when people see a short bodybuilder with huge muscles, they will say he's compensating. When people see a short authority figure they don't like, they will link it to his height. So again, I'm left scratching my head as to how this is all in jest. Of course, when it comes to height prejudice, critical thinking is often written off as being easily offended.

Like Matt K. Lewis once said, you can't talk about people being fat, there's ageism discrimination, but you can discriminate about height and get away with it. Despite the fact that short men are not statistically more aggressive, most will never know this, because even short people themselves don't want to talk about it.