|
|
Post by coolerguy on Jun 1, 2017 4:13:47 GMT
I just want to say I've dealt with heightism since I could remember and shockingly it's bothering me more as I get older. It took me a while to realize that I was a victim. I'm in my mid thirties by the way. It's disgusting and appalling how society treats me for being short at times. People should be held accountable for their actions. This treatment definitely started at a young age which proves this is conditioning. Society has totally had there way with the short man and it needs to stop. I dislike how short women get a pass on his whole thing. This type of treatment makes me not trust most women as a whole. We need more positive images of short people on tv and through out media imagery. I believe short people are just as capable as their taller counterparts. I even stopped watching certain sports because I feel like it subconsciously promotes heightist beliefs, on how the larger man is more desirable. I believe short men can be desirable to if we are depicted in a better light. Growing up in school the taller kids would just ignore me at times and get all the attention by making corny jokes, talking loudly or bullying others. This made me not want to interact openly with anyone in school because everyone catered to them. This same behavior is similar to the adult experience. A couple of couple times I'd just be walking down the street minding my own business and women have said the word(s) shrimp,dwarf, and mite as I'm passing by just for the hell of it. Talk about street harassment at its finest. Of course it happens on the go, so it's easy to ignore but it's unacceptable. I can't imagine feeling inclined to insult anyone for any reason other than if they deserved it. I hope the future is more promising for short people, especially short men.
|
|
|
|
Post by Heightism Report on Jun 1, 2017 4:37:42 GMT
This is just an all-around fantastic post! You pin-pointed one of the main misunderstandings about heightism, which is the belief that it gets better when you're older. I'm in your age group, and I can speak for myself and all of the other "full-timers" who address heightism when I say that when you get older, have much more at stake, and you're still trying to move forward in your career, etc., the sting of heightism has much more of a profound impact than it did when you were younger and the world was full of possibility. Joe once referred to heightism as a "re-creation of the childhood experience" and it's extremely aggravating to be an adult who still gets treated as a mere punchline just so others can have passive laughs. As you well know, these jokes aren't merely just made in a vacuum, they also are indicators of deep-rooted beliefs people have about short men. In the "Just Another Day On The Job" thread, I mentioned some of the idiotic nonsense I have experienced recently at the hands of other adults, and I could add much more to that thread, but being an adult is supposed to come with some element of merit-based appraisal of your abilities and rational treatment, but as I eluded to, society wants us to experience perpetual childhood, thus, they'd prefer to laugh at us, muss our hair, and move-on with their day instead of letting us contribute to the level of our abilities. I agree with you fully about not "feeling inclined to insult anyone for any reason other than if they deserved it." There's nothing fun about living in a world where everyone just launches poison at one another. I guess that those who are on the winning side of society's preferences don't quite understand this though because they benefit from the social pecking order and they feel good about reaffirming their own artificial superiority by chastising others who are considered to hold less status. The future for short men will only get better when more short men like yourself come forward and do exactly what you just did by creating this post. I seriously thank you for writing this post because this is the exact type of content that I was hoping to generate on this forum. Every time I read a no-nonsense post like yours, I feel a soothing wave of sanity. We need to make these type of posts the norm.
|
|
|
|
Post by Heightism Report on Jun 1, 2017 22:00:08 GMT
Exactly right. We need as many stories as possible to put a real life face to these instances that paint a clearer picture for how this hatred manifests. The problem with this is a lot of times, short men(through no fault of their own) aren't aware that the difficulties they face are often height-related. As we well know, many instances of heightism occur where height isn't mentioned. For so long, I thought I was constantly just receiving bad luck in many situations, and that I kept randomly being left-out, passed-over, and ignored because of the randomly chaotic nature of the social realm. Things made no sense to me, and there was a period of time when I thought that maybe I had some weird anxiety disorder where I was socially-capable but was feeling a weird undefined pressure or maybe there were some weird social vibrations that naturally caused the herd to crowd me out of conversations, etc. When I learned about heightism and really started to ponder my life experiences, the wool flew off my eyes and I saw everything plain as day. This is where the kids of this generation are ahead of where we were. Many of them actually know about heightism, and they won't have to stumble around in darkness for so many years without being able to account for potential instances of heightism. This is why clowns like Mikeypants are the worst thing to ever happen to those kids. Mikey's life certainly has not improved with age as he has become forgotten-about in many crucial aspects of life, so he knows good and damn well what awaits these kids, but his own anxieties and inadequacies cause him to do the things he does. He's a great example of what happens to deluded short men as they age. Many just accept their fate in silence, but many surround themselves with a cloud of convenient fictions about themselves and try to dupe others into believing that they are far more successful than in actuality. What these kids need to learn is that there certainly is a sticker shock when you first learn about heightism. There's no denying that. However, you absolutely have to greet that sticker shock if you ever want to develop effective life strategies to confront the nature of this beast we face. After the sticker shock wears off, you become armed with the knowledge of knowing when things are starting to go awry, and you can pinpoint endeavors that are going to be a waste of your time much easier.
Hiding under a cloud of delusion, pseudo-positivity, or role-playing like a short Casanova badass doesn't do anything in the realm of actually learning to cope with the extra burdens that are forced upon every short man. I wish someone would've confronted me with the ugly truths when I was younger. I probably would've freaked-out about it just like a lot of the kids on r/short do when they're first confronted with the facts, but as time went by, I could've used that knowledge to recognize the social patterns that were described to me by enlightened short men. It seriously is overwhelming when I think about how many pointless scenarios and people I could've avoided if the seed of knowledge had been planted earlier. I certainly always knew something was not right about the silent dissent I was often greeted with, and I always confronted instances of overt heightism, but I had no clue just how deep the issues I faced were, thus, I went around for far too long thinking that many of the difficulties I faced were the result of random chaos in the universe. I lived far too long telling myself that the tones, body language, dismissive glances, etc., were just an indication that we lived in a dog-eat-dog world. If I'd have known that my tall friends were not greeted with the same treatment, I'd have been far more prepared to navigate my way through this world, and would've understood their flippant demeanor in situations where I was experiencing hostility or even danger. Future generations need to know these ugly truths, and using a bunch of pseudo-positivity as a Band-Aid solution is about the worst strategy possible. All you have to do to understand how terrible of a strategy this is, is to think about where this belief system got Poor Mikey. An almost-60 year old man with almost no serious life victories to reflect on, who spends hundreds of hours bragging about 30 year old sexual conquests(of questionable authenticity) to a bunch of angst-filled teens and young people is a far cry from anything short men need to aspire to. Only learning to confront the truth in a productive way will help anyone, and the only way that will happen is if more short men start posting their stories so that we can use them as teaching tools and as instruments to get other short men onboard who have experienced similar scenarios. This seriously is the critical first step short men are refusing to take, and once that step is made, it will be much easier to make the next steps.
|
|
|
|
Post by shortgirl on Jul 1, 2017 17:06:08 GMT
Heightism has negatively affected my life. I am a black woman who is short. Heightism affects me financially. Im alwasy the first one to get fired, and laid off. Im have bee denied benefits and exerience diffrential treatment for most of my adult life. I wish that people knoew more about heightism. And im tired of people complaining about racism.. not that it isnt an issue but heightism in my opinion is worse than racism.
|
|
|
|
Post by shortgirl on Jul 1, 2017 17:07:08 GMT
Short men ar not the only facing heightism..it worse when you are a woman, short and black.
|
|
|
|
Post by shortgirl on Jul 1, 2017 19:47:38 GMT
So how do we change it. I am willing to do whatever i can to change this.
|
|
