Heightist Ex-wife

I'd like to welcome you to the board and thank you for sharing your story with us. I'd also like to reiterate the words of my colleague, supportfortheshort, regarding how men of average-height like yourself are starting to feel the ripple effect from heightism's intensification during the past several years. Just know that the shorter a man is, the worse the effects will be, and this form of discrimination goes much deeper than romantic relationships, especially for those who are more than a few inches below average-height. I'd also like to echo supportfortheshort in stating that women will often influence one another to find a taller man. It is not uncommon for female social groups to bond over the notion of rejecting males that they see as low status, and this certainly includes short men. I wouldn't be surprised if your ex's sister, in addition to her friends had conversations about how she "deserved" a taller man. There are also endless accounts where womens' parents express extreme dissatisfaction with their daughters dating a man who "isn't tall enough."

In modern culture, women are told that they "deserve it all, and "it all" includes they are entitled to a man who meets all of the requirements(even the superficial ones) that check boxes on their Prince Charming checklists. They see men who don't check of all the boxes as inferior to themselves, and those men are considered worthy of being thrown away like yesterday's garbage. This is the reason your ex-wife feels vindicated for her infidelity. Shortness in males is so despised by our society, and the female "deserve it all" mentality is so indoctrinated that your ex seriously does see YOU as at-fault for HER infidelity. Of course, she has caused great pain to not only you, but your children, and at-least your family. This type of collateral damage doesn't get discussed often enough in these discussions. For this very reason, heightism needs to be eradicated in society. When you have a group(tall men) who are literally praised, promoted without merit, believed to hold leadership potential based on their height alone, tallness is considered a must to meet "Prince Charming" expectations, tall men get paid more, and they hold the monopoly on the narrative of what "real men" are supposed to be, while on the other hand, short men receive the opposite, we have a society where tall men are put in power who have lackluster abilities, short men who do have abilities are suppressed, and we have women who reinforce this whole narrative in addition to being applauded for their bigotry against short men. This narrative damages society as a whole because height is valued more so than merit in many different settings.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that women don't necessarily see men's height in relation to their own height, they judge men's height in-relation to the height of other males. In almost 100% of the cases where women do this, at-least some of the attraction is based on taller males being awarded prestige based on their height alone. If you look at some of the factors that make-up the dating preferences of women(confidence, power, ability to own a room, respect among peers, career success) you'll notice that they all are positive stereotypes that tall men are labeled with. If you look at the opposite of these characteristics(insecurity, weakness, not being noticed in a group, undeserving of respect, too unstable to hold positions of power) you'll see that these are all negative labels that are slapped on short men before they even attempt to speak. So, while attraction for tall men alone is not necessarily heightism, in almost 100% of cases, women who worship the ground tall men walk on are going to have at-least some prejudicial beliefs tied-in with their physical requirements.

To look at this a different way, imagine if men loudly voiced physical preferences that made the overwhelming majority of women "unsuitable" dating partners. We'd be called the scum of the Earth, we'd be lambasted for "judging women solely on their bodies," and we'd be called potential rapists for believing that we were entitled to certain subsets of women. We'd be told to seek counseling immediately, and we'd be attacked by other men. However, when women discard a short man for any reason, it's treated as empowerment and the woman is believed to "deserve the best in life," and "the best in life" is never ending-up with a man who is merely an inch shorter than the woman requires. Notice I said "requires," not "prefers." Women will defend their insatiable desire for tall men as a "preference," but this particular preference rarely is one that can be compromised on, thus, it's really a requirement. They just use the word "preference" to make themselves seem more civilized than they actually are. It's a messed-up situation, and I hate that you had to go through what you did, but at-least you've found a group of men who know exactly what you're going through, and we know exactly why it occurred.

Once again, welcome to the forum, and please participate in the discussions.