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.

Some Famous Short Men Discuss Height

Some of Prince's acquaintances talk about how he felt being a short man:

Bobby Shriver: The party afterward at Paisley, that was quite a scene. When he came out of the elevator that night, I happened to be standing with the great Warren Beatty. He came over and Warren said, "I love your music," and he said, "I love your movies," and then Warren says, "Here we are! At your house! It's great!" And Prince goes, "Yeah. Yeah, it is. But I'm still short." It wasn't really a joke. It was kind of poignant. He didn't laugh—he just observed the fact of the matter. He happened to be talking to relatively tall fellas—I'm six-one, I think Warren is six-two. Having a nice conversation. And despite all that, and despite playing at the Special Olympics, and despite his own brilliance, and despite whatever, he still, standing with us, experienced what he must've experienced his whole life. I said, "Oh, come on, man." I tried to make it into a little joke—I think he laughed a little bit, but it was obviously a serious thing for him. I thought, "Wow."

Husney: He asked us to take off our shoes. Prince wouldn't take off his boots: "I don't take ’em off for anybody." You have to remember, my guess would have been that even the boots were slightly elevated, so to take those boots off might be to be two inches shorter.

Kevin Hart admits to being insecure about his height and lying about it: http://heightismandothershit.blogspot.com/2019/11/kevin-hart-admits-to-being-insecure.html

Peter Dinklage when being asked about women calling him a sex symbol:

I don't believe it for a minute. "They'll say, 'Oh, he's sexy,' but women still go for guys who are 6'2," the Game of Thrones stars says.

Keep these in mind the next time someone says, "Who cares about heightism bro? Just look at [insert rich famous actor/singer here]."

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.